Sustainable Brand Benchmark Methodology
One of the biggest challenges in the sustainability industry is the need for more normalized data on sustainable procurement. Today, there are more standards that define sustainability than most consumers and companies can understand. At CommonShare we are launching the world’s most comprehensive system for the comparative evaluation of companies on their commitments to sustainable production and consumption.
CommonShare’s Sustainable Brand Benchmark® allows companies, consumers, governments, and investors to easily benchmark sustainable procurement performance across each industry. The data powering on the benchmark is continually updated through a combination of human research, machine learning algorithms, LLM driven AI, brand survey response, and real time management of company data within CommonShare’s platform.
The first version of the Sustainable Brand Benchmark® launched in April 2023. New industry categories will be rolled out throughout 2023 and 2024 with the goal of 10 industry benchmarks covering over 100k+ entities. We believe this will provide a meaningful contribution towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption).
Data from members of CommonShare is used to rebalance the benchmark quarterly with data submissions required by May 31st, August 31st, November 30th, and February 28th of each year. Non-members have the opportunity to include their data on November 30th of each year.
Companies in the top half of the distribution for their industry are eligible for CommonShare’s Sustainable Brand Accreditation®.
Obtaining a grade for each Company
We specifically look at 5 dimensions: Credibility, Relevance, Commitment, Traceability, and Accessibility. Each Company obtains a grade between 1 to 5 for every dimension, 5 being the highest (best) grade, and 1 being the lowest. We then calculate the average from the total of all the dimensions to obtain the final grade.
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Our commitment metric evaluates the percentage of products that contain sustainable content. Our team defines and evaluates what is “sustainable” based on an evolving taxonomy. We rely on both third-party certifications for products and materials, but we also include proprietary materials/ingredients that are leading us down the path to sustainable, regenerative, circular economies. Ultimately, without a direct relationship with CommonShare, this data is quite hard to find and thus prone to inaccuracy. As such, in the first versions of the benchmark, this dimension of the rating will be biased downward (i.e. as more companies give real time data to CommonShare, the average cross-rating score should increase).
Variables used:
CommonShare members can manage products and material level certifications with third-party digital verification within the platform in real time. Non-members can respond to a survey once per year.