INTHEBLACK August 2024 - Flipbook - Page 21
discipline as financial value, it starts to give
you a second axis.”
For organisations like NBN Co, which
operates Australia’s broadband network,
social value is built into its core purpose.
In 2023, NBN Co commissioned Accenture
to examine the social impact of its operations.
The research found that access to telehealth
services, online education and social
connections had been greatly facilitated by the
network, particularly benefiting low-income
households and First Nations communities,
according to The Economic and Social Impact
of the Investment in the NBN Network Key
Insights Report, released in January 2024.
“You can measure the outputs and
the number of customers connected to
the network, but measuring the impact
beyond that was something we had never
done before,” says Stephen Smith, NBN Co’s
general manager of sustainability.
“Within the program design, we constantly
reinforced with Accenture that this needs
to be credible, robust and underpinned by
a scientific measurement approach and that we
intended to make the method transparently
available on our website, so we can contribute
to the learning on social impact measurement.”
THE SOCIAL IMPACT CHALLENGE
While organisations are effective at measuring
the outputs of a business model or process,
measuring their social impact can be
highly subjective.
Ian Hong CPA, partner, audit financial
services and sustainability advisory assurance
at KPMG in Singapore, says measuring
the cause-and-effect relationship for social
impact can be challenging due to the diverse
social aspects of business and the lack
of a standardised measurement framework.
“That said, methods exist to quantify
social impact in financial terms, aiding
companies in making financially informed
EXPLAINER: IN THE WASH
While the notion of greenwashing has become well known in recent
years, other types of “ESG washing” are also becoming more frequent.
While greenwashing is when a company portrays itself as being
more environmentally friendly than it actually is, “bluewashing”,
also called social washing, is when it portrays itself as “having
a greater impact on human rights” than it actually does,
according to the Australian Human Rights Institute.
In contrast, “greenhushing” occurs when “companies are reluctant
to even talk about the good things that they are doing in case they
are criticised as being inauthentic, or that they are purely seeking
an ROI”, says David Cooke, executive director of ESG Advisory.
Greenhushing is a “dangerous step backwards for consumers”,
according to Good on You Eco.
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