It is widely accepted that sustainability has an inescapable social component, but companies find it very hard to understand and measure their social impacts. Why is this? This book, by noted CSR practitioner, consultant and educator Adrian Henriques, provides the first coherent approach to identifying, understanding, measuring and accounting for corporate social impact.

Beginning with an analysis of the nature of corporate social impact and the role of the stakeholder, the complex relationship of social impact to economic and environmental impacts is explored. This naturally leads to an examination of the contribution which social impact makes to business practice, profitability and ultimately to global sustainability.

The second part of the book asseses the theory and practice of some of the critical measures of social impact which have been developed to date. This includes Social Return on Investment (SROI), local economic impact (LM3) and social capital as well as more established techniques. . It also explores new approaches such as social footprinting. This is rounded out by presentation of a social accounting framework and how this can operate in parallel to standard financial accounting procedures.

This volume provides a clear, digestible and practical roadmap for companies wishing to take responsibility for their role in society and improve their internal and external performance.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. The Social Purpose of Companies
3. Complicity and the Sexual Exploitation of Children - a case study
4. Sustainability's Social Side
5. Thinking like a Stakeholder
6. The Voice of the Stakeholder
7. Sociological Impacts
8. Signs of Impact
9. Reporting Social Impact
10. Measuring Economic Impact
11. Investing in Impact
12. Social Footprint
13. Accounting for Social Impact
14. The Elusiveness of the Social Revisited
Appendix I - Market Research
Appendix II - Analysis of GRI Social Indicators
Appendix III - SROI Case Study
Bibliography