Lieutenancy and The University of Northampton


A better way to a better business environment


It’s good to look back on the past year of this column and report on progress. T e overall theme has been one of better business


– to promote more responsible, inclusive and fairer business whereby local companies accept that they are part of a community. Rather than an inward- looking focus on short-term profi t maximisation, society expects business to take a long-term stakeholder perspective – that considers the triple bottom line of people and planet as well as profi t.


Better Business Act T is multi-stakeholder approach may well become obligatory by law, if the Better Business Act cam- paign has its way. Now with over 1,500 signatories across the UK (up from 800 a year ago, with 67 in the East Midlands) as well as cross-party parliamentary support, this campaign aims to change Section 172


Adrian Pryce DL Associate Professor Strategy & Society, CSBP


University of Northampton


of the Companies Act. It would compel company directors to balance the interests of all stakeholders – and also report on how they do so. If and when the law changes, how well positioned is your business


for this? In past articles we have looked at the ‘alphabet soup’ of CSR-ESG


standards, guidance and frameworks, from B Corp through to ISO26000 on to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and SASB – Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, renamed the Value Reporting Framework now recently merged with the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. IFRS seeks to drive the connectivity between sustainability reporting and fi nancial statements. No longer will it be enough to do a separate voluntary sustainability


report – sooner or later it will become compulsory to blend social impact metrics with your annual report and accounts.


Impact reporting Harvard Business School leads a major initiative called the Impact- Weighted Accounts (IWA) project. It is driving the creation of fi nancial accounts that refl ect a company’s fi nancial, social and environmental performance, statements that capture external impacts to aid investor and managerial decision-making as part of the value creation process. T e IWA project is led by Prof. George Serafi m, who reports that


‘disclosure and transparency make a diff erence in terms of changing organisational behaviour and markets’. Investors are very much the impetus in this area. ‘It can help companies make progress towards, for example, decarbonisation, towards building a culture of diversity and inclusion, and improving the impact of products that organisations create and customers consume’. T is is truly about reimagining capitalism, which is the title of a great book by Harvard’s Rebecca Henderson. One for your Christmas stocking perhaps? Highly recommended!


Growing interest My personal experience with local businesses this year has been of a growing interest in a strategic framework for CSR. Anecdotal evidence suggests that local businesses score themselves as just four out of 10 in terms of actual to potential impact, yet 70% want to do more. Many fi nd this hard to do in such an uncertain business environment, where allocating the resources, especially management time, to CSR is a challenge. We are here to help, with a proprietary 5M model


to guide you through the issues with a framework that includes suitable metrics, i.e. your key non- fi nancial performance/social impact indicators. T ese can be monetised to show how much social value your business generates, in Pounds Sterling, all mapped against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the UNSDGs. T is is helpful if you are bidding for public sector contracts. If you can measure it, you can manage it! Get in touch if you’d like to know more.


Business beacons Many local companies are true beacons – Bambino Mio, Blue Skies Fruit, Courteenhall Estates, Goodwill Solutions and Medigold Health are all


62 ALL THINGS BUSINESS


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