Most sustainability reports tell us a company did X% better than last year. But better than what?
Context-based impact reporting asks a sharper question: is it enough? It measures performance against a real limit, like what a river can safely supply, a local living wage or a science-based carbon budget. Then it reports the gap honestly.
This week’s five show what that looks like in practice.
🌿 Water use measured against each catchment’s limit (Mars)
🌿 Living wage gaps for banana workers, measured and shared (nine UK supermarkets)
🌿 A carbon budget reported like cash (University of Manchester)
🌿 Freshwater cuts set by what each river basin can bear (Holcim)
🌿 A tool to work out your own fair share (EU guidelines)
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Water availability poses growing risks to communities, ecosystems and supply chains. Mars says “effective action depends on local context and shared action”, and its Water Stewardship Position Statement sets out a context-based target. For each water-stressed catchment, Mars determines a sustainable level of water use and, by default, assumes it makes the same proportional cut as other users there. Its Sustainable in a Generation Report shows Mars cut unsustainable water use for the crops it buys by about 35.5% from 2015, short of its goal to halve it by 2025. Despite the shortfall, Mars says this context-based approach, informed by improved data and project learnings, continues to guide more targeted action. [Read more]
Many banana workers struggle to earn a living wage, which IDH defines as income enough for “a basic, yet decent, standard of living”. Nine UK supermarkets aim to change that in their banana supply chains by the end of 2027. With their suppliers, they measure the gap between each plantation’s pay and a living wage benchmark. Five of the nine started paying suppliers extra to help close that gap, covering 14.6% of bananas from plantations that fall short, by their own figures. But the gap covers the whole plantation, while each supermarket buys only a small share of that plantation’s bananas. By openly saying they most likely can’t close the gap alone, this report shows where their supply chains stand against the benchmark, not just their progress, as context-based reporting asks. [Read more]
The University of Manchester’s operational carbon emissions fell only 5% in a year, leaving it behind the cuts needed for zero carbon by 2038. Its annual performance review is context-based because it reports that fall against a carbon budget, its “fair share” of what the world can emit to stay within 1.5°C of warming. Climate scientists at the University’s Tyndall Centre worked out that share as 450,000 tonnes from 2018. By 2024 the University had used 80% of the budget, on track to exceed it by the end of 2027 without faster cuts. Staying within the budget from then on needed a 17% cut every year, compared with an average of 3% since 2018. Despite the shortfall, it expected its cuts to come in step changes, from a new solar power deal and a heat pump energy centre. [Read more]
Operational water use at Holcim could contribute to water scarcity, particularly in water-stressed regions, harming ecosystems and local water users, the company says. Using the SBTN method, it has set freshwater withdrawal targets for four priority river basins where it operates. The first, a 39% cut by 2030 in Mexico’s Moctezuma basin, was validated by SBTN in 2024, and three European basins followed in 2025. SBTN’s method works out how much a basin must cut withdrawals to stay healthy, and a company cuts its own withdrawals there by that percentage. So each Holcim target is its share of the cut that basin needs. While its statement does not report each basin’s limit or progress against these targets, the way Holcim sets them takes a context-based approach. [Read more]
You have seen others use a threshold, and here is a step-by-step method to measure your own environmental burdens against one. Life cycle assessments typically identify the lowest-burden options, but as production and consumption grow, that does not necessarily stop total burdens reaching unsustainable levels. Guidelines from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre call this method absolute environmental sustainability assessment, and list context-based sustainability assessment as a similar term. The assessment compares the burdens of a product, company or country with its share of what the environment can sustain, such as planetary boundaries. Divide each burden by its share, and a result above 1 means the burden is too high. [Discover here]
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