I have spent a long time thinking about a simple problem: the language of profit is incomplete.
Every year, companies publish financial statements that tell us, with great precision, how much profit was made. They say almost nothing about how that profit was made — under what ethical conditions, at what social or environmental cost, with what degree of governance integrity.
Net profit. EBITDA. Gross margin. These are powerful tools. But they measure quantity, not character.
That gap is what the Colors of Profit framework is designed to address.
The framework introduces eleven named profit categories — Green, Blue, Gold, White, Orange, Silver, Grey, Purple, Red, Brown, and Black — each representing a distinct profile of legality, ethics, sustainability, transparency, and governance quality. Most companies produce a blend of several colors at once. The blend tells a richer story than any single number.
Built on this taxonomy is the Profit Color Index (PCI), a composite scoring tool that produces a weighted color profile for any enterprise — designed to sit alongside the income statement in a company's annual report and give investors, regulators, and the public an honest account of what kind of profit is being generated.
I have published the full framework as a working paper on SSRN. It is freely available.
This is early-stage work. A book is in development. A journal submission is in progress. A consulting product built around the PCI is coming.
If you work in finance, accounting, audit, regulation, or ESG — I would value your thoughts.
David Apaflo
Practitioner. Thinker. African.