Why businesses need to rethink value creation

By Matthew Dunn, Standards Manager, GRI

For decades, profit and growth have been the primary shorthand for business success. Metrics such as ROI (return on investment) and net profit margins have traditionally been key for investors to decide whether to fund an initiative or a company. This is why traditional financial statements, focused purely on profitability and historical data, have long been core documents for businesses and the main way to measure value.

This year’s UN Sustainable Development Goals Report recognized that, due to global issues such as climate change, conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and economic shocks, nearly half of the SDG targets are advancing too slowly. Accelerating progress requires better decision-making tools, and financial metrics alone cannot show whether business activity is helping or hindering.

In a world facing increasingly complex challenges, indicators that capture social and environmental impacts alongside profit are essential for directing capital and strategy where they can make the greatest contribution. Today, profit tells only one part of the story.

Shifting the narrative

The role of companies goes far beyond simply generating returns. Now more than ever, businesses need to reflect on their place in the world and how their decisions shape global challenges and solutions. Profit may signal performance, but it does not reveal whether that performance contributes to resilience, fairness, or long-term stability. On their own, financial statements cannot demonstrate whether monetary flows generated and distributed by the organization support — or undermine — socio-economic and environmental wellbeing.

That’s why broader reporting, beyond enterprise value alone, is essential: it brings the needs of people and the planet into view, helps align capital with impact, and supports the cohesion that markets and communities now expect. This shift reflects a growing understanding that sustainability and financial stability are intertwined, requiring businesses to rethink how they deliver monetary value to all stakeholders.

In a world demanding accountability, companies are being asked to answer questions such as: How does financial success benefit society? Where does the money you generate actually flow?

A new lens for financial value

In 2016, GRI published the first Topic Standards for economic impact. To fill a gap in financial reporting, they asked organizations to explain how they generated and distributed economic value. Almost a decade after the publication of the GRI Standards, global challenges have made it clear that companies need to go a step further. That’s why this year marked the start of the revision of GRI’s Economic Impact Standards, to help organizations understand and report on impacts that go beyond their finances.

The first Economic Impact Standard to be revised is GRI 201: Economic Performance 2016. To reflect how an organization’s financial activities cascade to impact stakeholders, society and the environment, it will be renamed ‘Monetary Flows’.

This term offers a clearer context to understand businesses’ value creation. Instead of focusing only on earnings, monetary flows trace how finances and credit move through an organization — to employees and other workers, suppliers, governments, capital providers and communities — and what is retained for future investment. This connects financial activity to real outcomes for society and the planet.

Beyond profit and growth

Focusing on monetary flows allows organizations to turn numbers into a meaningful narrative, showing stakeholders not just what you earn, but how that income circulates across society. For companies that act early, this becomes a new definition of performance; moving beyond profit to measure impact, resilience, and long-term value creation.

In practice, this means reporting that can help businesses to:

• Reveal the story behind the numbers. Instead of a single profit figure, businesses can understand the flows that generate societal value and identify opportunities to invest in people, communities, or innovation.
• Make better strategic decisions. Aligning financial and sustainability data highlights gaps between intended impact and actual spending, revealing where resources could be deployed more effectively.
• Build trust and credibility. Investors, regulators, and communities can verify how businesses use their money, turning transparency into a competitive advantage.

Tracking monetary flows is not just about reporting: it’s about running a smarter, more responsible business, making decisions with both financial and social impact in mind.

By building on these practices, the draft GRI Standard shows how organizations can move from anecdotal reporting to a structured, numbers-based view of their societal and environmental impact — bridging finance and sustainability in a way that is practical, credible, and actionable.

The future of business value creation

The vision behind the Monetary Flows Standard is a world where money tells a more honest story about its impact. This means a different way of thinking about performance: treating financial data as the starting point for understanding how economic activity shapes lives, communities and ecosystems. When companies show not only what they earn, but where the money flows, reporting shifts from a compliance exercise to a statement of integrity.

The draft GRI Monetary Flows Standard is open for public comment until 17 December 2025. This is your chance to shape the next generation of sustainability reporting that connects financial information with real-world outcomes. Share your feedback and ensure that, in the years ahead, where the money goes is as visible and carefully managed as how much is made.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Dunn is a Standards Manager at GRI, where he leads the development of global sustainability reporting standards. His background in economic research and financial policy at organizations like CENFRI, combined with his expertise in aligning corporate reporting frameworks, informs his approach to the complex relationship between financial and sustainability data. In his current role, he is leading the revision of the GRI Economic Impact standards to create a comprehensive framework that enables organizations to consistently disclose their full economic footprint, capturing direct financial impacts, broader contributions to economies, and effects on communities.