Accounting for Value : Using Social Return on Investment (SROI) to measure the value created by CSR initiatives

Abstract: The role of the corporation is shifting from an entity focused on making monetary profits to an organization focused on creating value for all of its stakeholders. Despite of this many of the guidelines, standards and reporting frameworks that have been developed to take into account the increasing stakeholder expectations only capture corporate inputs and outputs relating to social initiatives. By not understanding the value created by social initiatives information is missed that could be useful to the organization and its stakeholders. The purpose of this study has therefore been to see if the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology can be a viable tool for companies to use for measuring the value created by CSR activities. This has been accomplished via a case study of a CSR initiative funded by a multinational wind power company in India, and more specifically the building and use of a traditional water harvesting structure called a taanka. Having gone through the six steps of SROI, including monetization of all non-market social, environmental and economic values, the results show that for every Indian Rupee (INR) invested into the studied CSR initiative 29 INR of social value have been created for the stakeholders. The results also show the relation between different inputs and outcomes for the stakeholders affected by the initiative. By analyzing the results several lessons for the construction of future taankas can be learnt. Each taanka should for instance be constructed for as many households as possible and ownership should be shared by the users. More resources should also be allocated to following up the outcomes created by CSR initiatives to help to maximize the efficiency of the resources used to create social value. The methodology can also be used to understand the shared corporate and societal values created by measuring the value created for both the company and the stakeholders, which in turn is useful when deciding on the allocation of corporate resources.