Impact Management | October 2, 2019

Rolling up impact across sectors and strategies

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

ImpactAlpha, Oct. 2 – Impact investors have beefed up the case that social and environmental impact can generate competitive financial returns. What hasn’t been well documented is, uh, impact. The increasingly sophisticated practice of impact measurement and management is changing that.

At its investor forum in Amsterdam today, the Global Impact Investing Network is out with two reports that demonstrate how to aggregate and compare impact across sets of investments. One example rolled up 56 clean energy investments made through various instruments and primarily private capital. For each $100,000 invested, more than 2,000 people gained access to energy, more than 3,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions were averted and at least 19 new jobs were created over one year.

It’s been difficult, until now, to aggregate impact results across investments. “Better transparency and comparability of impact performance data makes it easier for investors to screen investments and manage them in a way that helps improve impact outcomes,” says the GIIN’s Sapna Shah. The GIIN’s Rachel Bass will dive deeper in an afternoon session, “Driving shared data.”