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The Imperative for Impact: The Global Context

Generation Impact

ISBN: 978-1-78973-930-5, eISBN: 978-1-78973-929-9

Publication date: 8 January 2021

Abstract

As social, environmental and economic challenges grow across the world, the imperative for managing, measuring and maximising impact has never been greater. With growing evidence of increasing inequality and climate change there is a critical need to adjust economic growth models to embrace inclusiveness and sustainability. Companies and institutional investors are recognising that social and environmental factors can influence a company's bottom line in both positive and negative ways, and therefore are important elements in business, markets and competition. However, to address the growing environmental and societal challenges as well as make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more focus is needed on actions and investments that seek measurable positive impact that result in increased well-being of stakeholders. A plethora of new frameworks and tools has been developed to measure societal and environmental factors. To date, these efforts have served as complements to existing economic models. For public and private actors to be able to make more effective resource allocation decisions, these broader sets of measures need to be integrated into existing accounting and economic models. Over the past several years, there has been growing momentum for action. There has also been a recognition that no organisation or sector can tackle these challenges alone. Business, government and civil society need to collaborate to take action that can have the urgently needed impact at scale.

Keywords

Citation

Wilson, K.E. (2021), "The Imperative for Impact: The Global Context", Richards, A. and Nicholls, J. (Ed.) Generation Impact, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78973-929-920200002

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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