Reasons to take part
Companies can benefit from a sustainability performance measure including:
- analysis with more granular insights than the standard TBL
- benchmark of performance for sustainable operations
- results to support carbon reduction planning and strategy
- an empirical study with independent analysis in an easy to understand format
- comparison against the overall group of businesses taking part
- easy data collection for SMEs to gain sustainability insights without the cost and complexity of global reporting frameworks
- sustainability insights that will benefit reputation, products and brand
- support for ESG strategy and reporting
Feedback from Phase 1 companies
Comments from organisations that took part in Phase 1 - tea sector. Comments are anonymised in line with ethics guidelines.
This is great work - we would like to discuss further and work with the 7E model for our sustainability going forward.
It was useful to find out about our performance and how we could improve our sustainability. We are keen to discuss learnings and recommendations from the study.
The 7E Model for organisational sustainability can provide more detailed, granular insights on sustainability performance including aspects of environment, energy, innovation, social wellbeing, leadership & governance.
It can be used by SMEs and listed companies for a holistic, systems-thinking approach to measuring and improving sustainability performance.
The model can be used for benchmarking, comparison between sectors and companies with online data collection and integrates with TBL measurement. Data is collected to score the responses for a sustainability index using 70+ indicators. The model is flexible and adaptable for use in any sector/industry.
The 7E Model for Organisational Sustainability
The Project Plan
The project includes three phases. Phase 1 with detailed case studies of the tea sector has been completed along with employee engagement and CSR surveys.
Phase 2 will involve data collection via a sustainability survey sent to each participating company. Each company will receive a free assessment of their sustainability performance with a Company Sustainability Score (CSS) giving a 7-part score for key areas of the business, and a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) score.
Phase 1
Case Studies
Case studies of the tea sector in UK and Sri Lanka
Phase 2
UK Sustainability Survey
Online survey of several companies and industry sectors
Phase 3
Listed Companies
Listed companies - UK & Asia through secondary data
Employee Engagement Survey
Employee surveys of case study companies in the tea sector
Project Phases
Phase 1
Four case studies were analysed in the tea sector in depth which involved data collected via:
- a company sustainability survey
- data sheet submissions
- discussions with management
- employee engagement surveys
The company sustainability survey responses were analysed to score their sustainability performance on 96 indicators and give seven sectional scores and an overall company sustainability score using the 7E model.
The data gathered was analysed with further insights into materials management, the decarbonisation actions and progress. The case studies included companies of varying sizes from medium to large listed companies in the UK and Sri Lanka.
Phase 2
Phase 2 will collect data via a reduced online survey from participating organisations. Each participant will receive an overall score for sustainability and seven scores for each section of the model (7Es). Further insights will include materials management, decarbonisation and community impact/ CSR.
Phase 3
Phase 3 will score organisations using published data and reports. The model can also be be used to check sustainability data submitted by respondents.
Employee Engagement Surveys
Employee surveys were completed for Phase 1 companies. This covered 1160 respondents from all four companies, including online and paper surveys in three languages. The results were analysed statistically and employee behaviours analysed for each company showing typical behaviour clusters.
This methodology can be applied to any company.