strategy and reporting services
A clear sustainability strategy and consistent reporting are foundational to an effective sustainability program. As each organization's culture, resources, and external pressures are different, our work is always tailored to each client's unique needs.
Strategy Development
We provide actionable insight that supports long-term, strategic planning and measurable progress to substantive goals, rather than isolated one-off initiatives. We design strategies that account for anticipated business growth and product expansion, reinforce the organization's sustainability narrative, and support brand positioning.
Depending on client needs, the process may begin with internal progress summaries, move into identifying material issues and opportunities, benchmarking peers, and setting goals aligned with resources, values, and internal processes. From there, we help define short-, medium-, and long-term targets and associated metrics that translate high-level goals into practical action.
Materiality Assessments
Materiality assessments and double materiality assessments are structured processes to identify which environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics matter most to the business and its stakeholders.
They typically combine input from internal and external stakeholders to prioritize issues by their impact on the organization, people, and the environment, enabling a focused approach to strategy, targets, and reporting. This helps organizations concentrate on a mangeable set of priority topics rather than spreading resources thinly across lower-relevance issues.
A double materiality assessment is a tool for companies to evaluate materiality from two perspectives: how the company impacts the environment and society, and how sustainability issues affect the company’s financial health and value.
As a practical foundation for a sustainability strategy, materiality links ESG topics directly to business risk, opportunity, and stakeholder expectations. It clarifies where to act first, informs KPIs and governance, and provides a defensible basis for what is included or excluded from disclosures.
Several major regulations and standards now anchor disclosure in materiality, including the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and associated ESRS standards, as well as ISSB's IFRS S1.
We help organizations design and execute materiality assessments that efficiently identify focus areas and guide their strategic path forward.
Metrics & KPIs
Achieving sustainability goals and objectives requires that all parts of the organization be aligned on what constitutes success. We are strong proponents of establishing goals that are linked to metrics that are understandable and guide clients away from generalities and towards specific outcomes.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) help operations staff and management when they are focused on elements that are critical to achieving a desired outcome. As an example, monitoring water use per unit of revenue is directly linked to water reduction performance.
In addition to helping staff, metrics and KPIs are critical to regulatory and voluntary reporting from CSRD to CDP and various other reporting structures.
Our team has extensive experience helping organizations align goals with metrics and KPIs such that the organization knows where it stands and can initiate timely changes to achieve its sustainability performance goals.
Circularity
We work with clients to develop circularity initiatives that keep materials and products in use longer, design out waste, and reduce reliance on virgin resources. Drawing on deep circularity expertise, we support organizations in identifying the most important processes to optimize, including those that are harder to reach.
Engagements often begin with mapping material flows, from sourcing through manufacturing scrap, packaging, returns, and end-of-life, then setting targets to reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle. Initiatives can include redesigning products for durability and repairability, increasing recycled or bio-based content, creating take-back or buy-back programs, and forming partnerships with recyclers or refurbishing vendors to turn waste streams into new feedstock or second-life products.
We also help clients implement reusable packaging systems, optimize cutting and forming processes to reduce scrap, and track waste-diversion metrics and associated cost- and carbon-savings.
Strong circularity programs can reduce exposure to volatile raw material markets, stabilize supply and input costs, and create new revenue streams such as repair services, resale, or product-as-a-service models.
End-of-Useful Life Strategies
Every product (or portion of a product) will reach the end of its useful life, where usefulness is directly related to the value the user places on the product. For some products, the packaging immediately becomes "useless" once the product is removed. For other products, uselessness is a variable dependent on changing preferences, loss of functionality or quality, technological advancements, or increasing costs of use and maintenance.
There is increasing regulatory attention on responsibility for what happens to products (or portions of products) which are no longer useful. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is an example where producers are required to establish collection programs to manage products when no longer wanted or packaging that is discarded once the contents are removed.
We have worked with companies in the personal products industry (hair care, cosmetics, etc.) on developing packaging strategies that facilitate the development of circular systems and similarly engaged with apparel industry businesses in creating strategies to recover unwanted products and reintroducing them into commerce or recycling the materials in the product.
A key aspect of what what we do is to weigh the environmental benefits and potential negative impacts of extending product/material useful life to ensure overall environmental gain is achieved.
Corporate Sustainability Reporting
Corporate sustainability reporting, whether branded as a sustainability report, corporate social responsibility report, impact report, or similar, is a key component of managing a sustainability program. These reports communicate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance to stakeholders, helping build trust and credibility.
Because they are typically produced annually, these reports support regular monitoring of targets and KPIs, promote internal accountability, and encourage continuous improvement over time.
As investors increasingly integrate ESG information into their decision-making, high-quality reporting can improve access to capital and strengthen appeal to long-term, responsible investors. A good corporate sustainability report can also enhance reputation and stakeholder loyalty, contributing to long-term business value.
At BWK, we assist organizations in structuring, drafting, and editing sustainability reports across a wide range of industries, aligning content with relevant standards and stakeholder expectations. One of our early projects was working with New Balance to help create their very first Responsible Leadership Report, a report that is still produced annually to this day. Valuing brands' individuality, we work with teams to craft meaningful stories reflecting their sustainability journeys and successes.
CDP Reporting
Disclosing climate, water, and forest information through CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) helps companies meet the expectations of investors and customers using a common data platform. Strong CDP scores signal that an organization takes environmental issues seriously and can enhance reputation, trust, and attractiveness to employees, customers, and partners.
CDP reporting is a demanding process. It involves detailed questionnaires, evolving scoring rules, tight timelines, and high expectations for data quality and verification. Achieving a strong climate score for instance, requires evidence of board-level governance, comprehensive and methodologically robust Scope 1, 2, and applicable Scope 3 emissions, appropriate third-party verification, clear and time-bound targets (often science-based), credible transition plans, and well-developed analyses of climate risks, opportunities, and scenarios.
We support clients throughout the CDP process, from identifying areas that need to be strengthened to improve scoring, structuring responses, and advising on technical aspects of the questionnaire.
