For years, many companies have set environmental
goals related to issues such as carbon emissions as
well as the use of water and other natural resources.
However, goal setting related to the social dimensions
of sustainable development such as poverty eradication
and anti-corruption is less common, partly because
such issues can be more challenging in terms of
monitoring and measuring success. Regardless
of these methodological challenges, the advice
to companies is to set goals that cover all their
defined priorities across the economic, social and
environmental aspects of sustainable development.
Selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) is an
essential stage in setting goals that can be used as
the basis for driving, monitoring, and communicating
progress. Some companies set broad or ambiguous
goals that do not in themselves enable progress to be
measured, such as an aspiration to become ‘carbon
neutral’ without a clear definition of the goal’s scope
or end date. In these cases, the recommendation is
to select several KPIs that each form the basis for a
specific, measurable and time-bound target.
Whenever possible, your company is advised to select
KPIs that directly address the impact or outcome of
its activities. For some goals this may be difficult or
even impossible, due for example to a lack of relevant
and available data. In such cases, select KPIs that can
be considered ‘proxies for impact’ – for example, by
addressing the resources, such as capital, that your
company will invest or the specific activities, such as
training, that it intends to undertake