Create Your Own Sustainability Metrics
Today we’re talking sustainability reporting, specifically metrics. These little sustainability helpers are powerful tools for you to share sustainability with your audience and connect with them in a new way.
At Green Buoy we’re always talking about gaining customers, retaining employees and saving money. Metrics help you do all three. Read on for how.
What is a Sustainability Metric?
I’m glad you asked! A metric is a quantitative measure. Metrics are numbers that show your sustainability actions, steps and goals. Metrics put the numbers into stories and the stories into your numbers.
Sustainability metrics include tons of carbon offset or percentage of company participation in volunteer days. They are numbers that help prove and quantify your sustainability story, past and future.
Why Does My Small Business Need This?
Using metrics is a powerful way to connect with the reader. Quantitative measures are familiar to many of us and numbers especially are easy for people to connect with and understand. Using words like “Increased carbon reduction” and “significant water savings” don’t tell as much of a story as adding numbers or a baseline.
How
Ok, so you see the benefits? Let’s look at how to do it. Now this involves collecting data. I know you have data. It might not be as much as you want or enough to make a ton of metrics, but you have enough for one.
Find the data. Find a data point you want to share. Think about your audience and what this data point says about your company. Pick a number you’re proud of or one that you don’t mind sharing. Start brainstorming all of your possible data points and then pick one. To help, brainstorm area by area of the company, operations, marketing, HR, purchasing, procurement.
Manipulate it to your liking. If you’re thinking “our sustainability numbers are small!” or “we just started!” Even better. The secret to dealing with small numbers is to add a benchmark, attach it to a goal or remove the percentage. “Reduced energy 2% for one month in 2019.” Can you compare it to the 2018 data? Can you say how much that energy reduction saved in phones charged or trees planted? A small saving is still significant and should be shared. Especially if you have limited or no other sustainability data, small doesn’t matter. The other secret to small data is to add a goal. “Reduced energy 2% compared to 2018, the goal for 2020 is 5% savings.” Now we’re getting somewhere! Small numbers don’t have to be so small if they have a larger goal attached or starting a larger project. If all else fails, remove the percentage. “Saved 400 kWh of energy in 2019.” Boom. That’s a metric.
Share your work. Imagine the Oprah gif of her sharing with her audience- you know what I’m talking about. Put it on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Internal emails, Add it to your email signature. Paste it on your homepage. Write it in a press release. Share the metrics. And track the response.
Now as you start putting metrics on your site and sharing on social, you’ll see they can become quite addictive! And don’t stop at sustainability. Start using them when you need to prove a point or make something relevant to your reader. Trying to drive purchases for products? “95% of people that purchased this product received _ benefit.”
They’re also great at trying to communicate competitive advantage. What benefits are your competitors touting? Are they pretty similar to yours? Add some metrics to take it a step up and outshine them.
See how powerful metrics can be? If you’d like help setting up metrics or want to chat about your current metrics, set up a call to chat.
