Understanding your business' poverty footprint

Companies, particularly those operating in developing countries, should be aware about the impacts on society caused by their operations. Understanding the links between business and development can highlight real opportunities for enlightened businesses to make a positive difference.

Oxfam has prepared a paper to explain its Poverty Footprint Methodology, which helps companies to comprehensively understand how their operations affect the people in their value chains and the communities and countries where they operate. The methodology combines local assessments of livelihood impacts, value chain analysis, and an assessment of economic contributions into one comprehensive approach.

Similarly, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is working in the WBCSD Measuring Impact Framework, which will be profiled as the basic foundation for any company wishing to measure, understand and manage their impacts on development. Such framework will incorporate some of the lessons learned from the Measuring Impact case studies and the advancement in the measuring socio-economic impact field over the last two years.