Urban food markets can promote sustainable development through the generation of social value in the spaces where they are located and contribute to sustainability on a global scale. To measure this, indicators are required to evaluate and monitor these markets. Studies in this regard are scarce and often developed according to top-down schemes. This study seeks to remedy this relative deficiency and aims to design specific social sustainability metrics for these organizations from a bottom-up perspective. The Integrated Social Value model is used. This social accounting system is considered appropriate in this study due to the phenomenological approach on which it is based and is applied to a service cooperative located in the Canary Islands. The main contribution of this work is that new social sustainability indicators are obtained and applied to the analysis of an entity, and they are relevant and understandable to stakeholders. This would provide, in future developments, a system of sustainability indicators for similar organizations in Spain.

Purpose This study aims to demonstrate the derivation of social sustainability metrics that guide the decision-making of hotel managers regarding sustainability strategies based on the case study of Hotel Tigaiga in the Canary Islands, using a noninstrumental approach of the stakeholder theory. Design/methodology/approach The analytic–synthetic method of integrated social value (ISV) was used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders’ representatives, direct observations and relevant documents. Findings Metrics referring to hotel outputs valued by stakeholders and expressed in monetary terms were obtained. Research limitations/implications The findings cannot be directly applied to a similar hotel. Applying the ISV model to a set of similar hotels to standardize outputs and proxies is necessary. Practical implications The results can guide efforts to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of Hotel Tigaiga’s social sustainability strategies. Originality/value Research on measuring the sustainability of hotels in terms of generating maximum value for society is limited. This study is unique because it demonstrates the process of deriving comprehensible indicators to guide hotel managers toward social sustainability.