Dictionary

An absolute target is a goal expressed as a total amount of change, regardless of changes in production, revenue or activity levels.

Aggregation and disaggregation concern when information is combined for reporting and when it is separated to preserve material differences.

The deliberate process of making strategies, requirements, incentives, data or actions consistent enough to support a shared objective without necessarily making them identical.

The level, scale or pace of improvement an organisation seeks to achieve relative to a sustainability challenge, benchmark or pathway.

Anticipated financial effects are expected changes to financial position, performance or cash flows arising from sustainability-related risks and opportunities.

An Article 8 fund is a financial product category under SFDR associated with promoting environmental or social characteristics, subject to the framework's disclosure rules.

An Article 9 fund is a financial product category under SFDR associated with having sustainable investment as an objective, subject to the framework's disclosure rules.

The condition in which sustainability information, processes and controls are sufficiently defined, documented, evidenced and governed to support an independent assurance engagement without major reconstruction.

An audit trail is a documented record showing how information was created, changed, reviewed and approved, so that reported data can be traced back to evidence.

A planning method that starts from a desired future state and works backwards to identify the steps needed to reach it — the opposite of forecasting.

A balanced scorecard is a management tool that tracks performance across multiple dimensions rather than a single financial or operational measure.

A documented reference condition, value or scenario against which change is assessed, defined for a specific indicator, population, boundary and point or period in time.

Benchmarking is the comparison of performance, practice or position against peers, standards, historical results or other reference points.

Voluntary action that goes further than the minimum legal or mandatory requirement applicable to an organisation.

A critical term for presenting an organisation as more socially responsible, ethical or aligned with recognised social principles than its underlying conduct and evidence justify.

Generic, reusable reporting language that could apply to many organisations and therefore provides little entity-specific information about material sustainability circumstances, decisions or performance.

A business case is the rationale for an action or investment, including expected benefits, costs, risks and strategic relevance.

Fundamental change to how a firm creates, delivers and captures value so that the model itself generates positive environmental and social outcomes rather than treating them as add-ons.

CDP is a disclosure platform through which organisations report environmental information, commonly including climate, water and forests data.

The consortium whose reporting framework seeded the TCFD recommendations; consolidated into the IFRS Foundation in 2022 to help build the ISSB standards.

The structured management of the people, process and cultural transition required for an organisation to adopt and sustain a materially different way of working.

An intensive, multi-stakeholder design workshop — typically multi-day with iterative feedback loops — used in planning and sustainable-building projects to align goals early.

A senior executive role responsible for integrating material sustainability issues into strategy, governance, organisational performance and external accountability.

The practice of companies and financial institutions publicly reporting climate-related risks, opportunities, governance, strategy and emissions — now shifting from voluntary frameworks to mandatory law.

A collaborative process in which relevant actors jointly shape a solution, intervention or decision rather than merely commenting on a design produced elsewhere.

A group of organisations or actors that deliberately combine influence, resources or expertise around a shared sustainability objective while retaining their separate identities.

A declared obligation to pursue a defined sustainability objective, backed by sufficient governance, resources and accountability to make delivery a real organisational responsibility.

The standardised set of tables in which Annex I countries report greenhouse gas inventories to the UNFCCC.

The mandatory annual disclosure through which UN Global Compact participants report on implementing the Ten Principles.

A behaviour-change methodology that identifies barriers to sustainable actions and designs targeted tools to overcome them.

Comparability is the quality that allows users to understand similarities and differences between reported information across organisations, periods, products or methods.

The GHG Protocol principle requiring that an inventory account for all emissions sources within the chosen boundary.

A fee charged to vehicles entering or driving within a defined urban zone, intended to reduce traffic, emissions and congestion at peak times.

One of the five GHG Protocol accounting principles: use consistent methods and boundaries over time so emissions data can be compared meaningfully.

A structured process in which an organisation seeks stakeholder views early enough to inform a decision and then considers and responds to that input.

A recurring, evidence-led cycle of setting expectations, monitoring performance, correcting causes and raising results over time.

The process by which separate sustainability standards, practices, expectations or methods become more similar or compatible over time.

A strategic approach in which companies pursue long-term value creation by managing environmental, social and governance performance as core business concerns.

Cost of inaction is the expected loss, risk or missed opportunity associated with delaying or avoiding action.

Course correction is the adjustment of actions, resources or strategy when progress, evidence or circumstances differ from expectations.

The decline in responsiveness, care or cooperation that can occur when people or organisations face repeated, overlapping or poorly coordinated requests for sustainability information.

Breaking the link between economic growth and environmental pressure — relative when impacts grow more slowly than GDP, absolute when impacts fall while GDP rises.

The tendency of people to stick with a pre-selected option, making defaults one of the most powerful levers in behavioural choice architecture.

A social norm describing what people actually do — "most guests reuse their towels" — as distinct from injunctive norms about what people ought to do.

Everett Rogers's theory of how innovations spread through a social system over time, classifying adopters from innovators (2.5%) to laggards (16%).

Digital tagging is the process of attaching machine-readable labels to reported information so that it can be searched, compared and processed more efficiently.

A disclosure datapoint is a specific item of information, metric, narrative response or tagged element requested within a reporting framework.

Do no significant harm is a principle requiring that an activity contributing to one environmental objective should not materially undermine other specified environmental objectives.

The principle that a sustainability matter may be material because of an organisation's impacts on people or the environment, because it creates financial risks or opportunities for the organisation, or...

The principle that the materiality of sustainability issues is not fixed: issues migrate from impact to financial materiality as contexts, evidence and expectations change.

The WBCSD's 1992 management concept: creating more value with less environmental impact — producing more with fewer resources and less waste.

Any innovation — product, process, organisational or marketing — that reduces environmental impact, whether or not that was its primary purpose.

A documented approach that specifies why, with whom, when and how an organisation will engage stakeholders, what can be influenced, and how input will affect decisions and follow-up.

Entity-specific disclosures are sustainability disclosures developed by an organisation to explain material matters that are not fully covered by general or sector standards.

ESEF is the European Single Electronic Format, a digital reporting format used for certain corporate financial reports in Europe.

An analyst who evaluates environmental, social and governance information to assess risks, opportunities, performance or value for a defined decision-making purpose.

ESG data management is the governance, collection, validation, storage and use of environmental, social and governance information for reporting and decision-making.

An ESG rating is an assessment by a provider of an organisation's environmental, social and governance profile, usually based on the provider's own methodology.

An ESG score is a numerical or categorical expression of an environmental, social and governance assessment, usually dependent on a specific methodology and data set.

Fair presentation is the principle that reported information should faithfully represent material sustainability matters rather than merely satisfy a checklist.

Financial materiality is the assessment of whether a sustainability matter could reasonably affect an organisation's financial position, performance, cash flows, access to finance or enterprise value.

An organisation that adopts a materially new sustainability practice, standard or market position earlier than most peers and therefore faces distinctive risks and potential advantages.

FLAG guidance refers to science-based target guidance for forest, land and agriculture emissions and removals.

A condition in which sustainability requirements, systems, data or responsibilities are divided across overlapping or inconsistent arrangements that make coherent action harder.

Gap analysis is a structured comparison between current practice or disclosure and a target requirement, standard or expected state.

A gap closure plan is a set of actions designed to address the difference between current performance and a desired target or requirement.

General Disclosure Requirements are cross-cutting requirements for reporting policies, actions, targets and metrics consistently across material sustainability matters.

A governance structure is the arrangement of roles, responsibilities, decision rights and oversight bodies used to direct and control an organisation or process.

Greenhushing is the practice of reducing, withholding or avoiding public communication about sustainability activity, often because of legal, reputational or credibility concerns.

Communication or presentation that creates a misleading impression of environmental or sustainability performance, whether through falsehood, vagueness, selective disclosure, unsupported comparison or...

GRI is a sustainability reporting standards organisation whose standards focus on reporting an organisation's impacts on the economy, environment and people.

A cognitive bias in which a strong positive or negative impression in one area disproportionately influences judgement about other, less directly evidenced attributes.

The coordinated reduction of unnecessary differences between standards, methods, definitions or requirements so that systems can work together more consistently.

IFRS S1 is a sustainability-related financial disclosure standard focused on general requirements for reporting sustainability-related risks and opportunities.

IFRS S2 is a sustainability-related financial disclosure standard focused on climate-related risks and opportunities.

A significant higher-level change, positive or negative, intended or unintended, to people, ecosystems or systems, to which an intervention or organisation can credibly demonstrate contribution.

Impact materiality is the assessment of whether an organisation's activities, relationships or value chain have significant actual or potential effects on people or the environment.

An impact pathway is a description of how activities are expected to lead to outputs, outcomes and longer-term impacts.

The use of impact language or claims that overstate, mischaracterise or insufficiently evidence the positive change attributable or contributable to an organisation, investment, product or programme.

Impacts, risks and opportunities are the effects an undertaking has or may have, the sustainability-related uncertainties it faces, and the potential benefits it may realise.

The distance between an agreed policy, standard, strategy or commitment and the capabilities, actions and results achieved in practice.

An input is a resource, activity, investment or condition used to produce an output or support an intended outcome.

Integrated reporting is an approach to corporate reporting that connects financial and non-financial information to explain how an organisation creates, preserves or erodes value over time.

An intensity target is a goal expressed relative to another unit, such as emissions per product, revenue, employee or activity level.

An interim target is a nearer-term milestone used to track progress toward a longer-term objective.

The combined people, knowledge, processes, systems, decision rights and organisational routines that allow an organisation to perform sustainability work reliably without excessive dependence on individual...

ISSB is the International Sustainability Standards Board, a standard-setting body focused on sustainability-related financial disclosure for capital markets.

iXBRL is inline extensible business reporting language, a digital reporting format that embeds structured machine-readable tags within human-readable report content.

A key performance indicator is a selected metric used to track progress against an objective, target or management priority.

An organisation or actor that adopts a relevant sustainability practice substantially later than peers, market expectations or the evolving level of required performance.

A lagging indicator is a measure that reflects performance or outcomes after an activity, event or reporting period has occurred.

A coordinated, place-based effort in which multiple actors work across land uses and jurisdictions to improve shared environmental, social and economic outcomes within a defined landscape.

A relative claim that an organisation performs, acts or influences at a level meaningfully ahead of prevailing peers or expectations on a defined sustainability issue.

A leading indicator is a measure that signals likely future performance, risk or progress before the final outcome is observed.

Limited assurance is an assurance engagement that provides a lower level of confidence than reasonable assurance, usually expressed in a negative form of conclusion.

A logic model is a structured representation of the relationship between resources, activities, outputs, outcomes and intended impact.

A long-term target is a goal set for a future horizon that usually requires sustained planning, investment and progress tracking.

A management system is a structured set of policies, processes, responsibilities and controls used to manage objectives and performance.

A governed process for identifying and prioritising the sustainability matters that warrant management attention and disclosure under defined criteria.

The gradual, insufficiently governed expansion of what an organisation labels material, often causing a prioritisation tool to lose its ability to distinguish what matters most.

A materiality matrix is a visual tool that plots sustainability topics by relative significance, often across stakeholder and business dimensions.

A facilitated session used to examine evidence, perspectives and thresholds relevant to a materiality assessment; it is an input to materiality judgement, not the judgement itself.

A maturity model is a framework for assessing how developed a process, capability or management system is across defined stages.

A milestone is a defined point in a plan or roadmap used to mark progress, completion or a required decision.

Minimum safeguards are baseline social and governance protections that must be considered alongside environmental criteria in certain sustainable finance frameworks.

An organised forum or governance arrangement in which actors from different sectors or interest groups work over time on a shared sustainability problem.

Qualitative reporting that explains the context, strategy, governance, risks, impacts, judgements and relationships behind sustainability metrics and other disclosed information.

A near-term target is a shorter-horizon goal used to guide immediate action and measure early progress.

A net-zero standard is a rule set or framework defining how net-zero targets, reductions, removals and claims should be assessed.

NFRD refers to the earlier European Union non-financial reporting framework that required certain large companies to disclose environmental, social and governance information.

Non-financial reporting is disclosure about environmental, social, governance and other matters that are not expressed solely through traditional financial statements.

An omnibus simplification package is a legislative package that amends multiple related rules with the stated aim of reducing complexity, overlap or administrative burden.

A short- or medium-term change in behaviour, capacity, practice, condition or performance that follows from outputs and moves a system towards or away from a longer-term impact.

The products, services, capabilities or immediate deliverables produced directly by an intervention and substantially within the implementing team s control.

Ownership and accountability describe who is responsible for an issue, who has authority to act and who must answer for performance or decisions.

Peer comparison is the evaluation of an organisation, activity or metric against comparable organisations or groups.

A performance dashboard is a visual display of selected metrics, indicators or status information used to support monitoring and decision-making.

Phase-in provisions are transitional rules that allow certain disclosure, compliance or assurance requirements to be introduced over time rather than all at once.

A contested term for using 'pink' cause association to project social responsibility or progressiveness without corresponding substantive action; its meaning varies across breast-cancer, LGBTQ+ and...

Plan-Do-Check-Act is an iterative management cycle for planning action, implementing it, checking results and adjusting practice.