Where to start
There’s an old saying in business that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Managing a sustainable business is no different – you need to know where you stand in order to identify priorities and develop appropriate strategies.
Conducting a sustainability report is a great place to start. It helps you recognise the key issues for your business and helps you to understand how your business is currently performing. Sustainability reporting is often referred to as ‘Triple Bottom Line’ reporting. Instead of measuring only the financial bottom line, ‘triple bottom line’ is a term used to describe reporting on economic, environmental and social performance.
If you want to report on the triple bottom line performance of your business, you could employ the services of a consultant but for most of us in small to medium sized business, this is not a practical or affordable option.
The most simple solution is to use the Sustainable Business Diagnostic Tool.
What is the Sustainable Business Diagnostic Tool?
The Sustainable Business Diagnostic Tool allows you to quickly and easily report on economic, social and environmental activities in your business. You can use the tool to generate your own customised Triple Bottom Line report. You can also use the tool into the future to track and monitor your performance. The tool is:
- Free
- Easy and quick to use
- Interactive - useful tips appear in the pop-up box as you enter your information.
How does it work?
- Register. This allows you to create and access your own password protected account so that you can use the tool securely both now, and into the future to track your performance over time. (You can click here to register and account or use your existing account)
- Enter your data. Answer a series of questions about your Economic, Environmental and Social activities. It’s easy – you don’t have to be an expert.
- Generate your reports. You can choose either a Trend Report, which tracks your performance from one quarterly period to another, or a Triple Bottom Line Report, producing results for one quarterly period.
After you produce your report, you should have a better understanding of the key issues related to your business. This will allow you to plan your sustainability actions in a coordinated and strategic way. You can also use the Information Bank which contains information on how to address certain issues in your business.
Use the tool on a quarterly basis to track your performance over time.