Businesses achieve a greater public good by boosting their bottom lines than through corporate social-responsibility efforts or through structures and accounting methods that emphasize social goals, says a new paper by a corporate adviser, writes The New York Times.

The study, written by two consultants at Dalberg Global Development Advisors and published by New York University’s Stern School of Business, characterizes the practice of double- or triple-bottom-line accounting—in which companies use social and environmental impact as well as profit to measure performance—as a distraction from building long-term profitability.

“The real social value comes overwhelmingly from what companies do through their core business, the skills and supply chains built up around them, and then the revenue that comes into government as a result of their profitability,” said Jonathan Berman, a co-author of the paper.