Economy for the Common Good: 20-theme sheet
The ECG balance sheet crosses four values and five stakeholder groups into 20 themes. A voluntary extra report beside the annual accounts.
Economy for the Common Good (ECG / ECOnGOOD): The Common Good Balance Sheet is a voluntary extra report. It rates how an organisation contributes to four values across five stakeholder groups. The grid yields 20 themes. The tool is the Common Good Matrix, currently version 5.1 (ECOnGOOD, February 2025).
Most firms already know the mandatory stack: annual accounts, management report, and often sustainability disclosures. The Common Good Balance Sheet sits beside that stack. It asks not only about revenue and profit, but how supply chains, staff, customers and the wider environment are treated.
Common Good Matrix: 4 values, 5 groups, 20 themes
The matrix columns are the values:
- Human dignity
- Solidarity and social justice
- Environmental sustainability
- Transparency and co-determination
The rows are the stakeholder groups an organisation usually touches: suppliers, owners and financial partners, employees, customers and business partners, plus the global community, nature and living beings. Each intersection is one theme. Four times five makes twenty.
In the report, each theme is described, scored and often given a development path. An external audit or a peer evaluation can follow. The finished report is published. Next to the classic balance sheet you get a readable common-good trail.
What the balance sheet is (and is not)
It does not replace statutory financial statements. It is an organisational development and evaluation model from the Economy for the Common Good movement, run internationally as ECOnGOOD. Small organisations can use a compact balance sheet; medium and large ones use the full version. Matrix 5.1 ships a single workbook for both.
Anyone who balances makes the hard questions visible: How do we live human dignity in the supply chain? How fair are employment agreements? What do product and service do at the end of use? The answers land in the report, not only in a brochure.
Common Good Index: the stub name
The old magazine placeholder was titled like an index. What it points to is the Common Good Balance Sheet of the ECG, built on the matrix. It is not a single stock-style index number. It is a reporting system with scores and themes that you can put beside mandatory figures when a shop wants common-good work visible.
Matrix 5.1 replaced 5.0. For reporting periods that include 2025, 5.0 remains usable in a transition window. If you start fresh, take the current version from econgood.org or the country sites.
Fact table
| Claim | Basket | From where |
|---|---|---|
| The Common Good Matrix crosses values and stakeholder groups into 20 Common Good themes | Fact | ECOnGOOD / Economy for the Common Good: Matrix 5.0 and 5.1 docs |
| The four value columns are human dignity, solidarity and social justice, environmental sustainability, transparency and co-determination | Fact | Common Good Matrix 5.1 (ECOnGOOD, Feb 2025) |
| Five stakeholder rows: suppliers, ownership/finance, employees, customers/partners, global community/nature | Fact | Same matrix documentation |
| The balance sheet is documentation and a development tool, often with external review and publication | Fact | germany.econgood.org first-info on balancing; ECOnGOOD site |
| Some firms use it as a voluntary add-on next to legal reporting | Hypothesis (high) | Follows from the voluntary design and published practice of the movement; no own count here |
| Matrix 5.1 launched February 2025; Matrix 5.0 remains usable in a transition window for certain periods that include 2025 | Fact | ECOnGOOD / ECG Germany first-info on balancing |
Sources: ECOnGOOD: Common Good Matrix 5.1, ECG Germany: first info on balancing.
