Can You Align Profit with Purpose?

When it comes to ESG, one of the biggest challenges in gaining acceptance is reconciling environmental and social impact with governance alongside the primary goal of any business: making a profit.

Can you align profit with purpose? Yes, it is possible to align profit with purpose within an ESG framework, and many companies have demonstrated that this can be not only viable but also advantageous.

Aligning profit with purpose in ESG is not just about following rules or regulations, but also about building a business model that is sustainable and beneficial for all stakeholders.

Examples of companies that have successfully aligned profit with purpose include Patagonia, known for its responsible environmental practices, and Unilever, which integrates social and environmental objectives into its business strategy.

The place of charity

For example, when your team goes out to hand out chocolates at Easter to children in a community. What actually changes in these children’s lives, and for how long?

Let’s answer this question using the SDGs — because they exist to provide direction between purely charitable actions and actions that truly build a more just society.

If it’s hard to relate your action to any SDG, your action is probably not very effective at changing the lives of beneficiaries.

Planning social change

Let’s say that with the same amount raised to buy chocolates, you chose to run an after-school tutoring program for children and teenagers in a community, bringing company volunteers to help with math and language arts.

This new action can be easily measured using SDG 4 metrics!

Citing action data vs. Actually measuring transformation

Instead of measuring this action by saying: 8 elementary school children and 13 middle school students participated in the action — you need to learn to report THE CHANGE.

“Of the 8 elementary school children who participated, 5 improved their language arts grades by up to 45%. Of the 13 middle school students, 10 managed to recover their school averages.”

This is how you report the CHANGE that the action provided to the people who benefited from it.

Start measuring your company’s real impact

The Paresi Platform was built to help companies measure the real impact of their sustainability actions. With indicators aligned to GRI and SDGs, you turn data into strategic decisions.