Brodeur Partners Announces Data-Driven Diagnostic – Active Purpose (AP) – to Help B2B Companies Meet the Increasing Demands on CSR-Sustainability in Supply Chains
Brodeur Partners today announced Active Purpose (AP), a data-driven diagnostic aimed at helping B2B organizations step-change their CSR-Sustainability communications and reporting efforts. The proprietary offering will also include a series of benchmarking research reports supported by a strategic academic partnership with Baruch College’s Weissman Center for International Business, and its annual CSR-Sustainability MonitorÒ. Brodeur’s first benchmarking research report is scheduled to be released in mid-March, 2020.
AP answers increasing demands on transparency and accountability
Active Purpose is a major business imperative as more and more stakeholders look into a company’s supply chain. Because supplier CSR-Sustainability actions directly affect their customers’ reputations, they are increasingly making procurement choices that position their supply chains as ethical, environmentally sustainable, fair and diverse, and transparent. This has put increased pressure on B2B suppliers, and to win and sustain contracts, B2B suppliers will need to ace ESG ratings and communicate; and report their ESG progress.
‘Relevance’ underpins AP
Customers, investors, the media and watchdogs expect B2B companies to drive action in their social purpose and sustainability practices – demonstrating in their workplaces and across their value chains commitments and concrete progress. In this new normal, B2B companies need to step up their efforts with meaningful action in order to stay relevant to their customers and other key audiences.
“Active Purpose is the standard of doing business in an increasingly transparent and accountable world,” said Brodeur Partners CEO Andrea “Andy” Coville. “Active Purpose – as measured by performance in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) areas – has become critical for B2B companies. Brodeur’s three-and-a-half decades of B2B experience, combined with our Relevance planning and research offering, and Scott Beaudoin’s, Brodeur’s head of social purpose and sustainability, twenty-plus-years of CSR-Sustainability experience uniquely positions us to support B2B companies well into the future.”
A proprietary data-driven approach will drive AP
Brodeur’s academic strategic partnership with Baruch College, which combines their CSR-Sustainability Monitor, an annual report including data on the scope and quality of CSR-Sustainability reports from the world’s leading companies, and Brodeur’s Relevance research methodology will create a new B2B research instrument to support them on their AP journeys. This new solution will enable B2B companies to quickly assess the gaps and develop communications and reporting strategies.
“Baruch College’s CSR-Sustainability Monitor is the industry’s best kept secret. The annual study compares the scope and quality of the largest global companies’ CSR-Sustainability reports and helps provide consistency and transparency in how companies are communicating their AP results,” added Scott Beaudoin. “This strategic partnership will allow us to provide a unique data-driven approach to helping our clients step-change their CSR-Sustainability communications efforts.”
AP diagnostic will include four key support areas
- Issues & Insights Benchmarking – a series of ‘state-of-play’ research reports and an always-on dashboard to keep clients ahead in their industries, as well as their issues
- Strategic Blueprinting – a content-based framework structured around a company’s ‘true-north,’ what’s most material to their business, and their societal goals grounded in modern reporting frameworks
- Communications Campaign Planning – an active planning platform that moves companies from passive disclosures and metrics to more active impacts; and creative storytelling and engagement with key audiences
- Stakeholder Mapping – a co-created, collaborative methodology to move from passive stakeholder engagement to active stakeholder impact