Appendix 4. Planning Forms for Assessing and Prioritizing Sustainability Risks and Opportunities

• Author: William R. Blackburn
• Pages: 703-707

Appendix 4

Planning Forms for Assessing and Prioritizing

Sustainability Risks and Opportunities

Comments on Forms A, B, and C

When completing the forms, a rating system of 1 to 5 is suggested but

other rating scales can also be used. Ratings of overall importance or pri-

ority for a line item entered in column i of Forms A or B may be calcu-

lated as a sum or multiple of the other scores entered on the line, or alter-

natively, may be merely a reflection of the general feeling about the im-

portance of the item obtained after glancing at those other scores. While

scores from Form C (impact assessment of sustainability trends) should

be reviewed in completing column f on Form A, this will not usually war-

rant a straight transfer of scores. That’s because there may be several

trends from C—or none at all—that are linked with a given sustainability

topic listed in A. For example, the trend involving “Fresh Water Deple-

tion; Water Contamination” (see Appendix 1.18); and the one on the

“Spread of Hazardous Pollutants” (see Appendix 1.22) may both be rele-

vant to the topic of addressing soil contamination. Formal mathematical

rigor is not required, and scoring can be based on individual judgment af-

ter scanning any relevant information from Form C. In the end, though,

trends with high ratings for business risk or business opportunity should

merit action.

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