The Covid-19 pandemic has thrust into the limelight the far-reaching impacts that business has on vulnerable people in workforces and communities across the world. It has raised the imperative of tackling inequalities onto a political par with climate change, recognizing also the many inter-relationships between the two. But what will this mean in practice? Efforts are already underway to develop a single, coherent reporting system that would allow investors and other stakeholders to assess a company’s impact on the environment. These efforts are worthy: We need less competition and choice in what companies should report regarding their impacts on the world, and more clarity and consistency so better decisions can be made by managers and investors alike. However — and this caveat matters — we must balance the enthusiasm for this ambition with attention to an important reality: when it comes to impacts on people, there has been far less scrutiny, standardization and innovation in the data used to evaluate which businesses are ‘getting it right’ than we see in the environmental field. This must be reflected in the systems we build if we are not to amplify the mistakes of the past....

In recent years, most major international airlines have reported healthy profitability. But our calculations show this to be a mirage. In the case of Lufthansa and American Airlines, for example, accounting for their environmental costs of $2.3 and $4.8 billion respectively would make both companies unprofitable....