Sustainability Plan and Sustainability Report.
How to identify ESG issues? How to enhance your commitments?
What tools to adopt to communicate responsibly?
Transparency, credibility, reputation, communication.
In the current scenario, companies play a key role in the adoption of a new global, sustainable, and inclusive paradigm, as their work has direct consequences on people, collaborators, local and global communities, the territory and the environment. For this reason, institutions, financial groups, individuals, workers and consumers reward and choose companies acting concretely, taking accountable commitments and adopting increasingly integrated reporting models that combine financial performance and social and governance impacts.
To guide the commitment of companies, governments and individuals, the United Nations has adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: a program articulated into 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2030) which defines objectives and KPI to be achieved by 2030.
10 reasons to become a (truly) sustainable company:
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Greater competitiveness
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Enhancement of purpose, corporate culture, and intangible assets
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Resilience and the ability to attract capital
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Team Motivation and development of targeted actions with a view to CSR
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Greater ability to retain talent (employer branding) and to attract new resources
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Building a relationship of trust towards customers / suppliers
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Increased reputation and reliability throughout the value chain
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Opportunity to strengthen effective and distinctive, unique and differentiating communication
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Greater transparency and credibility in non-financial reporting
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Enhancement of distinctive positioning
How to combine Sustainability and Business goals?
There are two management tools for companies wishing to face main global challenges and start their own sustainability path:
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Sustainability plan or strategy
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Sustainability Report
What is a Sustainability Plan?
The Sustainability Plan is a strategic tool with which a company defines its strategic vision on ESG issues ( i.e. environmental, social and governance criteria), to face the global challenges of the SDGs2030. Integrated into the management and / or financial development plan, the Sustainability Plan identifies guidelines and sets out the sustainability objectives into qualitative and quantitative indicators that can be measured over time (KPI) which are monitored and disseminated to stakeholders through the Sustainability Report and targeted communication actions.
What is the Sustainability Report?
The Sustainability Report is an annual report with which the company communicates its ESG performance (environmental, economic and social criteria) in a transparent and accountable way.
The Report is developed by collecting and setting up objective data, through continuous monitoring activity to verify the success and quality of ESG investments with a view to reporting. Furthermore, the Report makes the performance data more accessible and understandable to interested stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, lenders, etc.)
Find the most suitable path for your organization
Where to start?
Ashtart’s Sustainability Culture Lab boosts the transformation of corporate business models into regenerative and sustainable ones in 3 phases:
Collect: analysis of the company context (DNA, culture, purpose, vision and mission) and collection of primary and secondary data
Core: identification of objectives and distinctive positioning (sustainability brand management)
Challenge: development of the enhancement path and communication of impacts (KPIs, results, SDGS alignment, etc)
STEP 1: Training, coaching, strategic consultancy
We support companies in defining their sustainability strategy with tailor-made projects. By mapping the available reporting models and standards and by analyzing the company’s culture and values, we identify the most suitable path of Sustainability.
Are you aiming at obtaining the qualification of Benefit Corporation or the B Corp certification?
Do you want to start a self-assessment process of your CSR actions?
The Sustainability Culture Lab helps companies to identify their corporate sustainability culture by driving their aims and outcomes with the current industrial strategies.
The process takes place through a series of actions and has a participatory model, co-developed in collaboration with the company itself. It is organized on multiple levels of complexity to include several activities (roundtables and workshops). The process is defined according to the objectives, the team or the stakeholders the company seeks to involve.
Training
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Sustainability made-to-measure toolkit
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Dedicated training, depending on company levels
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Ongoing training
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Pre-assessment
Strategic Analysis
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Corporate analysis
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Audits, interviews, surveys
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Market Analysis
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Competitor & benchmarking analysis[VM1]
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Stakeholders mapping & analysis
Stakeholder engagement
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Engagement Plan & Strategy
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Employee experience
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Partnership system
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Sustainability Internal Team
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Design-thinking workshop
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Strategic focus groups
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Key informant interviews
Sustainability Plan
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Strategic guidelines, priorities, areas of intervention
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ESG Purpose
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Sustainability Culture
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Sustainability Strategic Plan
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SDGs 2030 framework & integration
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Materiality analysis
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Logical framework and KPI setting
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Evaluation standards: IR framework, GRI standards, BIA, Theory of Change
Evaluation and Reporting
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Activities planning
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Action Plan
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Impact assessment
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Impact report
Sustainability Marketing and Communication
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Communication Plan (internal / external)
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Digital innovationInclusive communication
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Content strategy & approach
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Adv planning & marketing strategy
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Employer branding
STEP 2: Impact Enhancement
Sustainability guides consumers’ choices and influences the positioning and inner and outer perception of the company. Enhancing your sustainability path means communicating your impact, as well as enhancing the whole process and telling in an authentic way (corporate storytelling) what makes your business unique through innovative communication tools, languages, and formats.
Design to impact. Enhance your leadership.
Engage your audience. Boost of influence.
Why is it important to communicate sustainability?
- Communicating the company’s DNA in a unique and distinctive way
- Involve the team
- Making the company more attractive to customers and the media
- Expand the network
Data Narrative & visualization
We establish a relationship between data and stories and develop a communication plan in which visual and textual registers are combined to enhance and share data in the most immediate and engaging way.
Inclusive design
We devise an accessible visual communication thanks to the use of inclusive fonts, colors, and palettes and through the choice of formats and communication channels that respect receptive disabilities.
Inclusive communication
We structure a clear, strong, and direct communication plan, based on the needs of stakeholders, through channels that meet the preferences of the target groups.
Storytelling & Engagement
We give voice to the company, people, experiences and processes by enhancing the network, establishing design synergies and coding different ecosystems to communicate the project in a transparent and distinctive way. We create specialized roundtables and virtuous and personalized programmes to involve the team and external clusters in the design of a path built on common needs, aspirations, values, and objectives.
We are a Benefit Corporation.
We believe in a professional environment where the values of inclusion and diversity, human rights, and the power and talent of women are put first. We are committed to sustainable actions every day.
Our methodology has been developed and verified through research to enhance contents and maximize the communication impact.
We adopt an innovative approach which is characterized by immediate communication that can be used by all stakeholders in a transparent way and is suitable for different levels of interest and influence.
What are Benefit Corporations/B Corp?
Benefit Corporations adopt a sustainable and innovative business model, which integrates the economic goals with the aim of having a positive impact on society and the environment. These companies represent the evolution of traditional business models.
Since January 2016, this model has been introduced in Italy, which became the first country in Europe and in the world to adopt this sustainable paradigm, together with the United States (where Benefit Corporations – B Corps, are recognized in 33 states) with the law n. 208/2015 and subsequent amendments and additions.
Benefit Corporations are a global movement of companies certified through the BIA (Benefit Impact Assessment) that are committed to working responsibly, sustainably and transparently.
What is CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility?
Corporate Social Responsibility is a business model oriented to “profit with purpose”, or rather to the pursuit of an ethical and sustainable corporate conduct, which adopts behaviors and activities in favor of stakeholders in the direction of ESG strategies and choices – Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance.
Our Observatory on the Contemporary brings together multidisciplinary voices of professionals and experts who address global issues to share innovative practices, methods and visions.