Today, 90% of the values of corporations are driven by intangible assets; a reverse from the 1950s when the values of corporations were mostly driven by balance sheets and profits.

But when we measure return on investment, have we turned around to focus on the intangible driver of the economy? Has our attention been shifted from what used to matter to what matters today?

No, according to the Australian Productivity Commission, which categorised intangible assets as computerised information, innovative property and economic competencies including firm-specific human capital and organisational capital. In a white paper, Investments in Intangible Assets and Australia’s Productivity Growth, the Commission concluded that despite the inescapable increase in prominence, intangible assets today are poorly measured and understood.

Human and social capital is a critical component of intangible assets. In Australia, real estate companies have been front runners in benchmarking human and social capital performance through ESG reporting. But such reporting has been limited due to the lack of universal metrics across multiple ESG reporting platforms. Other sectors have yet to catch up in order to track, measure, and report on their human and social capital performance.

Without proper metrics over our human and social capital performance, underreported investment continues to loom as a financial risk.

In the earlier days of ESG frameworks and data, it was viewed as somewhat difficult to demonstrate high social sustainability performance. However, efforts in healthy buildings and the positive impacts on human health, well-being and broader societal impacts are starting to become more prevalent within global sustainability benchmarking platforms and other reporting frameworks.

This month, IWBI introduced the 12 Competencies for Measuring Health and Well-being for Human and Social Capital, which provides a way to re-think the ways in which health and well-being strategies can help drive their organisational culture, strategy, and ESG reporting.

Organisations around the world face growing pressure from investors, regulators, and the general public to be more ‘purpose driven,’ to commit to improving diversity, equity and inclusion within their workforce, and contribute to broader public health issues. By applying the 12 Competencies – organised across five scales of impact: Individual, Organisational, Environmental, Community, and Global – organisations can showcase and measure a commitment to health and well-being as a strategic priority.

In Australia, we have already seen the impact of adopting these practices. Natalie Devlin, Chief Experience Office of Charter Hall, one of the first companies globally to pursue WELL at scale through WELL Portfolio and report annual achievements on its WELL journey through their 2021 Annual Sustainability Report, shared: “Companies like ours are at a pivotal point in ESG reporting on human and social capital. In a world where well-being and talent retention are front and centre on the agenda, we’re all grappling with what to measure, what to report, and what to manage. Clear metrics that measure health and well-being in a holistic and integrated way are what is needed. The 12 Competencies offers a framework to do this across multiple levels that speaks to all our stakeholders.”

In making ESG factors more accessible through this framework, we can truly drill down into fitting the “H” into the growing movement of acting as a force for good.