A global alliance of multinational companies led by South Korea’s SK Group will standardize the measurement of businesses’ contribution to society in the next three years, officials said Thursday.

Taking the leadership of the project, SK in partnership with German chemical firm Basf, has launched a nonprofit organization in Frankfurt to start developing a methodology for measuring the value of social contribution made by private entities.

Named Value Balancing Alliance, the organization has eight members, including Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novatis, Bosch and Deutche Bank from Germany and tobacco company Philip Morris of the US. The list also includes German software company SAP and LafargeHolcim, a construction material supplier based in Switzerland. The alliance has been working with four major global accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Ernst & Young, along with OECD, European Commission and Blackrock as advisors, SK said.

The alliance will invite more companies to participate but limit the number of members to 15 to keep the project efficient, it added.

To build a logical foundation for the measurement, the alliance will form a research consortium with scholars from Oxford University and Harvard University, officials said.

Initiated from SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won’s corporate philosophy of creating value in businesses’ contribution to communities, the energy-to-semiconductor giant has been urging businesses here and abroad to join the project. In a voluntary move, SK released quantified social value created by its major affiliates in May, using its own measuring tool.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)