Social capital accounting: The social capital protocol and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainability accounting has become a mainstream practice for a large majority of S&P500 companies, and this reflects global society’s increasing interest and concern around sustainability issues. In particular, the United Nations published its “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” and 193 countries signed up to achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets. The UN also called upon companies to help

this process across their supply chains and developed a natural capital protocol for assessing and valuing environmental areas and a social capital protocol (SCP) for assessing and valuing human and societal capital such as skills, knowledge, wellbeing, shared values, and institutions. This chapter systematically investigates each of the 12 steps of the social capital protocol and identifies a range of benefits and substantial challenges which companies will face if they wish to account for their social impact across the supply chain.