SVI and GAIL Join Forces to Advance the True & Fair Project Worldwide
What does it take to make company accounts reflect reality? At Social Value International (SVI), we believe the answer lies in bringing together legal requirements with accounting frameworks. That’s why we are delighted to announce a new partnership with the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL), the global community of legal experts using the practice of law to have a positive impact on people and the planet.
The True & Fair Project challenges a long-standing problem: companies produce financial statements that often exclude the costs of doing business, from carbon emissions to underpaid labour. Yet in many jurisdictions, directors are already legally required to give a “true and fair view” of their accounts. What does that obligation mean in practice? And how can it be applied to ensure hidden costs are brought into the open?
This is where the partnership with GAIL comes in.
A few weeks ago, SVI published new EU research on the “true and fair” requirement, supported by GAIL and with contributions from several of its members. The study explored how European company law places duties on directors that could be used to account for social and environmental impacts.
Building on that momentum, SVI and GAIL will now take this work further. Together, we will:
Connect legal experts with social value networks worldwide, creating opportunities for joint research, shared practice, and collaboration on how the true and fair requirement (and its equivalents) is applied across jurisdictions.
Advance new research in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), examining how the true and fair requirement is framed in key jurisdictions and how regulators interpret and enforce it.
Collaborate on global advocacy, working together at events and through campaigns to ensure the true and fair requirement is recognised and acted upon.
Ben Carpenter, CEO of SVI, says:
“The True & Fair Project is about making sure company accounts reflect the real costs of doing business. Working with GAIL means we can bring lawyers into this conversation globally, raise awareness of how existing law can be reinterpreted to protect people and planet.”
Sarah Dobson James, Executive Director of GAIL, says:
“Lawyers are at the forefront of shaping the frameworks that govern business practice. By partnering with SVI, we can connect our members to the work of the True & Fair Project and strengthen the legal pathways needed to embed sustainability and accountability into corporate reporting worldwide.”
This partnership is about building the legal and accounting pathways that can shift how markets work, ensuring that companies can no longer externalise their costs to society and the environment. SVI and GAIL will work to accelerate the global conversation on what it really means for accounts to be “true and fair”, and to turn that legal requirement into a catalyst for change.