**2. The generation of value: research literature and review of approaches and methods**

It is known that one of the paradigms of CSR and its recent developments [3–10] is that of the reputation of the company as a social actor and its intention to not limit itself to development of the company, but to produce sustainable internal development with environmental development. In fact - as Wilson highlights [11] in an environmental context full of social and political connections, companies are no longer considered systems of production of economic and financial values, but must be considered as actors, levers and managers of environmental development and capable of producing both environmental and social value and environmental and social value in the form of damage caused to the environment [12].

The CSR approach addresses issues related to the positive evaluation of this ability to interact with the environment and the attitude of entrepreneurial transformation not to limit itself to the development of the company, but to produce sustainable internal development with environmental development.

The basic assumption is therefore that the economic transformation is also a transformation of values and a moment of creation of values: traditionally the business economy and the dynamic principles of the analysis of investments identify the maximization of the economy as an objective of the private enterprise, through market choices that create the maximum gap between revenues and production costs, therefore the maximum operating result (profit companies) or to minimize the gap between revenues and costs by reducing the operating result (non profit companies) as much as possible. His is the well-known approach to *Value Based Management* [13], which measures the creation of value through the traditional accounting indicators ROI, ROE, ROA, etc.

Over time, however, in view of the growing importance of the intangible components and of indeterminate and new risk profiles, the scientific community has recognized the urgency of rethinking this system of evaluation and verification of the creation of value [14], for example by integrating these "internal meters" with "external meters" (*Market Added Value*-MAV, *Total Shareholder Return*-TSR, etc.).

An interesting contribution was also provided by the debate on the emergence of new costs related to the sphere of "conflicts of values" and "conflicts

#### *The Ethical and Responsibility Components in Environmental Challenges… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94341*

of identity" [13], which also directed towards the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) -argued by Zamagni [15]- which combines the logic of the pure economic result of pure business (measured in terms of profit) with the "philanthropic" one which allocates its profits to socially strategic purposes [16, 17]. The urgency of disciplinary and interdisciplinary confrontation is absolutely current and also dictated by the growing diffusion of these new investment methods and their ethical value, an aspect of extreme relevance and strategic [18]. In particular, the Author proposes here a re-reading of the classic paradigms of the evaluation and analysis of investments in light of the results that are emerging from the debate on the Social Impact Approach (SIA), in particular on the impacts and metrics of Social Impact Investing (SII). The multidimensionality of social impact investing can "contribute to the diversification of systemic risk", since "the (…) underlying value does not depend on the economic situation of the market but rather on the skills of the social actors to implement an efficient project" ([19], p. 13): according to the estimative Italian school [20, 21] this assumption pushes to underline not the "ordinariness" of the operators (according to the disciplinary tradition), but their "extraordinariness" in operating.

The theoretical core on the components of value and their genesis can today constitute a common platform for the exchange of instruments from different theoretical approaches (**Figure 1**, [11]). In particular, the perspective of this paper is that of impact investing, which operates on the value complex of the subjects who participate in it and take an active part in the investment project.

What can be the interchange issues between CSR and SII? Definitely the analysis of the creation of value and the models, tools and elements analyzed in the two theoretical contributions to measure the moments, phases or processes that create value in terms of either performance or impact. The synoptic framework of the SII methods identified by Ricciuti and Bufali [22] is tracing the coordinates to consolidate mutual contributions and identify their efficacy evaluation indicators.

The classification in Logical Models (Logframe, Impact Value Chain and Theory of Change), Cost-effectiveness Analysis (CEA), Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA), Experimental, Quasi-Experimental Method and Counterfactual Approach and SROI leads to some insights related to concept of value as assumed for these models, of which a comparative critical reading is presented in **Table 1**.

The Logical Models configure an approach to assessing impacts, by their nature qualitative, and are based on a reconstruction and graphic illustration of the causal links that connect the various points of the "social value chain" [23]. The

**Figure 1.**

*The multidimensional nature of chain of value (source: Elaboration of the author by Coscia & Rubino [12] in press).*


#### **Table 1.**

*Methods for measuring SII with links to CSR: synoptic framework (source: elaboration of the author).*

"assessment" outcomes are represented from a graphic and intuitive framework that describes the process of obtaining the expected impacts starting from the inputs used to implement social change [24].

The family of techniques relating to the Cost-effectiveness Analysis (CEA) operates through synthetic numerical indicators, which should highlight the creation of value according to the known criterion of opportunity-cost and/or avoided social cost [25]: the field of application most tested is that of the evaluation of health projects and interventions, as some indices such as the increase in the number of years of average life, avoided deaths, etc. they allow a quick and synthetic evaluation of the improvement generated by actions accompanied by specific economic investments [26]. Among other things, in the face of the changes that we witnessed during the COVID-19 emergency, these models can transfer some interesting ideas on the measurement of the ethical and social sustainability of the interventions.

On the side of the well-known -and also criticized- family of the Benefit Cost Analysis (CBA), the use of the traditional model derived from the analysis of investments in the public field and of the profitability indicators, as measuring net benefits, is currently being revision in its critical passages [27] and is still the subject of second thoughts, in the light of the two fundamental aspects: 1) the pro-activity responsible for the investor also through the calculation of a discount rate "ethical" [2, 28]; 2) the construction of a multi-actor client: the identification and measurement of specific net benefits and non-eliminable social costs becomes essential for each interest group [29].

Experimental, Quasi-Experimental Cognituve Methods and Counterfactual Approach constitute another cluster of methods [30], which provides for the execution of tests and experiments, with the aim of comparing an observable case and a

*The Ethical and Responsibility Components in Environmental Challenges… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94341*

hypothetical and abstract case (or "counterfactual"). They all start from the same definition of effect: the "effect of an intervention is the difference between what we observe after the intervention has been implemented and what we would have observed, in the same period and for the same subjects, in the absence of intervention" ([31], pp. 3–4).

Looking at operational tools that have recently been consolidated and codified, a significant reference is the Social Return of Investment (SROI), tested for verifying the social impact of non-profit projects: developed by the London Business School [32–34], and despite some limits that have not been exceeded [35], it has the merit of rethinking the classic ROI (*Return Of Investment),* building an index that internalizes both quantitative components and intangible factors and which expresses the relationship between resources invested and impact achieved.

In summary, some operational aspects of value creation measurement techniques, investigated with the SII approach, may constitute levers for an evolution of the CSR model, in particular with regard to the issues of "corporate social responsibility", from identify between the different subjects involved and the "social conscience" of the entrepreneur, now contextualized also in terms of environmental responsibility. Issues investigated in the following chapter.
