Existing indexes and measuring systems are not sending the right signals to drive the necessary change in corporate and investment behavior, perhaps even leading us to think that incremental change is a substitute for the sometimes necessary transformation in business models. At the crux of this problem has been the lack of a clear picture of where science tells us we need to aim. That’s where The Natural Step and the Future-Fit Business Benchmark have something to contribute.

The Future-Fit Business Benchmark is all about challenging the way sustainable business performance is being defined and measured. The need for a new approach stems from a growing recognition that the current way we value business performance is not supporting environmental protection and social progress in the way that it should. More and more voices are speaking up now about the need to move away from incremental improvement to be ‘less bad’ and that there is a problem with talking about best practice in isolation from the global crisis and existential threat of un-sustainability. It is simply not enough if we are really serious about creating a thriving future.

In the words of John Elkington, pioneer of the concept of the triple bottom line, ‘the Future-Fit Business Benchmark is an idea who’s time has come’.

It’s rather obvious that we all need to do better if we want a thriving future. The window of opportunity is closing and business risks are increasing, so there’s clearly a business case to all this.

The real question we need to ask ourselves is: ‘When we sum up our activities, are we part of the problem, or truly part of the solution?’

How can we tell?  The starting point is to define our ambition or full intent:
A future-fit business is one that in no way undermines the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth.

A science-based systems view of sustainability helps us to understand the drivers of today’s global challenges and the requirements for society to be met. The system conditions for a sustainable society (sustainability principles) promoted by The Natural Step form a peer-reviewed definition of where we need to aim. Many businesses we’ve worked with over the years have used these to assess their role and reach, before translating these into ultimate objectives and intermediate goals specific to their organisation and continue to enjoy the related benefits.

The Future-Fit Business Benchmark looks at a generic business and how it interacts with stakeholders to define a set of universal break-even goals and positive pursuits.

For society to become future-fit, it is insufficient to look at available ‘best practices’. To become future-fit, and ensure the possibility that we can flourish on Earth forever, every company – no matter what its size or sector – must reach specific thresholds of performance across a range of social and environmental issues.

The Future-Fit Business benchmark includes 23 goals that when taken together define the social and environmental break-even point that any company must reach to gain its entry ticket to a sustainable future.

The sustainability principles and framework promoted by The Natural Step are grounded in systems thinking, consensus on upstream causes and the science of what we need to do to create a sustainable society. 

The Planetary Boundaries research has identified 9 key parameters that indicate how the Earth system is being destabilized (predominantly human behaviour) and being pushing out of the relatively stable Holocene period into a state that is less favourable for humans, the Anthropocene. By aligning with the social and ecological system conditions for a sustainable society, thereby addressing the key causes driving these indicators accross thresholds, one can avoid tipping the planet and running into the issues identified in the planetary boundaries research.

Since the Future-Fit Business goals define what a business needs to do to align with these system conditions, one can conclude that Future-Fit Businesses do not contribute to tipping the planetary boundaries.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a set of 17 objectives, and related indicators, that represent the priorities for sustainable development. Almost all nations on the planet have committed to achieving these by the year 2030.

The TNS Framework and the Future-Fit Goals are cross-referenced with many different indicators and frameworks. This offers a way for companies to accelerate and demonstrate their contribution to the global agenda. We must also recognize that the process of sustainable development continues beyond the year 2030 and aligning with the scientific requirements for a sustainable society allows proactive solutions beyond that point.

Some companies have begun talking about becoming ‘net-positive’ – going beyond zero harm to become restorative – but there is a risk that claiming to be net-positive in one area can come at the expense of another or be selected as a way to draw attention away from other problems. We need to meet thresholds for sustainability across the board and all use the same yard-stick! It’s therefore critical to have a credible and independent way to measure and compare performance, even past the break-point. That’s what the Future-Fit Business Benchmark offers.

In essence, the benchmark provides new metrics for a proven planning framework that The Natural Step has been developing and testing since the launch of The Natural Step in 1989! For us, this is a great new opportunity to go further and integrate the learning as this will enrich our overall approach. We are already breaking new ground by connecting it with our experience in managing the sustainability transition within organisations. We also believe that those wanting to become Future-Fit will benefit more than ever from using our framework to guide their journey, engage personnel, go deeper into the meaning of sustainability principles, develop inspiring visions and create customized roadmaps to get there.

Thousands of organisations around the world are already applying the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development and its sustainability principles to define their own unique and positive place in a sustainable world and navigate towards it. What the Future-Fit Business Benchmark adds to this is a set of universal goals for all businesses to interpret sustainability principles, as well as a new way to assess and compare progress in a consistent and meaningful way.

If you’ve worked with our framework, you’ll now benefit from having a way to cross-reference your own sustainability goals with the universal goals in the benchmark and a way to measure progress that is comparable with others. You’ll also recognize that ‘backcasting from success’ involves much more than meeting the universal performance benchmark and that’s where our framework, methodology and tools continue to be of use.

Reality shows that benchmarking with the past, peers, or short-term goals is insufficient to accelerate required progress. It requires benchmarking with a future state. The concept of backcasting – planning from a future position of success – is at the core of our work. The Natural Step is known for backcasting from sustainability principles.

The definition of future-fitness is all about beginning with the end in mind, defining the desired future state for sustainable business that we all need to achieve. The required state is an entirely different reference point and one that is critical when the trends we can see are part of the problem and when we need a better way to accelerate true performance toward sustainability.