We differentiate between two kinds of impact: 'fundamental impact' and 'gamechanging impact'. Fundamental impact is essentially housekeeping. This category includes vital things to be sure, from gender diversity and equal pay for equal work to net-zero operations. That said, taking care of what is inside our own four walls will not see the stabilisation of the climate, nor the eradication of unfair exploitation of labour along opaque supply chains, nor the birthing of a truly circular economy at scale. We need to execute on, but move beyond, a narrow conception of impact to a systems view, where businesses attempt to exert maximum influence on their value chains, industries and the world at large. In other words, we need to aim for impact that is 'gamechanging'.

Beyond the jargon of the term 'co-linearity' sits a simple idea: a business' impact should be in line with its core business model – that is, whatever positive impact the organisation generates should be a direct, intentional and monetisable consequence of its core operations. This is vastly different from 'corporate social responsibility' (an idea, incidentally, that has served its purpose and is long past retirement age).

ESG started its life with the realisation that environmental, social and governance-related issues could put capital at risk and thus threaten investor return. But how do we deal with the risk to life – the risk to our environment, our societies and local, national and international governance – resulting from the deployment of capital to business activity that either does not solve any meaningful problems or creates outright damage?

Since the inception of the sustainability movement, its leaders have been extremely focused on business' climate impacts. And for good reason. That said, the focus on only one slice of the E – emissions of climate-warming gases – across the E, the S and the G of the broader impact terrain has been distracting companies from other kinds of impacts, ones which might be more material given their particular business model. For not all businesses have operations or value chains featuring physical assets that use large amounts of energy; some, like health-tech businesses, are highly 'dematerialised'. While these absolutely need to take care of what emissions they have, the world won't notice whether or not, for example, a small fleet of company cars goes electric. More relevant questions might be: whose health outcomes is your product or service improving, and in improving these health outcomes is your product or service reducing or increasing the inequality of access to quality healthcare in your markets?

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol divides greenhouse gas emissions into three categories, or 'scopes'. Scope 1 emissions are those stemming from sources that a business owns or controls directly. Scope 2 emissions are those stemming from the energy a company purchases and uses. And scope 3 emissions are those stemming from the purchase, use and disposal of a company's products or services. The S7 impact map adjusts the notion of scopes and applies it to other environmental impacts as well as social and governance-related ones – all with a view to providing a tool to help leaders conceive of their businesses as operating within systems nested within systems.