Wednesday 12 July 2017

Green standard steps up sustainability credentials

A new standard to measure and verify the benefits provided by green projects and programmes around the world has been launched.

Gold Standard's new model aims to ensure the contributions made by corporates, impact investors and government bodies towards climate change mitigation and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are credibly reported.

Established by the WWF in 2003, the group anticipates the measure will help businesses further prove their sustainability credentials are sincere, rather than used as a marketing ploy - known as 'greenwashing'.

It says the new Gold Standard for the Global Goals benchmark will also open up new avenues of funding for large green infrastructure and sustainable supply chain programmes around the world.

It will use rigorous requirements and safeguards, local stakeholder engagement and the use of independent, third-party auditors to guarantee all projects certified under it have contributed to at least three SDGs, including the target focused on Climate Action.

Thomas Vellacott, CEO of WWF Switzerland, said: "We're seeing an emerging risk of corporates simply rebranding their corporate social responsibility efforts to match the SDGs.

"What WWF would like to see is clear, consistent and comparable performance from one business to another. Gold Standard for the Global Goals provides real metrics and credible methodologies to accurately measure and report on SDG contributions."