How to Increase the Productivity of Sustainability Professionals: Introducing a New Platform to Help Navigate Sustainability Information, Frameworks and Tools

1. How to Increase the Productivity of Sustainability Professionals:
Introducing a New Platform to Help Navigate Sustainability
Information, Frameworks and Tools
Daniel Aronson, Valutus @danielaronson
Jason Jay, MIT Sloan @jasonjay

2. SIFT
SUSTAINABILITY INFORMATION, FRAMEWORKS & TOOLS PLATFORM

3. SIFT users
Position:
Experienced
sustainability officer
Need:
A footprint tool
to standardize on
corporate-wide
Position:
Experienced
environmental officer
Need:
A way for people in the
company to be able to
understand and get
involved in
sustainability
Position:
New sustainability
officer
Need:
To know where to
start creating a
sustainability
program
UserExperienceLevel
Problem Definition
Undefined Defined
LowHigh
Position:
Sustainability
student
Need:
An approach to
setting science-
based carbon
targets

4. Meet Donna, an experienced sustainability officer at a Global
1000 company with a very specific problem
Need Challenge
Find a carbon footprint tool the
company can standardize on
globally
Too many tools, too difficult to find
them, too few ways to decide which
ones are best

5. A fraction of the available carbon footprint calculators
Nature Conservancy
Carbon Footprint Ltd.
EPA
Center for Sustainable Economy
TerraPass
Earth Day Network
UC Berkeley
Global Footprint Network
Conservation InternationalHP
Native Energy
American Forests
WWF
Stanford University 3 Degrees Eat Low Carbon
Carbon Fund The GREENS
EarthLab
Santa Clara UniversityLehigh FPL
CleanMetrics c2es COTAP Time For Change
Argonne National Laboratory
Tucson Electric Power
General Electric

6. Today, what does Donna do?
Actions Problems
Google carbon footprint tools
There are hundreds of tools, but no way
to easily compare and choose between
them
See what calculators sustainability
services firms use
Services firms may use a specific tool
because it’s better for them, because
the developed it, because they’ve
customized it, or any number of reasons
that wouldn’t apply to Donna’s company
See what competitors use
Each competitor may use a different
tool—or even several different tools in
different parts of the business
Create a custom tool (e.g., in Excel)
Creating tools takes a lot of work. Also,
they’re often not easily adaptable for
use by other groups, and it’s easy to
miss big but hidden parts of a carbon
footprint—e.g., effects on customers,
suppliers, land use

7. What would SIFT let Donna do?
Find. Compare. Choose.

8. FrameworksEnvironment
Social Governance
What would SIFT let Donna do?
The Structure of SIFT

9. FrameworksEnvironment
Social Governance
Carbon
Water
What would SIFT let Donna do?
The Structure of SIFT

10. Carbon Targets
Water Targets
Carbon Calculators
Water Calculators
Change Frameworks
Governance Principles
Maturity Frameworks
Governance Organizations
What would SIFT let Donna do?
The Structure of SIFT

11. SIFT DEMO

13. State of SIFT
PARTNERS & SUPPORTERS:
Valutus • Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan • CSRHub • MIT Press • Biogen
Contact: daronson@valutus.com, jjay@mit.edu