If there is a question about companies' performance that you think is important to know about, and there are not any existing metrics that capture this information, then it’s time to create a new Metric!
On the Metric page click “Add Metric”, which will direct you to a form where you can fill in the following information:
Metric Name: This follows the format “Metric Designer+Metric Title. Metric Designer is the person or organisation that thought up the metric. The Metric Title is a clear, succinct title that can be shown all over Wikirate when the metric appears in a list).– for example “Total Waste Recycled”, as seen in the image below.
Question: Formulate the question your metric is asking about companies. Try to be as concise and thorough as possible. Make sure to include the unit measure if relevant.
Topics: Topics function like tags, helping others to find your metric. Add topics such as a specific sustainability topic, Metric Designer (in the example case GRI), and codes that may be linked to the metric (such as G4-EN23)
Value type: Select one of the following types:
Number - Number cards can contain only numerical values
Money - this is automatically set as US dollars
Category – for example, 'Yes' / 'No'
Free Text – for questions that require a qualitative response, or have a variety of possible responses (like Country or Region)
Research Policy: To allow other WikiRate users to help research values for this Metric, select Community Assessed (this is the most common Research Policy selection for WikiRate users). Designer Assessed metrics are researched by independent organisations and imported onto WikiRate - these allow only the metric designer to add new values.
Report type: Select the type of report that can be used to find the values specific to this metric (CSR / Conflict Minerals).
The image below shows this form as filled out.
After clicking Submit, your Metric has been created, and the next stage is to fill in your About and Methodology sections. You can always add more detail or edit them after further research.
About: Provide a short description of what this Metric is about, its relevance, why companies report on this and how it is valuable. Any information that sheds light on what the metric means is important to note.
Methodology: Rule of thumb is to keep this simple to begin with, and improve upon it once the metric value research is underway. In the below example, we start with details from the GRI G4 compliant reports on determining the total volume of water withdrawn. If most companies only report on volumes for individual source types, then these should be added together to produce the value the Metric asks for. Noting this in the methodology helps provide clues for what others can look for in their research. The better the instructions in the methodology section, the more likely it is that people will contribute to the research effort.
Add more detail to the Value Type if needed:
Units are measurements like tonnes, joules, cubic metres, etc. Look at a few different reports to see how companies report on this specific data. Do most use kWh or rather Gigajoules? Fill in the most common measure as the Unit.
Range is applicable for values like percentages, which range from 1-100. In case there is no minimum/maximum amount leave this blank.
Options (under Category) are created to limit answers to specific categories, such as 'Yes' and 'No'.
Above the About section of the metric, there are four tabs. The Discussion tab is meant as a place for WikiRate users to discuss changes, methodologies and other anecdotes about the metric. Anything you write in this section will be added as a comment on your metric.