The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) organized a workshop on measuring business impacts on people’s well-being in Paris on February 23-24. The workshop is part of the OECD’s Better Life Initiative for which the OECD developed a series of indicators enabling governments to design policies for improving well-being in areas including income, health, education, security and environment. An increasing number of actors are looking at how companies impact well-being, but lack specific guidance on how to accurately measure these impacts. Statistical evidence on business’ contribution to well-being is scattered and firms’ performances on environmental, social and governance as well as responsible business conduct issues remain hard to benchmark.

Building on in-house knowledge and experience in measuring well-being and responsible business conduct, the OECD, in collaboration with Fordham University, the Society and Organization Center of HEC Paris and the Humanistic Management Network, organized a workshop to discuss foundations measuring business impacts’ on well-being and explored interest in creating a consistent system of indicators based on existing corporate responsibility metrics, corporate practices and OECD’s experience in measuring well-being.

The workshop emphasized the importance of using coordinated information systems for different actors, such as businesses, NGOs and governments, to encourage them to adopt a common channel for promoting well‑being in the broad sense. It will bring together researchers, experts, business executives and a wide range of actors on the ground.

Additional information on the event is available on the OECD’s website. Official notes from the sessions are available here.