Abstract:

Traditional corporations handle their decision making process according to an economic value generation goal: maximization of the company value for the shareholder, maximization of the economic added value, maximization of the profit, … Nevertheless, in the last years, a set of organizations that do not prioritize the creation of economic value has arisen. They are not non-profits. Indeed, they pursue the generation of economic value, but at a level, that guarantees their long term viability. However, at the same time, their main objectives are not linked to this economic value. Rather the opposite, they are linked to the generation of positive social value or to the reduction of negative environmental impact. These “new” organizations, commonly referred to as hybrid organizations, need a tool to assess the social and environmental impacts they are generating, in order to lead their decisions to the goals they have marked on these fields.

In contrast to the accounting area, there is no generally accepted method to quantify the social or environmental impacts of a project, an activity or an organization. Therefore, deeper research is required in this line. In this paper, we analyse the items that the matrix of the balance sheet of the common good (from here on, MBECG) requires for its calculation. We classify them according to their relevance for the assessment of the social and the environmental impacts. By this way, we may evaluate if these items (and, ultimately, the MBECG) can be used as a mean to quantify the social or environmental impacts generated by an organization.