The PRIME Principles
PRIME Principles for environmentally-sustainable and responsible business.
Anatomy of a PRIME Principle
Each PRIME Principle is made up of:
- A Focus;
- A Principle; and
- Indicative Behaviours.
Focuses
The PRIME Principles are developed in support of environmentally-sustainable and responsible business.
We believe that sustainable success in business is measured not only with balance sheets and income statements, but also by the impact we can make on our environment and society.
For this reason, the three focuses for the PRIME Principles are:
- The Environment;
- Community / Society; and
- Good Governance.
Indicative Behaviours
The Indicative Behaviours are just that – examples of how the Principles can be satisfied. They’re deliberately phrased very widely.
Necessarily, these may not apply to your organisation. What they are designed to do is to give a flavour of the sort of outcomes that the Principles are designed to achieve.
For Principle 1: Being Environmentally Better, the two Indicative Behaviours are “Responsible Consumption” and “Waste Reduction / Recycling”. This describes what we mean by “Being Environmentally Better”.
Each Indicative Behaviour then has a description – eg, by “Responsible Consumption”, we mean, “only buying what your organisation actually needs; opting for reduced packaging and eliminating wastage.”
When carrying out a Self-Assessment, or submitting a request for an Official PRIME Score, you don’t need to satisfy every Indicative Behaviour – you are scoring against the Principle – but the Indicative Behaviours can be helpful in assessing how well you satisfy a Principle.
Using the PRIME Principles
The “Gold Standard” use of the PRIME Principles is in using them to help guide and inform your own Environmental, Social and Governance goals and representing the same with your Official PRIME Score.
You might also use them in setting internal staff Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), developing your marketing and communications messaging, or, if you are a social enterprise, in developing initiatives to give back to your community.
Scoring
The PRIME Principles are statements of ambition for how organisations (particularly SME’s) can satisfy Environmental, Social and Governance goals.
As the old adage goes, however, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. With this in mind, we have developed a challenging and sector-agnostic PRIME Scoring system so that you can track and manage your progress against the Principles.