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social auditing

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social accounting and auditing is a way of measuring and reporting on an organisation's social and ethical performance. An organisation which takes on an audit makes itself accountable to its stakeholders and commits itself to following the audits recommendations.

nef helped to make this a mainstream approach and demonstrated how these approaches enable companies to manage more effectively. From 1995 to 2000 nef carried out a series of pioneering social audits of companies (Camelot, The Body Shop, Traidcraft, the Co-operative Wholesale Society, Ben and Jerry's) as well as international public and voluntary sector organisations.

Having led the development of the method with these organisations, nef helped to form the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability to promote professional standards around social accounting and auditing.

Under the Social Enterprise Quality & Impact Project, nef has also worked in partnership with the Social Audit Network on a framework for social social accounting that is 'scale-able' and appropriate for smaller social enterprises and community organisations.  This culminated in the publication, Proving and improving: a quality and impact toolkit for social enterprise. For information on this and nef's current work on social accounting, visit the 'Prove and Improve' website.
 
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related

Publications
Prove it: measuring the effect of neighbourhood renewal on local people

resources

Prove and Improve
Social Audit Network
Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability
The Ethical Explorer