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The Opportunity Evidence Base: more than 2,000 precedents of sustainability that paid
Every Nemetan recommendation is tested against a structured evidence base of more than 2,000 verified precedents, each screened against five evidence tests and traceable to the real company that proved it. It is built one precedent at a time, and it is what separates our work from brainstorming or a web search.
What counts as a Sustainability Opportunity?
We define it as a Shared Value Opportunity: a way to solve a specific sustainability problem that also creates clear, measurable business value. It has a direct impact on the business model or operations, a verifiable competitive advantage or efficiency gain, and a clear link between social and financial value.
We leave out philanthropy with no strategic link, general compliance without a transformative gain, and PR-led activity without operational depth. Avoiding a loss is not the same as creating a gain.
What are the five evidence tests?
- A clearly defined sustainability problem.
- A fully implemented response, with documented results achieved, not an ambition.
- An identifiable business benefit.
- An identifiable environmental or social benefit.
- Enough published evidence to tell reported results from projected ones.
How does a precedent get into the evidence base?
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Tag it | Classified by ESRS topic and sub-topic, by sector, and by the specific move that made it work |
| Qualify it | Categorised against established frameworks: the 9R framework for circular economy, the mitigation hierarchy for biodiversity and water, the carbon mitigation hierarchy for climate, and Creating Shared Value routes for social topics |
| Verify it | Checked against the company's own disclosure and, where relevant, independent sources such as EFRAG statistics, the World Benchmarking Alliance, the SBTi target registry and CDP scores. Only reported and achieved results count |
| Accept or reject it | Graded A or B against a fixed standard, deduplicated, and admitted only if it clears the Shared Value hurdle and all five tests |
Everything else is rejected, on the record. That is the difference between evidence and anecdote.
What does the evidence base show?
Sustainability that pays usually pays quickly. Across the completed projects that carry a computable return, the median payback is 1.40 years and the median annual return is 71 per cent. Both are medians from published cases, not a market average or a forecast.
What is Shared Value?
An idea introduced by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in 2011: a company creates its most durable value when one decision is good for the business and good for society at the same time. It is not charity, and it is not compliance. Using less material lowers your costs, a cleaner product opens a new market, better conditions attract better people. That is the only kind of Opportunity the evidence base is built to find (Harvard Business Review).
Common questions
How many precedents are in the evidence base?
More than 2,000 verified precedents, spread across every ESRS topic and sector.
Where do the precedents come from?
From each company's own primary or official disclosures, cross-checked where relevant against independent sources such as EFRAG statistics, the World Benchmarking Alliance, the SBTi target registry and CDP scores.
How is it different from an AI or web search?
Every precedent is structured, screened against the same five tests and traceable to its original source. A web search returns claims; the evidence base holds results that were achieved and documented.
Built on evidence, not generic brainstorming. Book a 20-minute call to see it at work on your own data.