A sustainability roadmap provides a strategic plan for prioritizing sustainability initiatives. It creates a values-driven approach that reflects the desires of all stakeholders and earns trust and buy-in from throughout your organization. With many possible sustainability initiatives, a roadmap considers materiality, investment, resources, and impact to put projects in the best order for your organization. It casts a measurable, actionable vision for your company's sustainability journey, one that everyone can get behind.   

Typically, sustainability roadmapping follows a materiality study (learn more about materiality studies here). A materiality study assesses what issues are of the highest consideration to all a company's stakeholders – from suppliers to employees to customers to investors to the environment.   

From there, we facilitate industry benchmarking to better understand how your competitors and industry leaders address these material issues. Interviews with internal and external stakeholders shed light on what sustainability initiatives are already in place and how they can be optimized to meet your company's goals.   

Equipped with all of this information, we facilitate three strategy sessions with a diverse group of stakeholders to unpack, assess, and prioritize action items. Opportunities are evaluated based on materiality, impact, feasibility, and timeline. Organizations walk away with a clear, multi-year strategic plan for incorporating sustainability efforts in a way that will resonate with all stakeholders.      

• Aligns vision across your organization that is rooted in values and market demands  

• Synthesizes hundreds of options into a strategic, multi-year action plan unique to your company 

• Encourages a sense of ownership from stakeholders 

• Builds a proactive approach to your sustainability strategy  

Before Foresight

Feeling pressure from customers to achieve a specific sustainability standard, this company approached Foresight to understand how product certifications impacted marketability in their industry and if or how they should pursue one. Instead of beginning with the specific certification, we suggested a sustainability roadmapping exercise to help them understand what they were seeing in their industry, what mattered to their stakeholders, and how to respond. 

After Foresight

Our team facilitated market research, internal and external stakeholder interviews, and a gap analysis of present initiatives to present a more holistic picture of the company's efforts. From there, we evaluated potential projects and prioritized action steps, creating their unique roadmap. Ultimately, it was decided that a different standard would better represent their values, efforts, and products. Confident in their strategic plan, they were able to change their trajectory, pursuing projects that better reflected the goals and desires of all stakeholders. The company shared this broadly throughout the organization, creating buy-in, alignment, and momentum toward its goals.