Social and Environmental Execution
Management / Board Integrity
Stakeholder Engagement
Any one of these criteria can break out into detailed subcriteria. For example, Animal Cruelty might refer to voluntary or mandatory animal testing of medicines or products, owning zoos or circuses with animals, using animal products in the production of products and services, using animal labor, raising animals for food, cruel living conditions or abuse, promoting or reducing animal diversity, and so on. And none of these are standardized or commonly agreed-upon criteria within the categories. Different individuals and groups will expect different performance and adherence.
As you can see, there are hundreds of potential issues of interest to customers, investors, users, and other audiences. Designers don’t need to have a deep knowledge of every issue, but they should take a pass over the list every now and then to be familiar with the variety of issues important to people who are impacted by their solutions. There is no way to address them all, because many are in opposition to one another. For example, some religious-based organizations and investment groups don’t want to invest in pornography, while others see it as a litmus test of Freedom of Speech. Some don’t want to support Lesbian/Gay/Transgender issues (or, more accurately, support companies that support these causes), while others expressly seek out those that do. Ultimately, you’ll have to make your own choices as to what is important to you, your company, its brand, your clients, and your customers, but you need to have a broad awareness before you can do so.
Aside from the long list of social issues, the difficulty of creating a measurement system for them, and their often mutually-opposed imperatives, we need to address the culture of “optimization” that pervades such viewpoints. In personal finance, for example, the goal is to optimize money in absolute terms. Financial managers are required by law to help their clients realize the highest possible returns. This focus purely on financial measures ignores those same customers’ social values. It’s been very recent that investment funds target specific social issues so that people and organizations don’t transgress their goals in the pursuit of simply maximizing their funds. For example, labor unions and pension funds are realizing that investing in companies responsible for accelerating the transfer of jobs overseas isn’t in the long-term interest of their organizations. Despite potentially higher returns, many are reprioritizing where they invest in order not to contribute to the problems they face. The same was done by organizations and individuals in the 1980s who didn’t want to support apartheid in South Africa.
More recently, personal financial advisors have helped their clients to balance quality of life issues over optimization of financial returns. In other words, many people are content to earn a little less if it makes them happier to support organizations, companies, products, and goals that are important to them rather than contributing to the very things that upset them in the world. Likewise, the culture of working too much in order to provide the most money possible for our families is changing in favor of earning less in order to spend more time with our families. These people can’t measure their happiness or satisfaction in financial terms, but they’re often happily accepting lower pay in favor of more meaningful lives.
Environmental Measures
Environmental criteria are usually both easier to measure and easier to address than social issues—if only because the emotion and ambiguity surrounding most social issues aren’t part of the picture. Environmental issues are often measured and addressed in terms of materials and energy use (both amount and type of each). There is often little disagreement that toxins, for example, are bad for people, but there may be considerable disagreement over how they should be measured, how bad they may be for people, what levels are “acceptable,” and how these concerns weigh against financial, sourcing, or access trade-offs.
Like social criteria, environmental measures can be exhaustive with little agreement over priorities or validation, and include the following areas to consider:
Consumption and conservation of energy
Consumption and conservation of water
Consumption and conservation of air
Consumption and conservation of organic materials (including food)
Consumption and conservation of inorganic materials
Consumption and conservation of recycled and upcycled materials
Consumption, conservation, and source of energy (and percentage renewable)
Production and reduction of pollution and other toxic emissions to air, water, and land (there are thousands of potential substances under this category alone)
Production and reduction of waste
Production and reduction of product packaging (including biodegradable)
Consumption and conservation of transportation (including energy, source, amount, and emissions)
Area of land disturbed, protected, or restored
Disturbance or preservation of biodiversity
Example: Nuclear Power
For example, nuclear power is once again considered a prominent alternative, despite the disregard it was met with in the 1970s. This is because it’s now being touted as a more environmentally beneficial solution since it emits far fewer greenhouse gases during electricity generation than coal or other traditional power plants. It is widely accepted as a somewhat dangerous, potentially problematic, but manageable source of generating electricity. Radiation isn’t easily dealt with, especially in nuclear waste and maintenance materials, and expensive solutions are needed to contain, control, and shield both people and the environment
