Nemetan Methodologies
THE SPARK AND PROVE METHODOLOGIES
A method, not a whiteboard
Being systematic about Sustainability Opportunities is not a nicety. It is the difference between reliably finding value and hoping it turns up.
For a decade, sustainability meant doing less harm: cutting emissions, managing Risk, staying compliant. That is table stakes now. The value is in what Michael Porter and Mark Kramer called Shared Value, the moves that are good for the business and good for society from the same decision. Doing less bad is no longer enough. The question has moved from "how do we protect ourselves?" to "what can we build?"
Most companies answer that with a whiteboard and a hope. But a brainstorm is only as good as the room on the day, and it starts from a blank page every time. Risk has never been handled like that: it has had a century of method and a whole profession behind it. Opportunity has had neither. That is what SPARK and PROVE provide: every stage on a proven tool, every idea grounded in real precedent from a library of more than 1,000 verified precedents. Not hoping for a good idea, but building an engine that finds them.
Two frameworks, one method
SPARKâ„¢ and PROVEâ„¢ are Nemetan's proprietary frameworks. The method runs in two halves. SPARK finds and shapes Opportunities. PROVE tests whether they are worth backing. Together they carry you from a blank page to a decision you can defend.
SPARK · Ideation — find and shortlist Opportunities
Spot the gap. Benchmark your own data against real external standards to find where the genuine gap sits.
Pose the question. Turn that gap into a possibility, phrased as a question, with nothing solved yet.
Apply the tool. Match each possibility to the right tool: a ladder to point, SIT to generate, the Business Model Navigator to shape value.
Refine. Filter the candidates for logical consistency, commercial viability and real precedent.
Keep. Hold a shortlist where every concept traces back to the evidence that produced it.
PROVE · Value Discovery — test whether they are worth backing
Pre-mortem. Imagine the concept has already failed, and write down why, before you build a case for it.
Reverse the income statement. Work backwards from the number it must hit to the assumptions that must hold.
Obligations. Write down every assumption that must be true, ranked by how essential, uncertain and testable each is.
Verify. Test the key assumptions against real external evidence, with pass or fail set in advance.
Evaluate. Make the honest go, adjust or kill decision at each checkpoint.
The tools and taxonomies behind it
Neither framework is one clever technique. Each stage draws on established, proven tools, matched to the job in front of it.
FOR FINDING OPPORTUNITIES · SPARK
– The ESRS topic taxonomy, to map where each material topic sits.
– Improvement ladders, one per environmental topic: the 9R framework for circular economy, the AR3T mitigation hierarchy (SBTN, aligned with IFC Performance Standard 6 and TNFD) for nature and water, the carbon mitigation hierarchy for climate, and the EPA source-reduction hierarchy for pollution.
– Creating Shared Value (Porter and Kramer) for social and governance topics, where no ladder exists.
– Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) to generate concepts, and the Business Model Navigator to shape how each captures value.
– TCFD and TNFD opportunity categories, as prompts for climate and nature.
FOR PROVING THEM · PROVE
– Discovery-driven planning and the reverse income statement (Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan), to work backwards from the number a concept must hit.
– The pre-mortem (Gary Klein), to surface why a concept might fail before anyone is invested in defending it.
– A ranked assumptions checklist, ordered by how essential, uncertain and cheaply testable each assumption is.
– Real test design, with kill criteria set before the evidence arrives, not after.
– Look Outward, the open-innovation discipline (Henry Chesbrough), to find who has already solved part of the problem.
Two ways to go deeper
You can learn the method yourself, or run it live with your team.
The certificate courses
Learn SPARK and PROVE end to end, online and self-paced, through the Certificate in Sustainability Ideation and the Certificate in Sustainability Value Creation. You leave able to run the method yourself.
See the Academy →
The workshops
Run the method live with your team, facilitated by Nemetan. The Ideation Workshop runs SPARK, the Value Discovery Workshop runs PROVE. You leave with candidate Opportunities, or a decision.
See the workshops →
Not sure which fits? We will point you to the right one.