LIFE, the Legal Impact Framework for Enterprise: a European reference model for purpose-driven companies

Assobenefit, B Lab, the Communauté des Entreprises à Mission and Kaya, with NATIVA as catalyst, have launched LIFE, the Legal Impact Framework for Enterprise: a voluntary, simple and scalable reference that any of the EU's 33 million enterprises can adopt on top of its current legal form.

LIFE builds on the experience of Italy and France, where the Società Benefit and the Société à mission have shown that the model works across different legal traditions. Each of them, however, stops at its national border, and the European Commission's 2026 study on impact-driven businesses concludes that the EU needs a harmonised model for purpose-driven companies. LIFE is an answer to that conclusion: it aims to unlock Europe's competitiveness, prosperity and resilience together with its social and environmental contribution, and the promoters now call on EU institutions to make LIFE the common European reference.

The purpose-driven enterprise is one of Europe's competitive distinctions. A purpose-driven company is one whose purpose is embedded in its business model, strategy and governance, without being limited to them, and guides the way it creates value. Today, a company recognised for its purpose in one Member State has no equivalent status in the next.

Enrico Letta's 2024 report on the Single Market pointed to fragmentation as one of Europe's main weaknesses. The Commission's study on impact-driven businesses adds that the EU still has no common definition for these companies.

LIFE is the joint answer of the movements that built these models on the ground. It is voluntary and leaves national company law as it is. A LIFE company commits to three things:

• Purpose in its bylaws. The bylaws carry two layers of the purpose, a higher purpose and a set of specific purposes, that are binding on directors and management and capable of guiding the company’s strategic and operational decisions:
• Governance. The company shall ensure that its highest governing body considers the interests of its stakeholders and the impacts of the company’s activities on people and the environment in its decision-making. In addition, it designates a separate body (Purpose Officer or Purpose Committee depending on company size) which reports to the company’s highest governing body and is responsible for overseeing and safeguarding its purpose.
• Transparency & Accountability. Transparency and accountability shield the legitimacy of purpose-driven companies and the economic, social and environmental promise they make to the market and to their stakeholders. Transparency runs through a yearly Purpose Report and accountability shall be ensured through independent oversight of progress towards the specific purpose(s).

LIFE is also a reference for Member States that want to create a framework of their own, and for those, like Italy and France, that want to keep their existing laws aligned. 

Italy introduced the Società Benefit in 2015 and France the Société à mission in 2019. Neither is a new type of company: they are qualifications that an existing company can adopt without giving up its legal form or its profit goals. Once adopted, social and environmental commitments sit in the bylaws alongside economic objectives, and the company reports publicly on them every year. 

The model in numbers:

• ~8,000 companies have chosen this path
• ~1.5 million people employed
• +17.75% growth in the number of companies in 2025
• 6.2% of large groups are already among them
• +14.6% revenue growth for Italian Società Benefit in 2022–2024, against +5.3% for other companies
• +19.7% EBITDA growth for Italian Società Benefit in 2022–2024, against +12.6%

Consolidated data for Italy and France, December 2025. Revenue and EBITDA figures: 2026 National Research on Italian Benefit Corporations.

Belgium is now preparing a law inspired by the two models.

We are now in the second quarter of the century, with just over three years to 2030, and the concrete impacts of climate change and of societal change are tangible. Companies are among the actors that shape society the most. Europe does not need a niche economy of exemplary companies. It needs an economy where contribution to the common good progressively becomes the norm, to the benefit of long-term prosperity and competitiveness. Recognising and scaling this model is a way to defend Europe's economic identity and strategic autonomy.

The promoters call on EU institutions to:

1. Promote LIFE as a common reference for national frameworks, supporting Member States that wish to introduce or upgrade their own purpose-driven company regimes;
2. Adopt an EU Recommendation establishing LIFE as a common reference for purpose-driven companies; and use this reference to guide the development and revision of EU policies and legislation addressing corporate purpose, governance and stakeholder interests;

• 3. Include an optional LIFE qualification within EU Inc., so that companies choosing the 28th Regime can embed purpose from day one.

Find out more here.