ANIELSKI Management Inc.Building Genuine Wealth |
Genuine Wealth Accounting (GWA)
Anielski
Management provides a range of products and strategic advisory services
to business, government, and not-for-profit clients including:
What is Genuine Wealth Assessment
Genuine Wealth Assessment (GWA) is a values-based, well-being
analysis and management process, developed by Mark Anielski, that individuals,
communities and business enterprise can use to better measure and manage
their most important assets; the things that make life worthwhile. A truely
flourishing and sustainable enterprise is one which integrates, balances
and optimizes its core assets: people (human capital), relationships (social
capital), the environment (natural capital), built capital and financial
capital.
Why genuine wealth? The word wealth
comes from the Old English meaning the condition
of well-being. The word genuine
means to be true to one's values.
Therefore, the Genuine Wealth system is a way of measuring and managing
the conditions of well-being that align with our values.
GWA
provides a more comprehensive and balanced "accounting" of the
conditions of well-being that contribute to quality of life, than conventional
economic and financial accounting systems. GWA begins to re-discover the
things that intuitively make life worthwhile and which are ignored or
improperly counted in conventional economic measures of progress, like
the Gross National Product (GNP),
"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. The Gross National Product (GNP) includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulance to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads. And if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It [GNP]measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
Robert F. Kennedy
March 18, 1968
“Genuine
Wealth” attempts to measure all the things that make life
worthwhile, as Robert Kennedy alluded to in his famous speech. Genuine
wealth are those things that, in our hearts and minds, contribute most
to our quality of life at home, in our communities and at work. These
include both tangible and intangible issues such as income and debt, the
quality of our home, the joy of our children’s play, the strength
of our marriages, the beauty of nature, the number of friends we have
or the love we experience from family, friends and loved ones. These are
real, true or genuine wealth: they add to our quality of life and thus
improve our “conditions of well-being.”
How do we measure genuine wealth?
There are five main categories of wealth (or capital assets) whose integration
constitutes genuine wealth:
- human wealth (people)
- social wealth (relationships)
- natural wealth (the environment)
- manufactured or bulit wealth (infrastructure)
- financial wealth (money)
Genuine
wealth is achieved when all five core assets are in balance with each
other. A new "genuine wealth integral balance sheet"
reveals the physical and qualitative conditions of these five forms of
wealth. In addition, the GWA assessment includes a full cost (and benefit)
accounting of managing these five core assets. GWA examines the true costs
of progress. GWA allows you to assess how well we are managing these assets
for sustained prosperity or well-being, optimizing your total returns
on all capital assets, not just financial.
The Genuine Wealth Check-up
Like
a medical check-up, the Genuine Wealth Check-up is a
comprehensive well-being “check up” for a household, business,
community, city, state or nation. To look at the results of a GWA total
wealth assessment is like looking into a mirror which reflects the organization
genuine conditions of well-being. With the GWA tools we help your organization
diagnosis the strengths and weaknesses of your
assets. These will impact your performance revealing both “surpluses”
and “deficits” (human, social, environmental, and infrastructure)
that need to be addressed in order to achieve genuine progress. The
Genuine Wealth check-up helps you and your organization determine where
best to invest time, money and resources in building or maintaining your
core assets to ensure a sustainable and flourishing enterprise.
How do we assess our Genuine Wealth and Genuine Progress?
We all have a core set of values and principles by which we operate or
live our lives; personal, family, household, business or community. We
also have a vision for what we dream of becoming. GWA helps you align
your vision of your desired future with your values, your goals and your
performance measures. GWA helps you determine whether or not you are making
"genuine" progress in accordance with these values and your
vision. This is done by comparing the "conditions" of your core
assets and how they are being managed against your values is also used
to assess the overall progress or performance of an organization is making
against it’s vision and core values. We help you develop a Genuine
Wealth assessment system by identifying a few core "genuine progress
indicators" to track your journey towards your vision.
Genuine progress is made when your performance is on track with your vision
and in alignment with your core values. Real progress is also being made
when all capital assets under management, especially the most precious
assets (human, social and nature’s capital), are being managed in
a way that ensures long-term benefits for your family, employees, or members
of your community.
Custom-made
Because each one of us has a unique set of values, dreams and visions,
we custom build each GWA system to align with your values and your core
assets. This customization ensures that your performance accounting and
reporting system will satisfy your management needs and the accountability
needs of your stakeholders.
How do we report genuine progress?
The GWA system is intended both as a measurement tool as well as a reporting
and performance management tool. The evidence contained in the genuine
progress accounts provides you with a complete picture of well-being like
a “full-length” performance mirror. It also helps assess what
impacts (both positive and negative) your organization may be having on
other stakeholders.
The outcome of using the GWA system is a unique “state of well-being”
or “sustainability” report; a kind of mirror or portrait of
performance. This portrait can become the basis for a healthy dialogue
within organizations and with stakeholders as to options for strengthening
core assets, mitigating against emerging liabilities and identify areas
for continuous improvement. The goal is to literally “recreate”
the genuine wealth, the real assets of an organization.
Moreover these genuine progress accounts can be used to conduct analysis
of the interrelationships between a number of factors that contribute
to your overall well-being. This evidence can also be used to dream or
conduct “what if” future scenario analysis.
Using the GWA model it is possible to create a “new balance sheet”
that reveals the conditions (strengths or weaknesses) of your organization's
or community's core assets. The GWA balance sheet shows the balance and
interrelationship between economic, social and environmental factors that
contribute to overall well-being and thus to sustainability. The GWA provides
a more complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of all capital
assets under management.
Secondly, the GWA is a true cost accounting system that examines the full
costs of managing human, social, natural and manufactured capital assets.
A new “sustainable income” statement is revealed that shows
both revenues but also the full costs of operating and managing all capital
assets. Too often we fail in managing all capital assets efficiently and
effectively because we fail to assess the full financial costs (and benefits)
associated with these practices.
GWA
measures total returns to all capital
GWA helps organizations identify these costs and then present a unique
return on investment assessment framework that evaluates the rate of returns
to both financial, human, social and nature’s capital. Some call
this “triple-bottom-line” performance accounting. At AMI,
we go beyond the triple line taking a total, integrated, capital management
performance perspective. A healthy and flourishing enterprise recognizes
that comparative advantage comes from balancing performance across all
capital assets. This is simply good total capital management.
The GWA allows managers to assess the returns on investment that go beyond
the monetary percentages but go to the heart of why we are in business
or why we are active in our communities and the environment. These include
the returns to investments in human and social capital and into nature’s
capital. This allows you to better manage scarce financial capital more
efficiently while ensuring optimum social and environmental performance.
At the heart of our management decisions is a commitment to stewardship of all the gifts of “capital” we have received. It is prudent and wise to be concerned about maximizing the returns to all capital assets in order to build and sustain genuine wealth. This provides organizations who are concerned with issues of social and environmental responsibility in balance with fiduciary or financial responsibilities to provide a truly “balanced score card” on managing all capital.
The
GWA helps reveal where money invested is achieving the highest and best
returns to all capital (not just financial) that ensures flourishing,
thriving and hence sustainable performance.
GWA allows for “best in class” performance benchmarking
GWA allows you to assess your performance in relationship to other organizations you consider peers or “best in class” performers. AMI also helps you understand your performance in the context of impacts on the greater community, economy or ecosystem in which you operate (including your employees, their families, other businesses, community neighbours, and the environment).
GWA’s unique performance indexing system provides the right tools for creating composite performance indices allowing for the aggregation and comparison of otherwise incomparable performance indicators. GWA also provides a unique full-cost accounting option allowing your organization to assess the full monetary costs and benefits that are associated with your organization’s performance and impacts.
GWA:
the 21st Century Total Capital Management System
GWA was designed as a practical tool for any organization – a small
or medium sized business, a large corporation, communities, or government
organizations -- who are interested in measuring and managing their total
capital assets for sustainability objectives. GWA is suited for those
organizations who are looking for a way of accounting for sustainability,
assess the real returns on their investments in the community and with
respect to the environment and for those who are genuinely concerned with
being good social and environmental stewardship of the common good. GWA
is for those organizations that want to flourish and provide life-giving
opportunities for their employees or members of their community.
With the “big picture”, “360 degree” or “whole systems” diagnosis that GWA provides, it is the premiere accounting and reporting system for the 21st Century. Perspective on total performance and the conditions of an organization, organization’s are better equipped to maintain flourishing and high life-giving enterprises.
Quality of Life Measurement
Using the GWA framework and assessment methods, AMI helps your community
to measure and assess your quality of life. We help you analyze and compare
your "genuine wealth" --- the conditions of community well-being.
We create customized quality of life profiles or total well-being profiles.
These include profiles of economic or financial well-being, social well-being
and environmental well-being that together add up to high quality of life
and vibrant communities.
Anielski Management has considerable experience in quality of life indicator
development from the local to the national scale in Canada. We have designed
new quality of life and sustainability indicator systems, provided strategic
counsel on existing systems, and advised municipal governments how to
make the best use of these indicators in the context of local government
decision making.
We also facilitated quality of life dialogues in communities, which is
critical to identifying the core values of citizens as a basis of creating
a meaningful suite of indicators to assess quality over time. AMI has
considerable expertise in using Statistics Canada and other federal, provincial
and government statistics and developing comprehensive analytic spreadsheets
that facilitate quality of life profiling and complex analysis.
Anielski Management also conducts socio-economic analysis that transcends
traditional economic cost-benefit analysis to consider the full impacts
on quality of life from various economic development options. We provide
an innovative and customized performance accounting and reporting system
ideally suited for your organization or community with a commitment to
building healthy, flourishing and vibrant cultures.
Strategic-Business Planning
Mark Anielski is an expert in the facilitation and development of strategic-business
plans. He has helped design, facilitate and construct strategic-business
plans for government, business and other organizations. Mark approach
to business planning is unique in that it is focused on ensuring the sustainabilitiy
of the organization in both financial, social and environmental terms.
His approach includes as a thorough diagnosis of the strategic issues
and trends that are impacting your organization's performance and how
to orient your goals and actions for a sustainable and flourishing future.
Performance Measurement
& Benchmarking
Anielski Management specializes in performance measurement, performance
benchmarking and performance auditing. The GWA model is just one example
of our innovative approach to performance measurement for any organization
-- business, government or not-for-profit organizations. We measure your
total performance (financial, social and environmental) believing that
a truly sustainable enterprise is one that takes a 360-degree perspective
(measures) continually balancing and rebalancing your financial, human,
social and natural capital strengths and weaknesses.
We help you manage all of your assets so that their full and optimum potential
can be realized and that they are managed in the most effective and efficient
manner. We are proficient in assessing the relative performance strengths
and weaknesses of your organization with respect to your peers, competitors
or other benchmark organizations. We also can assess or audit your performance
given our knowledge of performance measures across many sectors. Anielski
Management is committed to working hand-in-hand with your organization
to manage for both effective and efficient performance outcomes.
Socio-economic Research & Analysis
As an economist, Mark Anielski conducts applied socio-economic research
and analysis using both conventional benefit-cost analysis, full cost
accounting and the more comprehensive Genuine Wealth Assessments that
consider the integrated social, financial and environemental attributes
of sustainable well-being. Mark's research has included developing and
implementing new well-being and sustainability accounting system that
can assist businesses and communities diagnose and assess their overall
well-being. this helps them to answer the questions: How are we doing?
How's life? Are we on a sustainable course?
We go beyond the traditional economic approach to socio-economic analysis
with our GWA model that considers a multi-dimensional array of the economic,
social, health and environmental parameters of a society’s, regions,
or community’s well-being. Using the GWA model customized for socio-economic
profiling, we can create unique portraits of the historical and current
conditions of an economy’s well-being including accounts of human,
social, natural and economic (including produced capital) assets. These
accounts can then be used to conduct “what if” future scenario
analyses to project into the future the potential impacts of a change
in economic conditions, government policies or other social and environmental
drivers that could impact an economy or region. We also conduct a full
or total-cost accounting as part of our socio-economic analysis. Through
our partnerships with other AMI associates, we provide a full range of
socio-economic analysis tools at various scales of analysis from a regional,
drainage-basin (watershed), municipally district or census district scale.
Facilitation and Mediation
Services
Anielski Management provides process facilitation services whether facilitating
a strategic-business planning process, performance measurement system
development or government policy development. Anielski Management also
provides mediation services using alternative dispute resolution methods
to resolve conflicts and disputes.
©Anielski Management Inc.