Future Fit

The Future-fit Business Benchmark is a self-assessment tool for companies to help manage and improve their social and environmental performance. The key feature of the tool is a list of 23 social and environmental goals that identify the financial break-even point every business must reach to “ensure it protects people and the planet,” according to futurefitbusiness.org.

The program provides detailed guidance drawn from third-party resources to enact more positive outcomes while reducing negative impacts.

The tool doesn’t just market itself to businesses – though that’s likely the core chunk of its market – but to investors and advisors as well. Investors can assess systemic risks in their portfolios and identify which companies are doing the best social and environmental work. Advisors can offer better services and solution to help companies as well.

Future-fit Business Benchmark also provides 24 “Positive Pursuits” that contain a range of outcomes that speed up progress toward achieving the social and environmental goals of the program. These pursuits are meant to guide the thinking and actions of a business.

Ultimately, these goals and pursuits are meant to contribute to achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals launched in 2015. These SDGs include goals like ending poverty and hunger, achieving gender equality and taking action on global warming.

Future-fit Foundation is a United Kingdom-registered charity that developed the Future-fit benchmark. The organization believes businesses can, and must, enact change in order to achieve a more sustainable future for the planet. It believes it can help bring about this change with its free-to-use tools.

“By 2030 we want to see mainstream global markets pursuing, recognizing and rewarding extra-financial value as much as they do financial value today,” the organization says on its website. “This is a bold ambition but a necessary one. We believe the Future-fit Business Benchmark is a critical piece of the puzzle society must solve if this ambition is to become a reality.”