Identify Impacts

Conduct a conceptual life cycle mapping of materials

To understand sustainability impacts across the life cycle of your materials, products, or services, start with conceptual life cycle mapping. Begin by identifying your key inputs, especially those that are commonly procured or costly, and assess their potential negative impacts. Impact-related data can be sourced from subject matter experts, public sources, suppliers,¹ and other external stakeholders such as regulators and policymakers, NGOs, and industry bodies or trade associations. Where possible, quantify and categorise these impacts to allow for easier comparisons and prioritisation.

To create your map, define each stage of your value chain (raw materials, processing, assembly, etc.), trace the flow of your key inputs through the chain, and connect the impact data you have collected to these inputs. This provides a holistic view of the value chain inputs, allowing you to analyse impact hotspots.

EXAMPLE: Apple develops Material Impact Profiles

Apple constructed Material Impact Profiles by cataloguing 45 common raw materials used in its products and evaluating their social, environmental, and supply impacts based on 16 indicators (see Appendix B). The materials were then assigned weighted scores, allowing Apple to focus on the ones with the highest impact and most significant consumption.²

EXAMPLE: Automotive Coalition Materials Heat Map

DRIVE Sustainability, an automotive coalition, developed an industry-level materials heat map. This tool assists companies in assessing their sustainability impacts across 37 widely used materials. Each material has a profile that includes key impacts across sourcing regions. The map also encourages sustainability discussions and aids in setting shared industry priorities.³

EXAMPLE: Walmart uses the THESIS Index to identify hotspots

Walmart uses the THESIS Index to scrutinise the sustainability performance of its products. The tool enables Walmart and its 1,800 suppliers to identify social and environmental hotspots and continuously improve across 125 product categories. It also shows suppliers how they compare to others, encouraging them to improve performance.⁴

Conduct a life cycle assessment on critical materials

Consider conducting a formal Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for critical materials, products, or services, particularly if you plan to make sustainability claims or if the material is linked to a high risk issue. LCAs range from basic qualitative overviews to comprehensive quantitative assessments.⁵ They can help pinpoint environmental and social impact hotspots. More streamlined LCAs are suitable for internal decision-making where you need to take a firm position, while a full LCA is suited for validating sustainability claims externally. When performing an LCA, ensure it covers an appropriate set of impacts to avoid developing a fragmented understanding of an issue.

You can integrate your LCA results into procurement processes by creating procurement specifications or criteria based on identified thresholds or devising a scoring system that considers environmental performance. Using these strategies can transform your LCA from a one-off project into a routine procurement tool. Make sure to also engage your marketing and communication teams to communicate the environmental performance of your products or services effectively.

EXAMPLE: Impossible Burger backs its sustainability claims with an environmental LCA

Plant-based meat substitute company, Impossible Burger, hired a third party to conduct a ISO4044 standard LCA comparing the environmental impacts of its "Impossible Burger" to a conventional beef burger. The study revealed that the plant-based burger’s impacts on water and land use, aquatic pollution, and GHG emissions, were significantly reduced across the value chain.⁶