What we call a ‘Camel Analysis’ is a thorough and detailed materiality analysis, aiming to map the company’s strategically important sustainability issues. Strategically important issues are the business’ biggest impacts on climate, environment and social issues, but also where it makes the most business sense, from a sustainability perspective, to invest resources for action.
The analysis consists of three parallel studies of different perspectives that afterwards are weighted together:
- product perspective
- business perspective
- Stakeholder and world-wide perspective
Product perspective
We use a life cycle perspective to investigate the impact of one, or a certain number of products, and at what stage the product causes the biggest problem. In other words, it is about a perspective where the approach “from cradle to grave” is used. In our investigation we have access to international databases as well as our own experiences and previous analysis work.
The purpose of the product perspective is to:
- Be assured that a particular product has not caused damage from a sustainability perspective during its production, use or consumption
- Derive the company’s own impact from specific products
- Generate an overview of a product’s overall impact from a sustainability perspective, which is crucial in the work on a sustainable business perspective
Business perspective
This is undertaken to get a picture of the company’s own impact. It maps the company’s impact from different branches of activity and plants awareness with a handful of key employees within the company at an early stage.
The activities are mapped in collaboration with the company’s key personnel and have the following advantages:
- The division follows the company’s current organizational structure and can be a basis for sustainability reporting
- Sustainability impact is highlighted within a company’s own areas of control
Stakeholder and external monitoring
Stakeholder and external monitoring are about looking at the issue from the perspective of several stakeholders. What does the situation look like from a branding perspective? From a business perspective? What do staff say and what do they think is important? The purpose is to map the different perspectives that often give different pictures of the situation. Often a business intelligence analysis is added where competitors’ work is mapped and good examples are highlighted.
Widening perspective
A Camel analysis is completed when the results of the three perspectives are analyzed, evaluated and collated based on accepted ecological principles and related to relevant environmental factors such as the planetary boundaries, the ISO 26000 or the Donut Model. The camel analysis results in a number of ranked areas that are considered to be the ones that have the greatest impact on future sustainability and can have the greatest effect from a business perspective.
