QuEST Forum Announces New Best Practices Tool for Measuring and Improving Sustainability Performance

PLANO, Texas, Sept. 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- QuEST Forum has announced a new online tool that allows users to determine their company's sustainability maturity and benchmark their progress to sustainability against industry best practices. The assessment tool, branded as the QuEST Assessor, gives an organization a rating of how they perform in ten different areas of sustainability, and provides customized recommendations for improvement. The new tool is the first of its kind to streamline the entire measurement process to about 15 minutes, allowing for rapid feedback on how to improve and impact the bottom line.

The QuEST Assessor builds on an approach developed by epi (Energy Performance Index, Ltd, a British company) and BT as part of BT's Better Future Supplier Forum program which was launched in 2012.  In conjunction with our charter partners (Huawei and others) we plan to raise awareness of sustainability, educate and engage users, and provide the tools needed to implement a sustainability program that goes beyond mere compliance in any company. This assessor was developed to raise awareness of sustainability, educate and engage users, and provide the tools they need to implement a sustainability program in their company that goes beyond mere compliance. The ultimate goal is to empower companies with the ability to create an environmentally friendly strategy that considers every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment. Long term, it creates both consumer and employee value.

"Our membership of over 200 companies looks to us for guidance regarding standards and best practices, said Fraser Pajak, CEO of QuEST Forum. "We need to supply tools that demonstrate business benefits through the application of best practices in all relevant areas of the business. Now, in response to the needs of our industry, we are putting a focus on the area of sustainability." Fraser goes on to include, "This is the first tool on the market that both meets this objective, and educates users on the steps they should take to improve and track their performance over time."

A New Approach to Sustainability Benchmarking

Through an extensive analysis of existing approaches to sustainability benchmarking, QuEST Assessor uses a business model that incorporates most standards and maps them to the scale of impact it will have to the top and bottom line. All best practices have been evidenced by practical case studies drawn from within the ICT industry and are continually updated as sustainability implementation evolves and different companies demonstrate superior performance in this area.

Expected Benefits

Accessible via any browser, the New QuEST Assessor Sustainability Benchmarking Tool walks the user through a series of questions that guide them to a solution based on corporate priorities, educating them along the way. The resulting output includes a prioritised action plan that can be tracked over time. Users who implement this plan can expect to:

• Reduce CSR and supply chain risk
• Reduced costs and increased profitability through reduced resource consumption, increased worker productivity, reduced quality defect levels and reduced product cost.
• Increased sales by enabling product and service innovation through the application of sustainability tools and concepts such as eco-design, circular economy and end to end supply chain optimization.

Security and confidentiality

Since the platform was developed to be completely anonymous, the application has been secured through multiple levels of encryption software and protocols that provide multiple layers of security to protect the confidentiality and privacy of its users. Companies are benchmarked against others in their field, but without knowing which companies they are being measured against.

Data Ownership

All data input to the assessor remains the property of the user who inputs it and a user can view or modify his/her data, or ask for the data to be deleted at any time.

Availability

The QuEST Assessor tool is available now to all companies wishing to improve their sustainability initiatives while improving their bottom line. Pricing is available upon request. Contact QuEST Forum at [email protected].

SOURCE QuEST Forum

Related Links

http://www.questforum.org