PwC Australia, Kantar, and Glow partner on new sustainability metric for ROI fostering ESG investments
"The more we all speak the same language, the more positive impact can be created for businesses."
Consulting industry leaders including Kantar, PwC Australia, and Glow, have collaborated to introduce a standardised metric aimed at facilitating investment in sustainability by correlating it with customer and employee loyalty. The Social Responsibility Score (SRS) is positioned as a straightforward tool for assessing sustainability return on investment, drawing insights from over twenty-five million brand interviews conducted over four years.
The SRS initiative comes amid a surge in environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) and sustainability program investments driven by regulatory compliance, shareholder expectations, workforce demands, and evolving consumer behavior, highlighting the need for consistent measurement tools.
By capturing feedback from consumers, customers, employees, or investors, SRS allows for benchmarking across brands, regions, and timeframes, providing a common evaluative framework.
Developed by research-technology firm Glow, SRS is available for licensing to research and advisory entities seeking to advance sustainability objectives.
Tim Clover, chief executive officer of Glow, said, "SRS makes it easier to quantify the commercial impact of sustainability efforts.
"The lack of standardised global measures to gauge stakeholder response to ESG/sustainability efforts has made it hard for businesses to prove ROI on sustainability programs and hampered investment up until now.
"The more we all speak the same language, the more positive impact can be created for businesses, the communities they serve, and the environment."
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Kantar and PwC Australia are integrating SRS into their existing measurement and transformation solutions, aiming to enhance service offerings and simplify sustainability assessment for businesses.
Meanwhile, five other global research and advisory firms are exploring the integration of SRS into their solutions. SRS data is already informing ongoing research initiatives, supported by Cint, NIQ (NielsenIQ), and publisher 3BL Media, aimed at determining the ROI of sustainability endeavours.
Jonathan Hall, Kantar’s global leader for sustainable transformation said, “We hear often from clients that they need a simple, common language for measuring sustainability, which is why we support this industry-wide opportunity to maximise our impact. No agency can solve this problem on its own."
PwC Australia markets leader, Tom Gunson, added, “Quantifying social and environmental risk is now an imperative for Boards and Executives. Taking an evidence-based approach to measuring the effects of ESG actions on all stakeholders is new and exciting.
"Combining consumer-driven data with our ESG, analytics and consulting solutions provides new insights on what is working well and what areas require more focus.”
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Top Image: Tim Clover
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