Our Development Council is a group of leading organizations helping us create the tools that will help every business become Future-Fit® |
Introducing the Development Council
To help business get as much value as possible
from our work we need to learn from early adopters.
Our Development Council is a group of multinational companies and investors who wish to understand and pursue true social and environmental leadership. We work closely with each member to bring Future-Fit thinking and metrics into their business, to whatever degree is helpful for them.
In exchange we gain valuable insight on how to ensure that the Benchmark is as useful and usable as possible for all businesses. We also share our latest thinking with the Development Council as a whole, giving members the opportunity to contribute to new tools ahead of publication.
What our members say
Sue Almond
Head of Audit and Assurance, Grant Thornton UK LLP
"Future-Fit is at the cutting edge in developing a simple, meaningful and effective framework that will help define the next generation of extra-financial data reporting. It is essential that robust assurance processes are in place for this evolving style of reporting to ensure we continue to build trust and integrity in this area, which is central to our purpose. Our shared values make Future-Fit a natural partner for us and we are delighted to be working with them."
Christopher Davis
International Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, The Body Shop
"The Body Shop was a pioneer of the responsible business agenda 40 years ago, thanks to the vision of our founder Anita Roddick. But the demands that we as a society are now placing on the Earth have reached unprecedented levels, and science tells us that all companies need to do more. But how much more? The Future-Fit Business Benchmark has given us the answer, in the form of a clear, science-based destination to aim for: a North Star by which to guide our journey to true sustainability."
Helen Sahi
Director of Sustainability, Avery Dennison
"In 2015 Avery Dennison committed to a set of guiding principles, grounded in the work of The Natural Step, to ensure that as a business we move toward a state of 'true sustainability'. These principles were the starting point for developing seven bold targets for 2025, which span the environmental and social impacts of both our products and our operations. Because the Future-Fit Business Benchmark is built on the same underlying science, it offers us a ready-made way to operationalize our 2025 targets, enabling us to both measure and manage progress toward them."
Susanne Stormer
Vice President of Corporate Sustainability, Novo Nordisk
"The Triple-Bottom Line has been central to the way we plan and do business at Novo Nordisk, and how we report our performance, for many years. This is true of our core business - the sale of diabetes treatments - as well as our many initiatives aimed to improve people's wellbeing across the world, through research, education and investment in healthcare infrastructure. But today’s most urgent societal challenges need systemic responses, and the Future-Fit approach is helping us to think through how we can have an even greater positive impact on society."
Richard Northcote
Chief Sustainability Officer, Covestro
Navigating the plethora of metrics available in the sustainability arena is extremely complex. At Covestro, we have developed five over-arching targets that have been embraced by the business as we embed sustainable development in everything we do. The Future-Fit approach helps us to confidently chart our progress and complements our triple bottom line approach to sustainable development. We acknowledge the need for systemic change and are committed to pushing boundaries to make the world a brighter place. By working with Future-Fit, we have the opportunity to accelerate that journey.
Amy Hall
Director, Social Consciousness, Eileen Fisher
As a Certified B Corporation with a holistic approach to business, Eileen Fisher Inc.'s partnership with Future-Fit is a natural next step. We hope that our vision for a sustainable apparel industry, complemented by the Future-Fit approach, will lead to shared learning and practical solutions for all apparel businesses. The time is now.
Ronel van der Merwe
Namdeb Sustainability Manager, DeBeers Group
We are committed to creating a lasting positive legacy, and to grow and protect the special place diamonds hold in the lives of consumers. This requires us to place sustainability at the heart of every aspect of our business and every decision we make. While we’ve done much in this regard, the Future-Fit system value approach is helping us take things to a new level. By framing all of our impacts – both positive and negative – in a holistic way, it’s encouraging us to embrace and take bold action in pursuit of clear, long-term ambitions.
Seb Beloe
Partner, Head of Research, WHEB Asset Management
WHEB Asset Management is a boutique investment business focused on investing in companies that are enabling and benefiting from the transition to a more sustainable and low carbon economy. Working with Future-Fit and other businesses that share our ambition for a sustainable future is essential in building the methodologies, insights and intellectual infrastructure to accelerate the sustainability transition.
Amy Clarke
Partner, Tribe Impact Capital
Future-Fit is an evolution of how many investors currently look at extra financial performance. It moves us towards understanding which businesses are truly adopting the principles of sustainability throughout their businesses, operationally and commercially. It helps us define and identify the businesses of tomorrow. As investors, this is an invaluable addition to the tools we use.
Faith Ward
Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Brunel Pension Partnership
Brunel’s aim as a responsible investor is to protect our clients’ and members’ interests while forging better futures by investing for a world worth living in. The Future-Fit Benchmark is a logical part of this, aiding us in assessing and monitoring our impact as we focus on long-term, sustainable investments. Our clients and members, including the EAPF, are at the heart of what we do, and as a founder member of Future-Fit we can ensure that meeting their investment goals also helps to sustain a world worth living in.
The Environment Agency Pension Fund has committed to invest 25% of the fund into sustainable investments. Future-Fit provides us with a credible framework to assess companies’ progress to being sustainable, which we believe will make them more likely to deliver strong, stable financial performance over the long term.
Rasmus Nikolaj Due Skov
Head of Group Sustainability
At Ørsted, our vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy, and we are undergoing an immense and rapid transformation of our business. In less than a decade, we became an 85% offshore wind company, and reduced the use of coal in our heat and power generation activities by more than 80%. We are well underway to reach our science-based CO2 emissions reduction target in own operations by 2023, that is, 27 years ahead of the 2-degree temperature rise scenario.
But our journey will not stop there. Our company aspires to be fit for the future, and the Future-Fit tool is enabling us to develop an holistic, science-based, understanding of our impacts and our performance as we continue with our transformation.
Member organizations
Each of these companies and investors recognizes that leadership today means much more than just being better than their peers.
Want to find out more?
We’re keen to expand the Development Council to gain insights into areas of industry that are not yet represented. If your organisation wants to help us shape and speed up the transition to a prosperous future for all, please get in touch.