Managing What Matters: Integrating Impact Measurement into Corporate Sustainability Management

Abstract

Measuring and managing impacts can support companies in demonstrating their contribution to the sustainable development goals. However, there is a risk that firms will not manage to implement impact measurement and management effectively, leading to both dissatisfaction with existing tools and criticism of corporate sustainability management practices. Temmes uses the concept of decoupling to explain how it is possible for firms to maintain organizational structures that are legitimating and formal, despite activities differing in daily practice. She discusses three commonly occurring decoupling effects in sustainability management, pressure-policy decoupling, policy-practice decoupling, and means-ends decoupling, and makes recommendations on which types of tools may help overcome such decoupling for improved sustainability management.