Standard Owner Benchmark® Methodology
One of the biggest challenges in the sustainability industry is the need for more normalized data on sustainable procurement. Today, there are more standards that define sustainability than consumers can understand with over 1,000 existing standards and 50-100 new standards being added each year. CommonShare’s Standard Owner Benchmark® offers a comprehensive system for the comparative evaluation of Standard Owners to make it easier for brands and consumers to understand which standards are relevant and worth incorporating into their sustainable procurement plan. Our goal is to create incentives that establish a “race to the top” in digitization and best practices in sustainability, quality, labor, and origin standards.
Further, CommonShare’s Standard Owner Benchmark® allows Standard Owners to benchmark their performance against peers in the sustainable procurement market. The data powering the benchmark is continually updated through a combination of human research, machine learning algorithms, LLM driven AI, survey response, and real time management of company data within CommonShare’s platform.
The first version of the Standard Owner Benchmark® launched in April 2023. Data from members of CommonShare is used to rebalance the benchmark quarterly with data submissions required by May 31st, August 31st, November 30th, and February 28th of each year. Non-members have the opportunity to include their data on November 30th of each year.
CommonShare’s Standard Owner Benchmark® considers five dimensions as part of the benchmark: Governance, Supply Side Digitization, Buy Side Availability, Relevance and Digital Accessibility. Each Standard Owner obtains a grade between 1 and 5 for every dimension, 5 being the highest (best) grade, and 1 being the lowest. We then calculate the average from the total of all dimensions to obtain the final grade.
Obtaining a grade for each Standard Owner
We specifically look at 5 dimensions: Governance, Supply Side Digitization, Buy Side Availability, Relevance, and Digital Accessibility. Each Standard Owner obtains a grade between 1 to 5 for every dimension, 5 being the highest (best) grade, and 1 being the lowest. We then calculate the average from the total of all the dimensions to obtain the final grade.:
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Our Governance metric considers the underlying governance of the standard and the incentive structures that define the system when awarding certification. Considerations include whether or not the standard is ISEAL Code Compliant? ISEAL Alliance’s Code Compliance scheme is the highest standard for standard-setting organizations, making it a reference when it comes to certification governance. Other considerations include whether or not the standard owner uses third-party certification bodies to audit the certifications as this is helpful in avoiding conflict of interests. Finally, we look at the ownership structure of the standard. We believe that non-profit organizations are less likely to have conflicts of interests. As a result, we rate non-profit standards, standards run by decentralized companies, and standards run by democratically elected governments higher than those of private companies.