Which ESG issues should your small business prioritize?
The first step towards business sustainability is narrowing down which ESG issues are most relevant for the business to address.
Focus and prioritisation are key, because you don’t want to be spending a lot of energy focusing on everything, or on things that are not actually that important.
We’ve picked out resources to help you get started.
Materiality in 4 minutes or less
Short intros to the materiality concept for corporate sustainability
Intro to materiality assessment
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Check which regulations may apply to you
These tools will help you understand the fast changing ESG regulatory landscape
Streamline your CSRD compliance with this expert GRI-ESRS alignment review
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Check if ISSB is likely to be adopted in your jurisdictions.
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Explore and track ESG regulations and voluntary and mandatory reporting requirements. Stay up to date with regulation.
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The CSR Risk Check tool is for companies importing from or with production facilities abroad. Find out what international CSR risks your business activities are exposed to and what you can do to manage them.
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Stay up to date with how EU CSRD legislation is being adopted across EU countries.
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Look up ESG and sustainability policies around the world, and read analysis about these policy trends – are they mostly mandatory or voluntary, how restrictive do they tend to be, which are the most targeted business sectors, etc.
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Stay up to date with ESG legislation affecting retail.
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Use our interactive global guide for a country-by-country breakdown of the regulations, laws, and voluntary standards that impact ESG-related issues in each jurisdiction.
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Rankers & raters' view of materiality
Reviewing which issues raters & rankers consider material for your sector is a great first step
Use this resource to understand how to implement and measure corporate responsibility across key topics, benchmark your organisation against peers, and look up companies’ performance.
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Research which ESG issues MSCI considers to be material based on sector.
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Use the SASB Standards and materiality finder to identify which ESG disclosures are most important for your company to disclose.
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Taking the B Impact Assessment is a great way to understand how your organisation stacks up in terms of responsible business. You can benchmark your performance against others, and use free tools to improve.
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You can review the S&P Global CSA high level scoring criteria and topic weightings for your sector, to get an idea of the importance of each ESG issue for your business. You can also see which companies in your sector are best performers and why.
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Estimate your footprint
Use these resources to dive deeper and understand your impacts across your ESG priorities
Quantify and report on food waste using this standard.
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Free carbon calculator, including all three scopes.
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Get 5 climate actions your business can take in just 3 minutes.
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Access data, maps and analysis to assess your biodiversity impacts.
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Credible GHG calculator for small businesses, especially in the US.
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A more holistic methodology for measuring net zero efforts, including financing carbon technologies and influencing policy.
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Measure your website’s environmental impact.
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You can use CDP’s vast data resources to look up your suppliers’ decarbonisation performance and scores. Disclosing your performance through the CDP assessment is a credible way to signal to your stakeholders how seriously you take the management of your environmental impacts.
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Join this community of corporate social impact professionals to jointly progress the practice of social impact measurement, get support, networking and tools.
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Use SBTi’s resources to set a science-based carbon reduction target.
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Become a living wage employer in the UK, and encourage your suppliers to do the same.
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Workplace Pride Benchmark serves as a valuable resource for companies seeking to create more inclusive and supportive environments for LGBTI employees, ultimately contributing to greater diversity, equity, and innovation in the workplace.
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myclimate provides a free online carbon calculator for flights, events, car trips, cruises, households, and organisations.
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Practical and manageable for small businesses, and aligned to key standards.
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Credible way to measure Scope 1 and 2 for small UK businesses.
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Stay up to date with the The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures Working Group. Keep up with expectations and direction of travel related to managing and reporting on social-related risks, opportunities, and impacts.
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Use the resources published by CHRB to understand how to measure human rights management, and to look up companies’ performance.
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Use this resource to understand how to implement and measure gender equality, and to look up companies’ performance.
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A simple carbon calculator for small businesses, aimed at those just getting started.
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Monitor deforestation in your supply chain, manage commodities, and quantify progress toward deforestation commitments.
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Identify and assess nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities, and get ready to report against the TNFD framework.
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A free set of unique carbon calculators developed by Julie’s Bicycle specifically for the cultural sector.
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Seamless hydrographic data for global and regional applications
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Complete an initial simple Scopes 1-3 carbon footprint for free.
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Assess and respond to your water risks for enhancing resilience
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Looking for something else?
Search through all our resources on our ‘All resources’ page.