"Transparency comes from a fundamental belief that we don't know all the answers. The best way to inspire trust is to let people under the hood and take advice. We have nothing to hide and everything to learn. - Jay Coen Gilbert, B Lab"
Collaboration is key," Polman said, "The issues are simply too big to go it alone.
about collaboration at new scales.
The secret is to begin, to move forward despite the uncertainty and to become comfortable with much greater transparency and collaboration, so that we can bravely lead for a new order of things,"
“If it’s easy to remember, it’s easier to participate,” he said.
Oudghin showed examples of the remarkable transparency of some publicly traded companies, such as Nike, where anyone can check up on the details of pretty much every Nike supplier.
“How would we recognize a truly sustainable business if we saw one?”
This “fourth benchmark” goes beyond metrics comparisons to a baseline year, to competitors, or to an internal company goal. The Gold Standard would use material, science-based key performance indicators and goals that could identify a truly sustainable business. Willard is actively working with a broad range of stakeholders from the capital markets to non-profit sustainability experts such as the Natural Step and GISR.
And one factor pushing the acceptance and utilization of metrics is the shortening timeframes of risk management in the wake of recent climate events. Gil Friend, founder and CEO or Natural Logic, Inc., said he trusts that each new measuring tool adds new worlds of understanding of “capital,” whether monetary, environmental or social.