5 reasons to use the CSR Performance Ladder

In sustainable business, there's a maze of abbreviations and frameworks. Sometimes, it's challenging to see the forest for the trees. Here are the main abbreviations explained:

• CSRD: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the new European regulation;
• PPP: People, Planet and Profit, often recently supplemented with Purpose;
• ESG: Environment, Social, Governance;
• SDGs: the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations
• MVI: Dutch: Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Inkopen (Socially Responsible Procurement).

The performance ladder consolidates and measures information for all these frameworks, keeping you always up-to-date.

We can be very brief here: certifying your efforts objectively establishes your performances. The CSR Performance Ladder is an independent certificate that unequivocally proves your compliance with the requirements, along with all the associated benefits.

With the ladder, you can easily and objectively demonstrate sustainability performance. This is important for your customers, employees, applicants and investors. The impact on sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor for employees and job applicants. Especially in the current tight labor market, providing objective information about impact gives an interesting advantage in attracting and retaining the right people.

Transparent information about sustainability also gives you an edge with your customers and investors. It's expected that large organizations – which must quickly comply with CSRD – will set strict requirements regarding proof of sustainability figures for their suppliers and investments.

The main reason for releasing the new CSR Performance Ladder (version 4) is to align with CSRD. Within this European regulation, the material themes play a significant role; these are the sustainability issues that are most important for your organization and your stakeholders. Therefore, version 4 specifically assesses the material themes relevant to your organization. Also, in the new version, 'purpose' has become more important: the motivations for your organization to work sustainably, and how the performances contribute to that.

The CSR Performance Ladder is based on a management system. Therefore, it's not only suitable for measurement and communication but also for implementing improvements. With a management system approach, you're much more responsive than with an annual reporting cycle. Moreover, the ladder is also very useful for making specific processes, such as procurement policies, more sustainable.