How are companies' impacting on the world through treating waste?
Core Business Impact (Treating Waste)
The Impaakt Team
8 min Read Time | March 21st 2023
Key Takeaways
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling, or disposal and monitoring of different waste materials. Proper waste disposal, recycling, and repurposing can significantly curb its impact on the environment. Waste management companies aid individuals and organizations to effectively manage their waste, thereby preserving natural resources, minimizing adverse health impacts arising from improper waste disposal, and saving costs.
👉Note: Impact topics are a set of social and environmental impacts identified by the Impaakt Team to provide an additional layer of complex insight into measuring current impact. They range from general themes like Greenhouse Gas emissions and Job Creation to industry-specific topics such as Gentrification and Water Pollution. Check our Frameworks section for more information.
SDG Choice
Impact Category choice
Investment Leaders Group (ILG) theme:
SDG Choice
Impact Category choice
Investment Leaders Group (ILG) theme:
Get familiar with the 5 steps to get started as an Impaakt rater
Before building skills for a specific topic, make sure to read our Knowledge Center: Rating for Impaakt. This resource outlines the 5 steps necessary to get started as a rater and provides key information about our metrics. By going through this guide, you will ensure that you are well-informed to provide accurate ratings on any given topic.
How to rate the topic
Value
Value is the absolute impact the topic has on the planet or society. To assess the value you need to think about how positive or negative you consider the topic and the impact described.
The value is linked to the topic treated and not to the company’s specific impact. Thus, the value should hold some consistency across industries.
When deciding your rating on the value, ask yourself:
How positive do you consider impacts related to proper management, disposal, recycling, and repurposing of waste that can significantly curb the negative impact on human health and the environment to be?
Note: Due to the nature of this topic, it should be rated positive or strongly positive.
Scale
Every company directly serves society and the environment through its core business activities. Thus, a company’s biggest positive impact lies in its core business. Other positive or negative impacts arise as externalities. Keep this in mind when assessing the scale.
The scale is related to the company’s impact. It consists of three dimensions: Breadth, Depth, and Persistence.
Breadth
The breadth captures the range or extent of the company’s impact and it is related to the quantitative part of the analysis. For this topic, the breadth is multi-dimensional and can be addressed from different angles considering what is disclosed in the analysis.
When deciding the breadth, answer the following questions:
How vast is the company’s impact?
How much waste was managed by the company?
How many customers does it have?/How many people benefit from the company’s products/services?
What is the geographical reach of the company?
Depth
Depth is related to the complexity and profundity of the impact described (i.e., it's related to the extent of the impact).
When deciding the depth, answer the following questions:
How profound is the impact?
How is the company managing waste?
What key service is it providing? How unique or essential are the company’s services and products?
What type of waste is the company managing and how is this waste affecting ecosystems?
Persistence
Persistence evaluates the impact of the company over time (i.e., is linked to the duration of the impact described)
When deciding the persistence, answer the following questions:
How long-lasting is the impact described?
How permanent are the company’s waste management services?
Has the company been increasing the amount of waste managed over the years?
Examples: exercise your knowledge
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