1. How to get started on the BRM?
The BRM Dashboard / Overview
To start the assessment, navigate to the BRM dashboard. The dashboard is structured in blocks related to the different tasks and/or type of information accessible:
- Actions
- Downloads
- Assessment
- Verification
- Results
- Account
- Key Dates
- Activity History
Actions – Available actions depending on the status of your assessment.
Downloads – Download the .csv to store a version of your assessment offline or as a parent-company to provide their subsidiaries with their assessment. The .csv is a different file from the Excel download. The Excel download is meant for offline collaboration and can be found in the left side-bar on the Assessment-page.
Assessment – Here you will find the status, progress and ID of your assessment.
Verification – If you have completed and posted the BRM, verification becomes available. In this menu you will find information specific to the verification process.
Results – Once you have completed and posted the BRM assessment, your self assessment score and verified score if applicable will be shown here. BRM Results are the Scores and the Issues & Opportunities that follow from your assessment.
Account – Your account information.
Key Dates – Important dates to keep in mind regarding completing your assessment are communicated here.
Activity history – An overview of previous edits to your assessment.
On top of the dashboard page, you find the horizontal ribbon; the BRM-menu. Click the headers in the ribbon to navigate to the respective sections:
- Overview (the BRM dashboard)
- Assessment
- Scores
- Issues & Opportunities
- Verification
Left of the menu you find “BRM 2022”, you can click on the dropdown menu to select a module from a previous year. It is possible to view previous modules in the old BRM format.
Above the BRM-menu, a second horizontal ribbon contains the following options:
Dashboard – The BRM dashboard with access to the current BRM module.
Modules – Here you can access previous BRM assessments.
Benchmarking – Here you can access benchmarking of previous BRM assessment. Please note that benchmarking will not be available for BRM2022.
When you are ready to start the online assessment, click ‘View/Edit BRM’ under Actions or navigate to the assessment by clicking Assessment in the horizontal ribbon.
Assessment
The BRM assessment consists of 4 parts:
- Company Profile
- Governance
- Environment
- Social
Navigate between these sections by clicking the headers in the side-bar menu. Each section consists of several subsections; one for each Impact area.
Below the side-bar menu there are 3 buttons:
Download Excel – You can download the excel file after finishing filling out the Company Profile. The Excel download contains the full assessment, with ALL the questions that need to be filled out. The excel contains all your answers for questions already answered as well as all unanswered questions. The Excel is for data collection purposes across departments. For more information, see the next section. The Excel cannot be uploaded, the answers need to be entered manually into the assessment.
Import CSV – Use the import CSV option to upload a CSV file of the BRM assessment of a parent-company, or to overwrite answers with an older version of the assessment. The BRM CSV import feature allows a CSV file to be imported and will auto-fill any data in the file into the online assessment. It was created to allow parent- and sub-brands that share the same information to copy that common data across multiple separate BRM modules. The CSV file can be downloaded from the BRM overview page
Submit/Post – Once you have reached 100% completion rate, you can submit your BRM assessment. After submitting the assessment, it is not possible anymore to make any changes.
Above the assessment, a horizontal menu offers filtering options. The filters enable you to sort questions in the assessment on the following criteria Answered, Unanswered or Required to only see the respective questions.
There is also the option to filter on Topics. Topics are subcategories within each impact area. Click the input box to see the list with topics to choose from. The topics of each question are listed below the question.
Question boxes:
RefIDs – Each question in the BRM has a unique identifier, called a Reference ID or RefID. These are located on the top right side of each question box, and are helpful when requesting support for a specific question in the assessment.
Guidance – for every question there is guidance available in the tool. Please click “more” to open the text box with more information on how to answer the respective question. If you need more information, click the link to navigate to the respective Howtohigg section on the top of the page in that section of the assessment.
Categorisation – the section, subsection and topics that apply to each question are listed below the question. It is possible to filter on the topics in the top left of the assessment page. Click the input box to see the list with topics to choose from.
Levels – the criticality of each question is indicated below the question. A question can be marked as critical, level 1 (foundational), level 2 (progressive) or level 3 (aspirational) and gives an indication of how basic or advanced the ESG practice in question is. When analyzing BRM results, the suggested opportunities for identified issues are linked to the criticality level (see Issues & Opportunities).
2. How to engage colleagues in the BRM completion?
Depending on the size of your ESG team and the information you already gather, it will be necessary to involve a wide number of departments and specialists to complete the questions for the Self-Assessment.
Collaborating online
Make sure your team-members have access to the BRM by adding them to your team. Click here for instructions on how to add team members.
Collaborating offline
Download the assessment in excel format containing all questions with your answers as well as all unanswered questions.
When opening the excel file, the file description-tab provides an overview of the number of questions answered per section.
Each section and impact pillar has its own tab, with all the questions, answered and unanswered. All available answer options are displayed in the excel download. Use the excel to collaborate on completing the BRM assessment with colleagues cross-departmentally by assigning the questions to each responsible team member.
The BRM Excel download feature allows the sustainability or project manager to assign questions to different teams offline, and then collect and input the answers in the online tool, maintaining the integrity of their online assessment.
The BRM Excel download cannot be imported back to the tool. The excel is meant for data collection purposes across departments, the answers then have to be entered into the tool manually.
Other Recommendations
We recommend that you:
- Begin briefing your teams inter- and cross-departmentally as soon as the annual BRM cadence opens.
- Use the excel file of questions to capture ownership for the information and documentation/information required.
- See Prepare for the BRM where you will find a list of useful profiles to support your assessment.
3. How to answer the questions in the BRM? (Question by Question Guidance)
Questions need to be answered directly onto the Higg Platform. The BRM Assessment has auto-save functionality. This means that you can begin entering information into the platform as soon as you are ready and come back to the Assessment at any time. You must answer every question in order to achieve a final score.
Question Format
There are three types of questions within the BRM which require different information and data:
- Closed Questions – Here you will be asked to provide a Yes/No answer to the question.
- Multiple Choice Questions – Here you will be asked to select one or more answer options.
- Data Questions – For some Impact Areas you will be asked to provide key data to evidence certain activity. These questions are not scored.
When you enter the Assessment the questions are structured by Pillar and Impact area so you can move around the platform and fill in the questions as you receive the information.
Each question is numbered against the section it belongs to, has information about the Impact Area and Due Diligence Step it relates to, has some brief guidance and notes the criticality of the question i.e., how important this question is within the Assessment.
Understanding the Questions
The BRM has a total of 210 (scored) questions and 31 (unscored) data submission requests for the Retailer Path. Below is a table highlighting how many questions and data submission requests you can find in each section of the assessment:
| Pillars | Impacts | No. questions (scored) | No. data requests (unscored) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Environment |
General |
10 |
— |
|
Climate |
14 |
24 |
|
|
Water |
13 |
— |
|
|
Waste |
27 |
6 |
|
|
Chemicals |
7 |
— |
|
|
Biodiversity |
8 |
— |
|
|
Social |
General |
20 |
— |
|
Workers |
21 |
1 |
|
|
Employees |
19 |
— |
|
|
Consumers |
19 |
— |
|
|
Communities |
16 |
— |
|
|
Governance |
General |
10 |
— |
|
Structure and Management |
12 |
— |
|
|
Ethics and Behavior |
14 |
— |
|
|
BRM Total |
210 |
31 |
|
If you have difficulty knowing how to answer a question, you can refer to the Question-by-Question Guidance which provides details of exactly what information is expected per each of the questions in the BRM assessment.
4. How to submit the BRM?
The BRM should be completed via the Higg Platform. Once the BRM completion rate is 100%, you can post the assessment. Make sure you have fully completed and reviewed every question in the assessment before posting as, after posting, it is not possible to make any more changes.
Once done, you can post the assessment by using the ‘Submit/Post Assessment’ button in the left navigation bar.