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Chris West – Stockholm Environment Institute For further information contact: [email protected] Measure What Matters Aligning sustainable development measures across corporate, national and international scales Background For too long, governments and businesses have used profit and GDP growth as the sole measure of success. Such narrow visions of ‘progress’ have pushed our environment to its limits and have increased the gap between the richest and the poorest. Next year the United Nations will decide on a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which could transform our global and national priorities. The goals will be applicable to all countries, rich and poor, and will recognise the two-way relationship between flourishing natural systems (natural capital) and healthy communities (social and human capital). But, the SDGs will only be transformative if they also prompt national governments, businesses and institutions to shift their priorities. Over the last few decades there has been a proliferation of sustainability indicators at the global, the national (Beyond GDP) and the corporate level (sustainability reporting metrics). But to date, these new indicators have been developed in isolation from each other. The lack of coherence between indicators emerging at different levels of decision making risks derailing the shift to more sustainable economies. Activities Measure What Matters is a three year initiative with a mission to bring greater alignment between corporate, national and global actors as to how to better measure progress, using the health of our planet and the well-being of our communities as our yardstick rather than economic productivity alone. We are: • Identifying gaps between different indicator sets at the corporate, national and global level. • Conducting consultations on opportunities for measurement alignment in key focal areas. • Providing guidance to decision makers on design principles for indicators which complement measurement priorities across scales. • Encouraging stakeholders to co-develop the SDGs, alternative GDP indicators and enhanced corporate reporting. Project Partners Example: Biodiversity & Natural Capital Outcomes Natural capital is integral to global sustainability, with natural resources critical particularly in low-income countries – to economic growth and development. At business scales, significant risks associated with natural capital also exist due, for example, to reliance on threatened ecosystem services or dependence on natural materials that may become scarce or costly in future. We have undertaken analysis in four key areas which have close ties to sustainable development: Water sustainability, the protection of biodiversity, income equality and employee well-being. The wide benefits that humankind receives from natural capital necessitate the conservation of the biodiversity that underpins ecosystem service provision. However, the impacts that we have on biodiversity – and the benefits we receive from it – are measured rather informally across scales and with little standardisation. All companies have an impact on nature either directly or indirectly via supply chains. However, it is estimated that less than 10% of the largest EU companies regularly disclose environmental information, and when information is released this may vary widely between companies (for example, see the figure below). Our analysis has highlighted a number of areas where attention should be focused to develop meaningful measures for sustainable development so that they are relevant, and promote action, across scales. These include: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) acts as an international and national focal point for some data collection, but this data is generally only available at scales which give relatively little insight into the cause and effect relationships between human activities and negative biodiversity impact which would help in the design of successful mitigative action. Furthermore, important datasets which underpin many management decisions, such as the IUCN Red List, are subject to data gaps and biases. An ambition to produce greater indicator alignment and better data raises important questions which form part of our consultations, such as: Which aspects of biodiversity should be accounted for, and valued, when we do not fully understand links to ecosystems service provision? What indicators do we need to make sure that cause and effect relationships are resolved? What role should business play in the provision of biodiversity information, and how can they be incentivised to collect and report this data? • More explicit links to cause and effect relationships and how measurements help to manage risks and opportunities. • Enhanced data at local scales, embedded with a ‘systems’ approach. • Greater data transparency. • Development of shared definitions of success, shared language sets and a greater standardisation of terminology. • Development of meaningful measurements for impacts along the supply chain. • Investment in recognised ‘focal points’ for data collection and dissemination. Next Steps • Online and offline consultations on our topic areas and our recommendations. • Engagement with measurement practitioners at international, regional, national and business levels to disseminate our findings. Find us at: Relative disclosure of biodiversity information within a small sample (25) of large multi-national corporations – divided into operating sectors - reporting to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). A score of 100% means all companies in the sector reported against the indicator. EN11: ‘Operational sites…in or adjacent to protected areas and areas of high biodiversity value’; EN12: ‘Description of significant impacts…on biodiversity’; EN13: ‘Habitats protected or restored’; EN14: ‘Total number of IUCN Red List species and national conservation list species with habitats in areas affected by operations’. www.measurewhatmatters.info #mwmatters