Browsing by Author "Lancastre, Filipa"
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- IFVI and VBA’s impact accounting methodology: implementation guidePublication . Conde, Sofia; Ferreira, Nuno; Lancastre, FilipaThis research note presents the methodological foundations and practical implementation framework of the Impact Accounting (IA) methodology developed by the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (IFVI) and the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA). It explains how this approach enables companies to measure, value, and report their impacts on society and the environment in monetary terms, bridging the gap between sustainability disclosure and business decision-making. The note outlines a five-phase development process that ensures scientific rigor, expert validation, and stakeholder legitimacy for each impact topic. It then details a six-step implementation framework that guides companies through context analysis, material impact identification, data collection, outcome assessment, impact valuation, and aggregation into unified impact accounts. Crucially, the methodology is designed for straightforward implementation. When a value factor validated by the Valuation Technical & Practitioner Committee (VTPC) is available, companies simply multiply their existing data points, often those already reported under the CSRD, by the corresponding value factor. This eliminates the need for complex modeling or outcomes definition, making impact accounting both practical and scalable. By combining robust valuation techniques and standardized value factors, the IFVI and VBA methodology provides a clear, comparable, and decision-useful tool for embedding impact accounting in corporate strategies. It enables organizations to move beyond compliance-driven sustainability reporting and toward impact-driven decision-making, creating measurable value for both business and society.
- Implementing impact accounting: opportunities and challengesPublication . Conde, Sofia; Ferreira, Nuno; Lancastre, FilipaThis research note explores the opportunities and challenges involved in the implementation of Impact Accounting (IA). Based on interviews with practitioners and secondary sources, the study finds that while IA remains in an early phase, leading organizations increasingly view it as a strategic tool to inform resource allocation, generate differentiation and leadership, clarify trade-offs, enhance transparency and stakeholder communication, improved data comparability and relevance and complement ESG reporting frameworks, such as the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Nevertheless, IA faces some difficulties, such as its still limited adaptation, mainly due to challenges around data availability, methodological inconsistency, and operational complexity. To overcome these barriers, companies are piloting IA on a small scale, improving internal data systems, and aligning impact valuation with existing ESG data. Participation in standard-setting initiatives, such as the Value Balancing Alliance, is helping address the lack of methodological convergence, while internal use cases, such as scenario analysis and product-level insights, are building confidence and utility. In the absence of regulatory mandates, IA adoption is being driven by leadership ambition and peer influence. As data infrastructure improves and methodologies mature, IA has the potential to move beyond internal experimentation and become a critical tool for aligning financial performance with long-term societal value.
- Social entrepreneurship as a family resemblance concept with distinct ethical viewsPublication . Lancastre, Filipa; Lages, Carmen; Santos, FilipeAlmost 25 years after Dees’ article on the meaning of social entrepreneurship, conceptual controversy persists. Based on a qualitative analysis of 209 definitions of social entrepreneurship and respective academic articles, we argue that the concept follows a family resemblance structure and identify the 12 distinct attributes that comprehensively define it. Membership in social entrepreneurship is not defined by a case possessing a universally accepted set of criterial features but by carrying shared attributes with other cases. The family resemblance structure points to the persistent fallacy of using the same term to label different phenomena and cautions researchers against causal homogeneity assumptions among different conceptual subtypes. Assuming a descriptive stance, we shed light on how distinct ethical positions relate to different definitions of social entrepreneurship. Among the existing conceptual variety, we identify four prominent subtypes and find that ‘market-based’ conceptualizations relate to economism, the ‘social business’ subtype relates to rule utilitarian positions, ‘efficiency-driven’ definitions are associated with hedonistic act utilitarian views, and the ‘transformational impact’ subtype is akin to a eudemonic act utilitarian stance.
- State of the art of non-financial reporting and impact accountingPublication . Conde, Sofia; Ferreira, Nuno; Lancastre, FilipaNon-financial reporting has become a global norm, with regulatory and societal pressure driving companies to disclose their sustainability performance. Since early 2024, over 250 firms have reported under the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), reflecting a broader shift toward mandatory ESG disclosures. Today, 95% of the world's largest companies publish sustainability reports, and over half have a sustainability director. ESG reporting, rooted in CSR efforts since the 1950s and formalized by the UN in 2004, has evolved through global frameworks such as GRI, ISSB, and the EU's ESRS. While these standards promote transparency and long-term value creation, challenges remain, including fragmentation, limited outcome measurement, and greenwashing concerns. A promising development is impact accounting, an emerging approach that monetizes environmental and social externalities to reveal a company's full value creation. It translates non-financial data into financial insights, promising better decisions and strengthening stakeholder trust. The field is advancing rapidly, led by organizations like IFVI, VBA, and IEF, with support from global coalitions and initiatives. Through collaborative efforts such as the Value Accounting Network, actors are building the foundations for consistent, rigorous, and actionable sustainability measurement, marking a critical shift toward impact-integrated business and financial systems.