Sustainability Analytics - the Critical Link between Sustainability and Business Innovation

Advances in enterprise systems are making it feasible for corporations to track and transform performance to meet their corporate goals. Business analytics enable organizations to convert raw data into actionable insights to achieve their corporate performance objectives. In the sustainability context, governments and corporations are facing a plethora of ever-expanding management challenges related to issues spanning physical, financial, geo-political, social, and environmental concerns. The quadruple bottom line of sustainability comprises of profit, people, planet, and purpose – a more recent enhancement. Sustainability analytics analyze the data and provide insights that help transform sustainability information into measures across the value-chain and life-cycle to accomplish their social responsibility and sustainability goals. The materiality of these seemingly non-economic impacts is the critical link between corporate sustainability and business strategies. Organizations must recognize the strong connections between competitive advantage and sustainability issues. This paper, based on the book, Introduction to Sustainability Analytics[i], introduces leaders to the untapped potential of sustainability analytics to determine which metrics are material, relevant and actionable to their business, and to prioritize sustainability initiatives.

[i] Ramanan, R., Introduction to Sustainability Analytics Ramanan, R., (Book), “Introduction to Sustainability Analytics” ISBN: 9781498777056 and ISBN-10: 1498777058, CRC Press Taylor and Francis, July 2018