Measuring and improving your business’ sustainability performance – across environment, social and governance – is much more than a “nice to have”: it’s a business strategy.
By knowing how your business practices impact people, the planet and company profitability, you can turn sustainability from a risk into an opportunity.
With the help of Intellisus®, assessing and reporting sustainability equips companies to adopt and demonstrate responsible and ethical business practices as a solid foundation for long-term success.
And Intellisus offers something different: bringing together sustainability assessment, reporting and professional public relations practice in one place.
Intellisus – enabling companies to understand, improve and demonstrate sustainability performance
Intellisus is a new trademarked service enabling companies to assess, manage and report on their sustainability performance.
Based on recognised international standards* – including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – Intellisus is a comprehensive process which identifies the positive and negative sustainability impacts a business has on people, the supply chain, the community, economy and the planet.
When working with Intellisus to assess and report sustainability performance, your business will:
Recognise the most significant sustainability impacts from its own operations and supply chain relationships.
Prioritise its areas of negative impact for improvement and its positive impacts to celebrate and promote.
Put in place new policies and practices to enhance sustainability performance.
Be able to report publicly on its positive sustainability achievements alongside its commitments to improve.
Have access to the sustainability data and evidence needed to tender for contracts – especially in the public sector.
*Writing in the Financial Times (FT) Richard Manley – chief sustainability officer at CPP Investments – said: “…standards bring a significant advantage to small and medium-sized businesses through the principle of proportionality, allowing them to report within their capabilities while striving for incremental enhancements over time.”
Why should companies undertake sustainability assessment and reporting with Intellisus?
People care about how companies behave – and the numbers are there to prove it.
According to leading research company Kantar’s Global Monitor and Brandz data:
80% of people in Europe want to consume better and pay attention to what brands are doing.
Brands with a high sustainability contribution to value have on average seen 20% greater growth over four years than those with low sustainability contribution to value.
The Financial Times (FT) editorial board wrote in June 2024: “The principles underlying the ESG (environment, social, governance – a.k.a. sustainability) boom are becoming entrenched. Reaching net zero is seen as good business by executives. Mitigating governance issues is viewed as necessary risk management. Green investments are increasingly profitable too.”
Sustainability – opportunities and risks
Investing in sustainability assessment, improvement and reporting creates opportunities:
De-risking business practices for long-term resilience
Driving greater business innovation
Attracting and retaining more diverse talent
Achieving cost reductions
Obtaining competitive advantage
Avoiding “greenwashing”
Being more attractive to external investment
Evolving from less rigorous CSR initiatives to robust sustainability strategy
Embedding a commitment to the interests – and leveraging the support of – all stakeholders as well as shareholders.
By not investing in sustainability assessment, improvement and reporting, you ignore risks such as:
Neglecting to recognise and manage the potential negative impact of the company on its stakeholders.
Lack of transparency about business practices leading to reputational risk.
Short-term business gains at the expense of long-term business resilience and durability.
Failing to harness the benefits of a more diverse workforce.
Increased scrutiny among existing and potential employees of a company’s responsible business credentials.
Customer pressure for companies to show sustainability policies and performance.
The need to contribute more to the UK Government Net Zero by 2050 target.
The likely introduction of UK sustainability reporting standards by the UK Government in 2025
Who and what is behind Intellisus?
Intellisus® – a trademarked service delivered by award-winning public relations business Metamorphic PR – is founded on expertise gained from Oxford Said Business School’s Leading Sustainable Corporations programme, carbon emissions calculation knowledge from the Journey to Net Zero programme and competence in sustainability impact assessment and reporting using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards.
Appleyard Lees is a leading UK intellectual property (IP) law firm serving international companies through expertise in patents, trademarks, intellectual property, etc. The data-driven report creation and media relations activity we undertook with the firm won the Gold award for Corporate and Business Communications Campaign at the 2022 CIPR North West Awards.
XCellr8 is a GLP-accredited laboratory committed to animal-free safety and efficacy tests for the cosmetics, personal case and chemical industries. Its clients include high street retail brands, large ingredient manufacturers and fast-growth SMEs.
