OUR METHODOLOGY
FuturePlus inspires organisations and investors to recognise that having a positive social and environmental impact rewards everyone. Through the provision of simple yet rigorous indicators and improvement plans, that are aligned to all internationally recognised standards, we help everyone who works with us to achieve success in a way that customers appreciate and that markets value.
We believe that when the incentives to improve and report both impact and ambition are clear, businesses will change in a way that benefits both the environment and society.
Our ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) model speaks to both consumer demand and investment market data requirements in a way that improves marketability and creates better returns.
From being able to meet consumer demand for more sustainable business outcomes, to reducing the cost of borrowing, and improving the value of your organisation, we believe FuturePlus is able to quantify the returns that can be achieved by being a more sustainable and responsible business.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
FuturePlus helps organisations do far more than just measure and report their sustainability standing. It helps them set ambitions for improvement, provides them with pathways to being more sustainable, support and advice on achieving their objectives, and access to guidance both online and through our team of expert advisors.
The intelligent question set expands and contracts according to an organisation’s size and inresponse to the answers an organisation provides, allowing businesses of different sizes, geographies and sectors to be compared fairly.
Our indicators are researched and adapted from a variety of best practice sources and industry standards such as recognised ESG certification schemes and indexes, the United Nations Global Compact, Government and NGO frameworks, investor coalitions and initiatives, as well as the addition of our own impact-focused metrics.
In order to keep FuturePlus members up to date as progress is made in technology, sustainability research and risk analysis, our ‘living’ question set is periodically updated with new and amended indicators to reflect the most current and critical areas of sustainability innovation and development.
OUR FIVE THEMES & HOW THEY IMPACT YOUR SCORE
CLIMATE
We measure climate impact by looking at a company's energy consumption and emissions across their value chain, rom sourcing, procurement and manufacturing, to logistics, energy, operations, and transportation.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
Ensuring employees and stakeholders are treated equitably, with dignity and respect is good for people and good for business.
Benefits included increased employee engagement and trust, new perspectives and innovation, better decision-making, and stronger business results and profit.
SOCIAL
The 'Social' aspect of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) is often complex to quantify.
FuturePlus measures social impact by looking at how your business interacts and impacts its stakeholders, from suppliers and employees to customers and communities.
ECONOMIC
Unless businesses are profitable, they cannot succeed or grow. However, the profitability comes responsibility.
The age of putting shareholder profits before all else may be over, but sustained value creation and long-term prosperity must still be met to best serve all an organisation's stakeholders.
ENVIRONMENT
'Carbon tunnel vision' can lead organisation to focus heavily on emissions reductions while ignoring the vital importance of addressing biodiversity loss, reducing the waste and pollutants we produce, or focusing on circular design principles.
These themes are then split further across the sub-categories of Governance, Leadership, Workforce, Supply Chain, Ecosystem, Carbon Footprint, Manufacturing and Industry and Global Globals.
The sub-categories allow for a weighted hierarchy of the indicators, producing a comprehensive overview of an organisation’s social, environmental and ethical policies and procedures across its governance structures, workforce, value chain and ecosystems.
The assessment looks at all aspects of sustainable business practices and often requires engagement from different individuals within an organisation. Verification involves providing responses and evidence for all questions within the assessment. However, FuturePlus does not provide certification based on a pass/fail model. We are proud to work with any organisation demonstrating the intent to improve the
sustainability of its business practices, and all organisations are asked to revisit and reconfirm their declared positive actions on an annual basis.
FuturePlus does more than just measure action and ambition however. It also provides organisations with improvement roadmaps and guides on policy and practice, automatically generated reports and plans, and access to our resource hub, that offers guidance and access to sustainability solutions.
FuturePlus Advisors provide ongoing support to organisations to ensure that they have the knowledge and resources necessary to meet their stated ambitions and make ongoing improvements.
This support can take many forms, such as one-to-one conversations, conducting research, as well as access to online tools, tips and guides.
ACTUAL AND AMIBITION SCORES
In addition to assessing the current sustainability status and score of an organisation (we call this the ‘Actual score’), the platform allows organisations and investors to set ambitions for the sustainability objectives they are yet to achieve, providing them with an additional ambition rating (we call this the ‘Ambition score’).
The Ambition score gives users the opportunity to commit to actions across the five themes in defined timeframes (between 3 months and 3 years), incentivising reductions in any negative footprint and increasing positive social and environmental impact.
As the FuturePlus measurement process requires direct engagement with organisations rather than ‘scraping’ data from external sources, the scores are dynamic and can be updated by an organisation, evidence is
validated by our systems and experts, on a continuous basis, allowing them to showcase any positive changes they make.
Our dynamic scoring algorithm also allows for scores to be reduced should ambitions and requirements not be met.
The Ambition score provides the basis for a Sustainability Roadmap that can integrate with leading project management software, serving as a user-friendly action plan for future-focused ambitions.
THE SCORE BLOCK EXPLAINED
A robust scoring methodology is implemented to comprehensively evaluate an organisation’s performance across the themes, with the significance of each indicator captured by a weighted score, reflecting its influence either internally within the organisation or externally in the broader context. This approach acknowledges the varying degrees of impact that individual indicators have.
Our algorithm scores the response to each indicator with a positive, negative, or neutral score dependent on the theme, subcategory and relevant impact. This allows for a more nuanced representation of how an indicator aligns with ESG goals and recognises progress, setbacks and neutrality as important.
By integrating such a comprehensive scoring methodology, FuturePlus underscores its commitment to a thorough evaluation of ESG factors, facilitating a holistic understanding of an organisation’s performance across sustainability themes.
A STAMP OF INTENT
FuturePlus is on a mission to unite industries in creating a more sustainable future. Our IMPACT CERTIFIED badge celebrates organisations making meaningful strides to improve their sustainability practices.
Awarded after the verification of a FutureImpact assessment, this badge symbolises a company’s commitment to creating positive social and environmental impact. It’s not just a badge—it’s a testament to being part of a community focused on continuous improvement.
WE TURN ESG INTO
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
300+ COMPANIES ARE WITH US, ARE YOU?
