Crowd-powered Benchmarks
Why We Benchmark
Benchmarks enable us to better understand the issues we explore, and the different ways in which businesses can respond and adapt to them. They also enable us to set goals and measure and track performance.
There is a benchmark for each issue that defines Poor, Okay, Good and Excellent performance. We use the benchmarks to help businesses and other organisations to improve from Poor to Okay performance, from Okay to Good, and from Good to Excellent, as far and fast as possible.
We’ve benchmarked scores of social, environmental and ethical issues, over many years, working with more than 800 businesses and partner organisations, such as NGOs, campaigners and civil society groups.
On each responsibility issue we explore, we aim to gather as many different examples of policy and practice as possible. Where examples of Excellent are hard to come by, we ask our partners to imagine what that could be! We then calibrate and recalibrate as more stories are received and our understanding of the different responses to the challenges and opportunities grows.
A Simple Performance Scale
We cover a wide range of issues from modern slavery to cyber security. For each issue, we consider the policies, practices or the positions a business can take, and classify performance in terms of impacts on society, nature and our shared future. At the highest level, performance can be described as follows:
- Excellent – We champion this issue.
- Good – We impact more positively than negatively.
- Okay – We impact both positively and negatively. Or this issue does not impact us in any way.
- Poor – We impact more negatively than positively.
Every time a participating business or organisation submits or updates a story, our definitions are tested again, and recalibrated as needed.
Owning Poor Performance
Good and Excellent practices often inform and inspire others. But so too does the honest acceptance of Poor practices and of seemingly intractable problems or barriers to improvement.
Even the best businesses are poor at something. It is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Those that can accept and own that within the Responsible 100 initiative are valued members of the community. They provide unique opportunities to source and pool the creativity, innovation and problem-solving skills that exist across and within all platform users.
Together, we stand a far greater chance of overcoming challenges and identifying and removing barriers to improvement. Together, we have a greater appreciation and understanding of Poor practice, and where and how changes can be made to become Okay.
Businesses that pursue Poor practices because that is how they make their money, and they have neither the wit, imagination nor motivation to work out how to deliver their goods and services without impacting negatively upon people or planet, are the only businesses that we are unlikely to be of service to.
How To Contribute To The Benchmarks
As a community we have explored many dozens of responsibility issues over the years. Currently we have 24 issues in our roster, 20 of which are explored within our Responsibility Indicator tool.
We welcome suggestions to tackle and benchmark additional responsibility issues not currently on the list. We also welcome debate on the current selection. We are always open to supporting businesses with specific issues and to seeking new experts and specialisms when gaps are uncovered.