The case for social impact in Startups: create real value for long-term benefits and attracting investors
An excellent new article from our founder Aurore, about what social impact means and how it’s applied, when it comes to startups and entrepreneurs.
The in-depth review by George Serafeim on the Harvard Business Review provides a great frame of thought for looking at ESG (Environmental, Social Governance) data and using it to attract the right investors.
What George posits for larger corporations also holds true to startups in our experience and Aurore lays out 4 steps entrepreneurs should take to make sure they get to the right impact investors.
“Social impact is a significant, positive change that addresses a pressing social or environmental challenge. Creating social impact is the result of a deliberate set of activities and a number of measures and assessments with a goal matching this definition.
But what does it mean for companies in actuality? Well, George addresses, and I agree with him, the issue that many companies boast ESG data and social impact strategies just as box-checking or “window dressing”. In other words, they talk about it but they don’t do anything about it.This is an issue that I see in my work, not only with larger corporations but also with startups. On the one hand, it has become very trendy to speak about social impact in your communication, to show you “values” as a company on your website and your pitch deck, but little is done/tracked/monitored in the actual behavior and KPIs of a company or the products developed.”
