Integrated Thinking Resource Hub

Critical Activity

Define the organisation’s purpose with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders through engagement activities

Involvement

Who

• Executive management
• Sustainability

How

• Surveys
• Workshops
• Webinars
• Listening sessions

Effort

High

Key steps

1. Define which internal and external stakeholders to involve.
2. Set different methodologies according to the stakeholder group involved and prepare material accordingly to explore reason to exist (e.g., a. Listening sessions with executive management team; b. Workshops with senior management team; c. Workshops and surveys with employees; d. Webinars and surveys for external stakeholders)
3. Roll out the engagement activity to collect feedback
4. Rationalize feedback and determine your purpose

Benefits

Co-creation of an organisation’s purpose with a wide variety of stakeholders helps embed it into the organisation and ensures it reflects wider stakeholder priorities.

Critical Activity

Training and information sessions with the board and board and other management committees.

Involvement

Who

• Board
• ESG committee (where applicable)
• Sustainability

How

• Information session
• Hearing session

Effort

Low

Key steps

1. Annual training and information sessions with the board of directors to:
   a. Inform the board of sustainability developments, challenges and opportunities.
   b. Show how these affect the organisation, allowing them to respond to questions from investors.
   c. Understand what the organisation does to fulfil its purpose and create desired impact, so the board knows who manages these matters, and how, to ultimately strengthen a relationship of trust between the board (oversight role), the executive management team and senior management (operational role).
2. All departments drive quarterly information sessions for board-level ESG committee. Involving each department enables granularity and depth, covering and assessing how the organisation assesses how sustainability-related topics impact and align with its purpose.

Benefits

Setting an annual training and information session helps to make the case for the board to review decision-making and resource allocation and to assess whether it is consistent with the organisation’s purpose review.

Critical Activity

Periodical governance review

Involvement

Who

• External support
• Governance

How

Set an agenda for board evaluation

Effort

• Low to medium

Key steps

1. Set the aim and purpose of the governance review. If the review occurs periodically the purpose may just be its ongoing commitment to good governance.
2. Establish the goals and the desired outcomes the review intends to achieve, e.g., identifying areas of improvement or assessing performance.
3. Based on the desired outcome, define the following:
   a. Who should be involved?
   b. How should they be involved?
   c. Which approach should be used, and will external support be required?
4. Examine the insights yielded by the process and present them to the board, which can work through an implementation plan to act on any opportunities of growth.

Benefits

Implementing a periodical governance review helps organisations assess the extent to which current governance structures are helping them deliver their strategy and support performance. It can also clarify roles and responsibilities between the board, executive management team and senior management team and how the skills and experiences of the board guide executive and senior management.

Critical Activity

Strategic decision-making tool

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Risk Management
• IT
• Finance
• External support to monetize the impact on capitals

How

Initial change management process supported by training programmes and pilot testing of supporting software which anchors multiple capitals to their monetized value

Effort

High

Key steps

1. Analyse a negative scenario: what would be the impact if a project to pursue strategic objectives were not implemented? Anchor this into a potential impact (changes in service/product to customer) and link the impact to the capitals of the organisation and monetize the impact.
2. Analyse a positive scenario: what would be the impact if a project to pursue strategic objectives was implemented?
   a. Screen the different options of creating a new product or service.
   b. Analyse the costs incurred and the benefits of all the options. Monetize the benefits of impacts on multiple capitals.
3. Compare the result of the negative scenario with the results of the positive scenario analysis. If the value of any given option of the positive scenario is greater than the analysis of the negative scenario, choose that project since it will be cost beneficial. If there is more than one option in the positive analysis that is greater than the forecast of the negative scenario, chose the option with the greatest multi-capital value.

Benefits

A framework built on features such as risk and opportunities assessment or monetized values of the multiple capitals used in an organisation can help ensure the strategy and strategic objectives are sound and that strategic opportunities are assessed with the same degree of rigour as strategic risks.

Critical Activity

Integrated consolidated information dashboard

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance and Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information in a consistent way

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Define a common consolidation methodology which can aggregate the data across functions by developing an internal categorization system with a cross-functional working group.
2. Share the categorization within functions and support its adoption through a change management process (e.g., initial induction, training programme, etc.).
3. Set metrics for key financial and sustainability priorities linked to strategic objectives.
4. Collect data to feed the metrics and consolidate the data according to the shared methodology.
5. Track and communicate the performance of the strategic objectives.

Benefits

Working towards an integrated dashboard significantly helps organisations in their integrated thinking journeys, allowing them to assess and communicate interdependencies internally and report them externally.

Critical Activity

Employee performance management system

Involvement

Who

• HR
• Strategy
• Input from the board of directors
• IT

How

• Initial induction provides newcomers with a guide over the practice and the tool to report targets; an e-learning platform/materials are handed out to employees who can access it throughout the year.
• Initial pilot test to run the platform and to set the change management process.

Effort

High

Key steps

Consider the following:

1. Targets linked to the impact employees have in their daily work on the team based on factors which consider both qualitative and quantitative aspects.
2. Targets linked to how they carry out their job – how they live the purpose of the organisation through its culture and values.
3. Targets set against the organisation’s strategic objectives; ask employees to determine which strategic objectives they will contribute to throughout the year. This pushes employees to set ambitious targets that look at their day-to-day jobs from a broad perspective of value creation.
4. Each employee sets the targets and then discusses them with their manager. Once agreed, they are uploaded on an internal intranet which is periodically reviewed and assessed at the end of the year.

Benefits

Implementing incentive structures that are aligned to short-, medium- and long-term value creation can be crucial in an integrated thinking journey. The structures support employees in monitoring, tracking and ultimately acknowledging the impact they have as individuals, members of a team and employees of the organisation as whole.

Critical Activity

Creating a core integrated thinking group and a cross-functional integrated thinking group to oversee and monitor material topics

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Sustainability
• Risk Management
• Investor Relations
• Finance
• Communications
• Business entities

How

Training programme to transfer knowledge from the core integrated thinking group to the cross-functional integrated thinking group

Effort

High

Key steps

1. Create a core integrated thinking group with a limited number of people. Each integrated thinking member oversees two to three material topics.
2. Create a cross-functional integrated thinking group with a broader number of participants. Each member of the cross-functional group manages and owns a material topic.
3. The core group rolls out an initial training programme to the cross-functional group to help it understand the relevance of the material topic and how it is monitored.
4. Set quarterly meetings where the two groups discuss progress on a certain topic presented by the owner (a member of the cross-functional group). Invite external stakeholders to quarterly meetings to share their experience and perspective on a material topic. Also invite members of the annual integrated report team to shed light on how the progress made on material topics will be reported.
5. Quarterly meetings can become half-yearly once the organisation reaches a degree of maturity and the periodic assessment of material topics is embedded in the organisation.

Benefits

Creating a core integrated thinking group drives teams to work collectively and break down siloes by championing connectivity

Critical Activity

Defining a rigorous process for the collection of non-financial data

Involvement

Who

• Finance
• Sustainability
• All key functions that provide non-financial data

How

• Induction on the internal booklet
• Periodic meetings to consolidate the methodology
• Audit

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. Determine data owners for non-financial data.
2. Establish a methodology for each metric and both track and record it in a booklet which is then shared internally and supports explaining the process and rationale data collection to external auditors.
3. Data is provided according to that methodology.
4. This process supports organisations to get ready for external assurance process.

Benefits

The process of assurance allows an organisation to ensure that non-financial data is collected with the same rigour as financial data.

Critical Activity

Tool that assesses and manages organisational sustainability and health

Involvement

Who

• External software provider
• HR

How

• Depends on the degree of maturity
• Newcomers may require an initial training programme
• The survey underlying the tool may be part of the onboarding process

Effort

Medium/High (*)
(*) depends on the kind of software you are using

Key steps

Use bi-annual or quarterly surveys to collect employee perspectives on the organisation. Organisations also find a tool provided by an external party can be extremely beneficial in assessing whether employees live according to their values and manage organisational health. The tool is built on an extensive survey rolled out every 12 to 18 months. It aims to enhance performance by focusing on improving alignment of the organisational systems by measuring and tracking the organisational elements that drive performance.

Benefits

HR management tools help yield data that can be assessed by the executive team to understand how effectively employees live their values.

Critical Activity

Annual training sessions on business integrity and compliance

Involvement

Who

• Compliance
• HR to facilitate

How
Training session

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. Define principles of conduct that guide employees to live according to organisational values in two key instances:
   a. Where: how employees act within the working environment
   b. How: the way employees carry out their work.
2. Share the principles of conduct with all employees through an intranet.
3. Embed mandatory annual training in business ethics, anti-corruption policies and procedures to ensure employees are aware of the principles of conduct and of any topics that have emerged during the year. Employees will:
   a. Complete the training
   b. Document the training.
4. Consolidate the findings and report them to the Executive Management of the organisation and the Audit Committee.
5. Assess whether there are any gaps and take action.

Benefits

Annual training sessions can be a great way to ensure employees are periodically updated on the policies and ethical behaviour they are expected to live up to.

Critical Activity

Annual training sessions on business integrity and compliance

Involvement

Who

• Procurement
• Sustainability

How
Induction for suppliers and training programmes to align with strategic objectives

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Registration: a digital portal can allow suppliers to align with the internal codes of the organisation (e.g., Ethics, Anti-Corruption Code, Supplier Code of Conduct) or any other standards that are set by the organisation.
2. Pre-qualification: check suppliers’ compliance with economic and financial requirements, environmental regulation, human rights legislation (e.g., no use of child, forced or illegal labour, compliance with Modern Slavery regulation), compliance with anti-corruption and anti-monetary laundering regulations.
3. Selection: check tender requirements, supply terms and conditions and reputational requirements.
4. Monitoring activities: detect any breach through environmental, health and safety audits; correct any breaches and create awards for long-standing suppliers.

Benefits

Establishing a rigorous process to screen key suppliers allows data to be analysed before making significant procurement and sales decisions.

Critical Activity

Cross-functional list of key stakeholders

Involvement

Who
Sustainability

How
Induction to contacts across functions

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Analyse the areas of the organisation’s business model to map key stakeholder groups.
2. Link each key stakeholder group to a function.
3. Determine a contact within each function to act as point of contact and data collector.
4. Build a database based on preferred criteria (e.g., name, surname, function, contact, stakeholder category, link to strategic areas/objectives).
5. Share the database on an intranet or through a shared file with the cross-functional collectors and ask them to populate with contacts of key stakeholders for each function.
6. Require an update of the contacts to each cross-functional collector every two to three years.

Benefits

Clearly identifying the business model’s key stakeholders is important to stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment processes.

Critical Activity

Materiality analysis to identify the material topics

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Sustainability
• Risk Management
• Investor Relations
• Finance
• Communications

How
Surveys, workshops and listening sessions with the executive management team

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Analyse the frameworks, international and jurisdictional standards that are applicable to the organisation to conduct a materiality analysis.
2. Identify a longlist of potentially material topics; the following tools may be useful:
   a. Software analytics platform that identifies and monitors external risks, including ESG
   b. Risk Event Register developed internally
   c. Media analysis
   d. ESG rating agencies questionnaires
   e. Enterprise risk management tool.
3. Prioritise the longlist to reach a shortlist of material topics through the following engagement activities:
   a. Listening sessions with the executive management team
   b. Internal workshops
   c. Surveys for internal and external stakeholders
   d. Webinars with external stakeholders.
4. Determine the material topics.

Benefits

Carrying out a materiality analysis has been proven to be essential in the process of identifying and understanding the greatest positive or negative potential impacts on value creation.

Critical Activity

Integrated strategic planning process

Involvement

Who

• Executive management
• Finance; Sustainability; Strategy
• All departments collaborate

How

• first time kick-off session
• task force is created (no induction required as this is an iterative process
• collect data, analyse with several tools (e.g., enterprise risk management and enterprise performance management tools)

Effort
High

Key steps

Keep in mind the following:

1. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches can detect commercial and business opportunities.
2. Determine operational opportunities to identify resources and skills:
   • Are the resources and skills in-house/in the supply chain?
   • Are new suppliers required?
   • Does the organisation already have contacts related to the resources and skills it needs?
3. Asses operational and business opportunities through enterprise risk management tools.
4. Prioritise opportunities by assessing and considering potential revenue streams based on impacts.
5. Establish financial and sustainability strategy to seize business opportunities with a short-, medium- and long-term perspective

Benefits

Adopting an integrated strategic business planning process supports organisations in developing a structured approach to the identification of strategic opportunities.

Critical Activity

Strategic decision-making tool

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Risk Management
• IT
• Finance

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes and pilot tests of supporting software that anchors multiple capitals to their monetized value

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Analyse negative impact if the project were not implemented, i.e., changes in service/product to customer; link impact to organisation’s capitals; monetize the impact.
2. Analyse positive impact if the project is implemented:
   a. Screen different options of creating a new product or service
   b. Analyse costs and benefits of all options. Monetize the benefits in terms of impacts on multiple capitals.
3. Compare result of negative scenario with results yielded of positive scenario analysis. The project will be cost beneficial if the value of any given option of the positive scenario is greater than the negative scenario. If there is more than one option in the positive analysis that is greater than the forecast of the negative scenario, chose the option with the greatest multi-capital value.

Benefits

A framework built on features such as risk and opportunities assessment and monetized values of multiple capitals has helped organisations ensure strategic objectives are sound and that strategic opportunities are assessed with the same degree of rigour as strategic risks.

Critical Activity

Analysis of the organisation’s contribution to the SDGs

Involvement

Who

• Sustainability
• Strategy

How
Workshop of SDGs and periodical meetings especially when the definition of the new strategy is ongoing

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. Screen and prioritise the SDGs by looking at the organisation’s strategic objectives, the outputs and outcomes its business activities have produced.
2. Analyse targets agreed by the UN of each prioritised SDG.
3. Link these targets to the business activities, such as your procurements spend, that support your organisational strategy.
4. Drill down and analyse the indicators that measure those business activities.
5. Assess whether those business activities contribute to the target of the relevant SDG by analyzing the trend of indicators in step 4.
6. Replicate step 5 across the other UN SDGs and associated targets identified in step 1 to 3.
7. Communicate the process and your contribution in your annual integrated report.

Benefits

Assessing the distinct contribution an organisation can make to the SDGs has allowed it to understand the extent to which its strategy and strategic objectives, along with business activities, are contributing to the SDGs.

Critical Activity

Integrated consolidated information dashboard

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance and Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information with one voice

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Define a common consolidation methodology which can aggregate the data across functions by developing an internal categorization system with a cross-functional working group.
2. Share the categorization within functions and support its adoption through a change management process (e.g., initial induction, training programme, etc.).
3. Set metrics for key financial and sustainability priorities linked to strategic objectives.
4. Collect data to feed the metrics and consolidate the data according to the shared methodology.
5. Track and communicate the performance of the strategic objectives.

Benefits

Working towards an integrated dashboard has significantly helped organisations in their integrated thinking journeys, allowing them to assess and communicate interdependencies internally and report them externally.

Critical Activity (a)

Create at least one core integrated thinking group

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Sustainability
• Risk Management
• Investor Relations
• Finance
• Communications
• Business entities

How
Implement a training programme to transfer knowledge from the core integrated thinking group to the cross-functional integrated thinking group

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Create a core integrated thinking group with a limited number of people. Each integrated thinking member oversees two or three material topics.
2. Create a cross-functional integrated thinking group with a broader number of participants. Each member of the cross-functional group manages and owns a material topic.
3. The core group rolls out an initial training programme to the cross-functional group to help it understand the relevance of the material topic and how it is monitored.
4. Set quarterly meetings where the two groups discuss progress on a certain topic presented by the owner, who is a member of the cross-functional group. Invite external stakeholders to quarterly meetings to share their experience and perspective on a material topic. Also invite members of the annual integrated report team to shed light on how the progress made on material topics will be reported.
5. Quarterly meetings can become half-yearly once the organisation reaches a degree of maturity and the periodic assessment of material topics is embedded in the organisation.

Benefits

A structured and periodic assessment of material issues has benefitted organisations by driving teams to work collectivity and break down functional siloes by championing connectivity.

Critical Activity (b)

Embed the assessment in existing management and reporting streams

Involvement

Who
Strategy

How
Handover of the core integrated thinking group to the strategy executive team

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. Analyse material topics and the existing management and reporting streams.
2. Determine points of contact and analyse any gaps. Do the existing management and reporting streams already partially cover the information related to material topics?
   a. If yes, is this partial? If yes, take action to broaden it.
   b. If no, is there an area in existing management and reporting streams that could easily include it?
3. Progressively embed the assessment of material issues within existing management and reporting streams.

Benefits

Embedding the assessment of material issues in existing management and reporting streams is a key practice to ensure a periodic assessment of material issues and how they affect the ability to execute an organisation’s strategy.

Critical Activity

Grassroot innovation detection practice

Involvement

Who
Business development

How
Initial induction trains employees about the process to follow and then quarterly meetings to monitor progress

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Explore the needs of customers and assess whether your organisation has internal resources and information available to better understand the context and environment.
2. Delve into the customer’s problem and how to tackle it.
3. Convert the expectations into minimum features the product or service needs to satisfy the customer’s need. This is the litmus test of your innovative product or service and aims to reach an optimal point between the offer and the demand.
4. Test a prototype product or service with a small group of customers and refine it as you gain insights and feedback from your sample market.
5. Launch the product and apply a scaling process.

Benefits

Encouraging employees to seize opportunities by leveraging the unique insights they have on the market and customer needs fosters a strong culture based on innovation.

Critical Activity

Materiality analysis to identify the material topics

Involvement

Who

• Internal and external stakeholders
• Executive management team

How
Surveys, workshops and listening sessions with the executive management team

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Analyse the frameworks and tools, and the international and jurisdictional standards that are applicable to the organisation to conduct a materiality analysis.
2. Identify a longlist of potentially material topics. The following tools may be useful:
   a. Software analytics platform that identifies and monitors external risks and ESG issues
   b. Risk event register developed internally
   c. Media analysis
   d. ESG rating agencies’ questionnaires
   e. Enterprise risk management tool.
3. Prioritise the longlist to reach a shortlist of material topics through the following engagement activities:
   a. Listening sessions with the executive management team
   b. Internal workshops
   c. Surveys for internal and external stakeholders
   d. Webinars with external stakeholders.
4. Determine the material topics.

Benefits

Carrying out a materiality analysis has been proved to be essential in the process of understanding the dependencies and impacts of an organisation’s material capitals.

Critical Activity

Tools to support the definition of key external issues

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Sustainability
• Risk Management
• Investor Relations
• Finance
• Communication

How

• Taking existing tools and adapting them to the purpose of the process
• Setting in place a common language for the process

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. To help define the organisation’s materiality boundary:
   a. Use SASB Standards to define the materiality boundary which applies to the organisation’s industry
   b. Complement the SASB Standards information by adopting other disclosure standards and by providing disclosure over them
2. The following tools have proven to be key to this process:
   a. Software analytics platform that identifies and monitors external risks, including ESG
   b. Media analysis
   c. ESG rating agencies’ questionnaires
   d. Enterprise risk management tool

Benefits

Frameworks and tools can help organisations to build a longlist of material topics that may affect the business model, operations and strategy of the organisation.

Critical Activity

Annual impact and evidence of interest review

Involvement

Who

• Cross-functional group
• Risk Management
• Sustainability

How

• An initial induction on the purpose of the annual meeting and the process that should be followed
• Initial training programme on standards to coordinating function

Effort
Low to Medium

Key steps

1. Establish an annual meeting to address the review of material topics.
2. Share the purpose of the meeting with key cross-functional team members (Tip: having a cross-functional integrated thinking group helps to collect consistent feedback).
3. Collect the feedback that comes through the annual meeting.
4. Analyse new material topics:
   a. Assess evidence of interest by filtering the material topic through SASB’s Materiality Finder.
   b. Assess evidence of impact by looking at the extent of alignment with the organisation’s purpose.
   c. Assess evidence of financial impact by including the risks and opportunities against the company’s ESG profile (the following tools may be useful: software analytics platform that identifies and monitors external risks and ESG issues; media analysis; ESG rating agencies’ questionnaires; enterprise risk management tool)
   d. Analyse forward-looking adjustments.
   e. The material topic is moved or included after having followed this due process.

Benefits

After defining their materiality boundaries, organisations benefit in setting annual reviews where cross-functional feedback is collected and processed to address evidence of interest in additional topics.

Critical Activity

Simulation/sensitivity analysis tool

Involvement

Who

• Risk Management
• Finance

How
Roll out training programmes to assess the sensitivity analysis tool/simulation tool

Effort
High

Key steps

1. The tool based on risk assessment software runs financial and macroeconomic quantitative sustainability data and projects best- and worst-case scenarios.
2. The output of this analysis is the projection of the risks and opportunities on a modelled balance sheet and profit and loss of the organisation.
3. A similar process is followed by the finance department to quantify and project opportunities.

Benefits

A simulation tool or sensitivity analysis tool based on risk assessment software supports organisations at analyzing and modelling risks and opportunities.

Critical Activity

Integrated consolidated information dashboard

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance
• Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information with one voice

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Define a common consolidation methodology which can aggregate the data across functions by developing an internal categorization system with a cross-functional working group.
2. Share the categorization within functions and support its adoption through a change management process (e.g., initial induction, training programme, etc.).
3. Set metrics for key financial and sustainability priorities linked to strategic objectives.
4. Collect data to feed the metrics and consolidate the data according to the shared methodology.
5. Track and communicate the performance of the strategic objectives.

Benefits

Adopting integrated dashboards is a key tool for providing data that measures an organisation’s progress towards delivering its strategic objectives using KPIs. Organisations also say that working towards an integrated dashboard has significantly helped them in their integrated thinking journeys, allowing them to assess and communicate interdependencies internally and report them externally.

Critical Activity

Integrated consolidated information dashboard

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance
• Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information with one voice

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Define a common consolidation methodology which can aggregate the data across functions by developing an internal categorization system with a cross-functional working group.
2. Share the categorization within functions and support its adoption through a change management process (e.g., initial induction, training programme, etc.).
3. Set metrics for key financial and sustainability priorities linked to strategic objectives.
4. Collect data to feed the metrics and consolidate the data according to the shared methodology.
5. Track and communicate the performance of the strategic objectives.

Benefits

Integrated dashboards can be a key tool to collect data to measure the value an organisation has created, preserved or eroded over time across their material capitals. An integrated consolidated information dashboard allows organisations to collect and consolidate information in a unique form.

Critical Activity

Analyzing the organisation’s contribution to the SDGs

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance
• Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information with one voice

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Screen and prioritise the SDGs by looking at the organisation’s strategic objectives, the outputs and outcomes its business activities have produced.
2. Analyse targets agreed by the UN of each prioritised SDG.
3. Link these targets to the business activities, such as your procurements spend, that support your organisational strategy.
4. Drill down and analyse the indicators that measure those business activities.
5. Assess whether those business activities contribute to the target of the relevant SDG by analyzing the trend of indicators in step 4.
6. Replicate step 5 across the other UN SDGs and associated targets identified in step 1 to 3.
7. Communicate the process and your contribution in your annual integrated report.

Benefits

Assessing the distinct contribution an organisation can make to the SDGs supports organisations in also shedding light and starting working on their impacts.

Critical Activity

Integrated consolidated information dashboard

Involvement

Who

• Mainly Finance
• Sustainability
• All departments collaborate

How
Initial change management process supported by training programmes to push all departments to consolidate data and information with one voice

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Define a common consolidation methodology which can aggregate the data across functions by developing an internal categorization system with a cross-functional working group.
2. Share the categorization within functions and support its adoption through a change management process (e.g., initial induction, training programme, etc.).
3. Set metrics for key financial and sustainability priorities linked to strategic objectives.
4. Collect data to feed the metrics and consolidate the data according to the shared methodology.
5. Track and communicate the performance of the strategic objectives.

Benefits

Adopting integrated dashboards is a key tool to delivering data that can be regularly assessed against strategic objectives and ultimately against the purpose of an organisation. Organisations also say working towards an integrated dashboard has significantly helped them in their integrated thinking journeys, allowing them to assess and communicate interdependencies internally and report them externally.

Critical Activity

Internal consolidated methodology booklet

Involvement

Who

• Sustainability
• Finance

How
Change management process on data collection regarding sustainability-related data

Effort
Medium to High

Key steps

1. Define owners of the internal booklet project among functions.
2. Draft a longlist of indicators you shall be including in the booklet, then prioritise them to obtain a shortlist from which you shall start.
3. Allocate sets of the short-listed indicators to cross-functional owners of the internal booklet project. They will oversee the drafting of a methodological approach and rationale for each of the shortlisted indicators.

Benefits

An internal consolidated methodology booklet can establish and regulate the approach, methodology and consolidation adopted to compute sustainability-related data by defining indicators, KPIs and reporting processes to be followed.

Critical Activity

Table of reference of the <IR> Framework

Involvement

Who

• Communications
• Finance
• Sustainability
• Owners of the sections across all functions

How
Initial induction and training programme on the <IR> Framework and application

Effort
Medium

Key steps

1. Build the backbone of your integrated report by including all key aspects of the <IR> Framework and create a template with key points for each section of the report.
2. Identify executives across all functions who will contribute to the drafting process of the integrated report and provide detailed and comprehensive data for the section that informs stakeholders about the activities carried out by their function.(Tip: consider inductions with the executives to share the purpose of what they will be doing, the role the activities have in the value creation model of the organisation and the impacts they have on the capitals; this can increase engagement and allow employees to feel represented in the report)

Benefits

Allows an organisation to build a structured process to develop its integrated report.

Critical Activity

Creating a core integrated thinking group

Involvement

Who

• Strategy
• Sustainability
• Risk Management
• Investor Relations
• Finance
• Communications
• Business entities

How

• Training programme
• Quarterly meetings

Effort
High

Key steps

1. Create a core integrated thinking group with a limited number of people. Each integrated thinking member oversees two to three material topics.
2. Create a cross-functional integrated thinking group with a broader number of participants. Each member of the cross-functional group manages and owns a material topic.
3. The core group rolls out an initial training programme to the cross-functional group to help it understand the relevance of the material topic and how it is monitored.
4. Set quarterly meetings where the two groups discuss progress on a certain topic, presented by the owner, a member of the cross-functional group. Invite external stakeholders to quarterly meetings to share their experience and perspective on a material topic. Also invite members of the annual integrated report team to shed light on how the progress made on material topics will be reported.
5. Quarterly meetings can become half-yearly once the organisation reaches a degree of maturity and the periodic assessment of material topics is embedded in the organisation.

Benefits

Setting up a core integrated thinking group drives teams to work collectivity and break down functional siloes by championing connectivity.