Thanks Aiden - the IWAI team are keen to emphasise that standardised corporate reporting and accounting based on existing audited public data does not only spur companies to do better, but also provides them with tools to improve their companies. Investment thesis has long talked about the efficient frontier - one of the consequences of the IWAI system is that it helps companies get to an impact efficient frontier, to achieve maximum impact in their field.
What I am working on personally, in that regard? A number of SDGs but to high light some or activities that contribute to those SDG8: Decent Work and Economic Growth - squandering of immigrant talent, growing mainstream sized immigrant businesses with an ethnic flavour is my focus. Within that same programme ensuring entrepreneurs from mainstream populations with no history of family business and are therefore face similar challenges to growing businesses though to different degrees are included. SDGs 5, 10, 17, 11, 3 - gender equality, reducing inequalities, partnerships and collaborations for delivering the goals in host and home countries it is all about making immigration work for host and home countries. Climate change, the risk of stranded assets, risk to company reputation, creating sustainable citizens that comes without the high mortality cost for some communities in pandemics such as COVID 19 . Health and mental health are all tied results of what we do or do not do in relation to the environment, decent work - including meaningful work, the feeling of authority to act (actual knowledge of it) and confidence in being able to achieve goals and ambitions (for women, poor men, immigrant - highly skilled professionals being squandered, ethnic populations). In addition to playing a role in helping the economically active or those who desire to be at the bottom of the pyramid, there is a large pocket of invisibile poor, among them entrepeneurs of necessity, recently graduated college students, middle aged and retired persons with a wealth of experience and knowledge that are locked out of the market and who fly under the radar as the invisible poor.), I want to see indicators related to # of such indiividuals that are contracted or employed by businesses; # receiving practical fellowships and apprenticeships etc. The willingness to facilitate local and international partnerships for tackling country specific and global goals.
Thanks Hanne - yes there are several initiatives on company impact reporting. But perhaps there is a balance to be had between perfection and utility. At the GSG we are supporting all the main initiatives but think that the IWAI/Harvard model of reporting and accounting is the quickest route (it does not require permission of the companies, it takes reported data and reanalyses it). That wont be a cure-all, but will be a spur to action.
My understanding from colleagues at the Impact Management Project is that the SASB/GRI model is proving value in the long term, as it takes into account what is material for each company.
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Will do Katie, thank you and Business Fighting Poverty for the opportunity. Best regards,
Meegan
SDG 12.5 : By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
Is well within the reach of all businesses large and small. All should make this a part of their living organizational culture and measure progress on the same with indicators on savings and reduction as well as gains including financial. The emphaisis is on the social cultural verus the environmental for this indicator from which a social indicator related to culture could be developed.
Thanks Clare. That’s exactly the right challenge and the spirit that underpins our Valuing Respect project in which we had the freedom to not pre-define the outputs and content but find our way into - along with stakeholders - what the promising avenues for change are. We also wanted to be transparent about this process so you can find this process overview here.
For those interested, here is a short video animation about the Valuing Respect project
@aidencholes I am pleased to see that we agree that the SDGs are a fitting guiding framework for choosing the indicators. To answer your first question, I believe they are adequate for informing the development of a general or globally accepted and harmonized set of indicators. There is no point having indicators that are intended to contribute to agreed societal goals and ambitions if they cannot be interpreted, monitored and evaluated by using a common language. Continuing on that question reviewing the definitions and targets of the indicators of relevant SDGs make it easy for businesses to adopt, adapt and develop supporting indicators that are relevant to their organization and their purpose, mission, gaps and ambitions . Social indicators should not just be about being good or compliance, they should also serve to encourage existing and new businesses to look beyond a mission but to a purpose. A business must be financially viable to stay in business so that purpose must be able to keep the customer base growing as well as to deliver the profit. It means therefore that in addition to local and globally agreed indicators businesses will have indicators that supports their own unique “why”. In fact, the UN Compact and UNCTAD as well as other organizations have disaggregated the global goals in ways that makes it easy for companies and Business Fights Poverty to now formulate their sub indicators within each category so we can move from only 25% of businesses reporting in the voluntary national reporting systems of their governments related to the SDGs. No matter what you do in business your local indicators should be specific even if from a class of indicators to your own business. It is for that reason that in my post above I then added indicators that would support those in the SDGs ex.All businesses should make a contribution to building the experience and skills gap. # of employees and students (2 separate engaged in apprenticeship and professional fellowship programmes).
• # from local community and the ethnic breakdown based on the community
• The diversity based on socio-economic background of those contracted.
• Average # of hours of training and # of hours of training related work experience
• Equitable share of revenue and employee compensation etc. Also indicators must be articulated, tested and revised based on learning during execution. Each entity must then decide on their indicator targets, SMART and SMARTER indicators to suit their purpose, needs, aspirations, commitment and ambitions
2 In response to question 2 I would go beyond appreciation to confidence, trust and commitment. 1.In addition to having a set of indicators, they must be integrated into strategy, plans, actions and tactics. There must be a performance management and measurement system for tracking progress on the indicators and the results, not as stand alone indicators but as part of what and how the business do all other things. The monthly, weekly, quarterly, annual and three year or longer reporting will provide the evidence needed to change minds and hearts and drive commitment to the goals if the results are positive for both brand, customers, employees, investors and communities. Qualitative research and the results, modelling of behaviours by leadership, line managers and a team of evangelist will also help. Not to mention the actual physical visible manifestation of desired change. On the matter of causality, we know that will require experiment it is for organizations to include relevant indicators into whatever experiments they have for measuring causality and attribution. For some entities there might be no need to measure causality as action and impact might be validated by other means. Nonprofit organizations and business units within governments might need to do more for validating causality which is often difficult to prove even when using experimental approaches such as RCT .
Hi Cory, nice to meet you. Coffee is a good example, especially if you think of coffee grown in locals that allows for a premium price, creating jobs that prevents rural to urban drift and the mindset that will allow big businesses and small businesses to work together for boosting the supply chain, providing decent work and fair and decent wages or prices and to go further to protect them the value of those businesses and livelihoods with intellectual property provisions. Within such initiatives are opportunities to apply socia indicators existing and company specific.
@Shinergise I agree with you.
Evaluation has been proven to have the most powerful multiplier effect in delivering transformation related to the SDGs and by extension identifying, updating and monitoring the goals. Since a solid strategy plan helps evaluation. I will highlight from the post above the following combinations:
- Evaluation and Organizational Assessments in combination with evidence-based corporate strategy planning.
- Monitoring and evaluation also helps with a) Examining transformative blind spots b) Promoting granular and transparent disclosure c) Promoting time series data and generating evidence-based data d) Raising the bar, and promoting greater
consistency and harmonization . Points a) to d) are referenced in “Measuring Corporate Sustainability
TOWARDS ACCOUNTING FIT FOR THE SDGS” by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. - Relevance - evaluation, strategy planning and organizational assessment helps organizations to examine their relevance. Business will never take up the work of Government or the third sector. They will help by identifying their purpose and as such get beyond mission to deliver social good but they must deliver something of value that people are willing to buy hence we must ensure that position is factored if the solution we propose is going to be relevant to business. And that includes social enterprises many of which are currently not financially viable though the have the potential to be.
So, true @clarefitton, to deal with the challenge of being stuck on initial indicators, I would ensure their is culture of planning mindedness and of monitoring, evaluation, learning and improvement. And by culture I mean that it is actually done. Plus I would put a heavier focus on outcomes indicator and sustainability indicators than on output and activities. The later would still be captured but outcomes indicators provide a better opportunity to measure and understand changes in behaviour and culture towards responsible social action and purpose. While the sustainability indicators would give a better view of the results at the impact level. What are your thoughts?