Communicate

The SDG Impact Assurance Scheme is an assurance criteria for demonstrating adherence to the SDG Impact Standards for Enterprises, Private Equity Funds or Bonds, and associated certification.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Verification, assurance & certification: Certify that an organisation’s systems and processes adhere to the SDG Impact Standards.

Reporting framework that provides principles-based guidance for organisations seeking to create an integrated report, containing both financial and non-financial information. The guidance is tailored specifically for private sector, for-profit companies, but the Framework can also be applied to the public sector and non-for-profit organisations.

Use this resource to:

• Communicate: Report to providers of financial capital on sustainability topics that are likely to affect value creation over the short-, medium-, and long-term.

This reporting framework offers companies seven guiding principles and 12 reporting requirements to help prepare (financially) material and decision-useful environmental disclosures for the mainstream report. CDSB additionally offers topic-specific guidance for companies, such as on climate-related reporting and climate accounting.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: Understand the measurement and disclosure standards and guidance for organisations, so that investors can provide capacity to the asset to help adherence.
• Communicate: Understand how underlying assets might prepare environmental and climate change information in a way that connects to mainstream financial information.

Guidance that contains disclosure recommendations for information on the material financial impacts of climate-related risks and opportunities, including those related to the global transition to a lower-carbon economy. The TCFD recommendations are structured around the four pillars of Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets.

Use this resource to:

• Communicate: Follow recommendations to structure climate-related financial disclosures. Other voluntary standards can be used in conjunction with TCFD recommendations.

CDP’s Disclosure System is a tool for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. It enables these organisations to make their environmental impacts transparent, to understand how to reduce their negative impacts and to progress towards environmental stewardship.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on climate change, forests and water security, based on the organisation’s governance and policy, risks and opportunity management, environmental targets, and strategy and scenario analysis. Responses receive a grade from A-D based on the organisation’s disclosed performance.

The SASB Standards are reporting standards that provide industry-specific disclosure topics and associated metrics for measuring performance across 26 General Issue Categories (or sustainability topics). Management or mismanagement of performance on these sustainability topics may create, preserve or erode value for a typical organisation in a given industry over time.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Communicate: Report to providers of financial capital on sustainability topics that are likely to affect how value is created, sustained or eroded for the organisation over the short-, medium- and long-term.

The Impact Standards for Financing Sustainable Development (IS-FSD) is a framework for donors, development finance institutions (DFIs) and their private partners to make financial decisions that maximise their positive contribution to the SDGs. The Standards are harmonised with the UNDP SDG Impact Standards.

This is a cross-cutting resource, meaning that it supports the internal impact management process as a whole, rather than one or a few of the Actions of Impact Management.

The SDG Action Manager is a digital tool designed to help organisations measure their impact across various sustainability areas, set goals aligned with the SDGs, and track progress over time. The questionnaire, which draws from B Lab’s B Impact Assessment and the UN Global Compact’s 10 Principles, enables organisations to collect performance information on the SDGs that are most relevant to manage, based on its size, sector and geography. It was developed through research and public consultation and so provides an evidence-based starting point for identifying sustainability topics to measure.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Governance: Prioritise governance mechanisms that address the organisation’s key sustainability risks and enhance its resilience against potential challenges.
• Identify: Understand the most relevant SDGs to manage based on the organisation’s size, sector, and geography.
• Measure, assess and value: Obtain a set of metrics.
• Set targets and plan: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) targets related to sustainable development. Organisations can align their targets with the specific indicators and targets outlined in the SDGs.

Reporting standards designed to help organisations understand and disclose their impacts in a way that meets the needs of multiple stakeholders. These standards are arranged by a set of Universal Standards that apply to all organisations, and 35 Topic Standards that contain disclosures for impacts related to economic, environmental and social topics.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: The standards themselves provide guidance on selecting metrics to report. Using standardised metrics helps the organisation and its stakeholders compare performance with others.
• Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on ‘material topics’ that reflect the organisation’s most significant impacts.

Tools for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. The CDP Financial Services Disclosure System allows for a baseline assessment of climate-related risks, opportunities and impacts in financing portfolios; and of how banks, asset owners, asset managers and insurance companies are preparing for the net-zero carbon transition.

Use this resource to:

• Identify: Understand the relevant climate change, forests and water security impacts to measure, based on the organization’s size, sector, and geography.
• Measure, assess and value: Track change in performance over time. Each question in the questionnaire is scored – some with reference to social or ecological thresholds – to help the organisation determine whether it is performing sustainably on that topic.
• Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on climate change, forests and water security. The questionnaires provide a framework for companies to report environmental information to their stakeholders covering governance and policy, risks and opportunity management, environmental targets and strategy, and scenario analysis. Receive an A-D grading based on questionnaire responses.
• Benchmarking and rating: Benchmark environmental performance against industry peers and receive feedback on progress each year. The information disclosed is also used by financial markets for stewardship and engagement, in investment research, new financial products, and global indices and ratings.