Prioritise

Position Database

Is your company interested in taking a public position on an ESG issue?

To help companies develop strong, clear positions, we will maintain a public database containing leading positions articulated by large companies globally. 

Our governance guide outlines how companies should articulate their positions, and we have applied this criteria to the positions featured in this database.

Developing Position Statements on Sustainability Issues

There is growing pressure among companies to link social and environmental limits to corporate strategy and goal-setting. However, the result is often a lengthy document that fails to make strategic connections between specific issues and their implications on business decision-making. We developed this guidebook to help you articulate a concise and transparent board level position on key environmental, social, and governance issues. Drawing upon in-depth analyses of over 4,000 board position statements; over 200 interviews with CEOs, directors, and board chairs; and concepts outlined in our series on the Road to Context, this guidebook provides a checklist for crafting a contextual board position statement and includes examples from a range of industries and global settings.

Emerging Trends and Best Practice in Climate Position Statements

Climate change is happening, and the impacts are intensifying. Companies are expected to take a position on climate change and outline an appropriate response. The Embedding Project’s climate position guide helps companies to articulate a concise and transparent board level position on climate change. Drawing on in-depth analyses of over 2,600 climate position statements, this guidebook provides a checklist for crafting a climate position statement with concrete examples from a range of industries and global settings. 

Taking a Credible Position on Nature

There is growing pressure on companies to publicly acknowledge the unprecedented nature loss we face, and what they plan to do to address it. To help them do so, we reviewed over 1,000 statements on nature loss, biodiversity, and ecosystem stewardship from a wide range of geographies and industries, and identified examples of how companies are explaining the issue of nature loss, linking the issue of nature loss to their strategy, and clarifying their commitments to protect and restore nature. We hope this guide is helpful to you in articulating your own credible position statement on protecting and restoring nature.

Embedded Strategies for the Sustainability Transition

It is time for companies to take a very different approach to corporate strategy.

Our Embedded Strategies guide helps companies respond to the growing calls for businesses to articulate their purpose and their strategy in alignment with the need to shift the global economy towards the reduction of inequality, a rapid climate transition, the preservation of biodiversity, and the elimination of waste.

This guide will help you to develop a contextual strategy and goals that ensure your company is doing its part to maintain the resilience of key social and environmental systems.

Building on our Road to Context guide with insights from 300+ interviews with senior executives, CEOs, board chairs, and directors, as well as our experiences supporting companies around the world, it outlines resources and tactics that can help your company to scan for emerging issues and risks; understand their implications for your business; understand your impacts and your potential for positive influence; prioritise where it makes sense to direct your efforts; and set your strategy and goals in alignment with delivering systems value.

Integrated Decision-Making Framework

Often, direct financial impacts are prioritised in decision-making, while other impacts, such as those related to nature and society, are not considered to the same extent, despite being equally real and tangible. The Integrated Decision-Making Framework provides a roadmap for considering and navigating the landscape of our planet's intersecting natural, social, human, and produced capital, and for embedding the values of these four capitals into all decision-making.

The Integrated Decision-Making Framework provides a practical approach for an integrated capitals assessment with a clear governance structure. It features detailed technical guidance for practitioners, and is aimed to support them in preparing capitals information for decision-making. Currently, the Framework is comprised of three key resources: the Capitals Protocol, Governance for Valuation, and A Primer on Integrated Decision-Making. To help you value four capitals systemically into decisions, the Capitals Protocol provides seven iterative steps for integrated decision-making. These steps form the backbone of an integrated capitals assessment, and are organised in three stages: Assemble, Assess, and Act. Governance for Valuation increases transparency and consistency in valuation, building on four blocks to drive confidence in decision-making: transparency requirements, confidence criteria, value notes, and attribution scopes. Additionally, the Primer on Integrated Decision-Making offers a high-level introduction to the purpose, structure, and available technical guidance that the Integrated Decision-Making Framework provides.

Safe and just Earth system boundaries

This study from the Earth Commission uses modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries for five critical domains: climate, the biosphere, freshwater, nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and sub-global scale. It builds on the work of the planetary boundaries framework and proposes a set of safe and just boundaries for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system and for minimising human society’s exposure to significant harm. The paper notes that the just operating space is smaller than the safe one for several of the boundaries, and that several have already been transgressed on a global and local scale. This means that unless a timely transformation occurs, irreversible tipping points and widespread impacts on human well-being are likely to be unavoidable.

SASB Materiality Map

The Materiality Map was developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). It ranks issues by industry based on two types of evidence: evidence that investors in the industry are interested in the issue, and evidence that the issue has the ability to impact companies within the industry. Updated annually, this map is a good starting point to get a snapshot of industry specific priorities.

Materiality Assessments: Why It’s Time for a New Approach

Done well, corporate sustainability materiality assessments should improve the quality and relevance of your disclosures and ideally, clarify where your company needs to take action and inform your core business strategy. Unfortunately, most materiality assessments don’t live up to that promise. In this blog post, we reflect on how we got here and why the materiality assessment process is in desperate need of an overhaul.