The Global Impact Investing Network has a new measurement platform to help impact investors measure, manage and compare their investments, the non-profit organization said Thursday.
IRIS Plus is aimed at giving impact investors streamlined and practical guidance on measuring impact, with evidence-based metrics that will be most relevant to their strategies and impact goals. The core metrics focus on key themes such as clean energy access, financial inclusion, health and affordable housing.
GIIN officials consulted with 600 impact investors in developing IRIS Plus to address three challenges: a lack of implementation guidance, insufficient core metrics and comparable data, and fragmented approaches to impact investing.
While the growth of impact investing has also brought increased tools and resources for measuring it, IRIS Plus allows investors to track specific metrics, showing how impact intentions translate into results, said Sapna Shah, managing director at GIIN. "Investors have asked for more specifics on how they measure and what they should measure" when assessing the performance of their respective impact priorities, Ms. Shah said.
IRIS Plus is designed to operate with other impact assessment standards and will help investors do more comparisons of impact strategies and performance, she said.
"Our aim is to produce something highly practical. This is a huge leap forward in terms of our ability as an industry to measure the impact of what we are doing," Ms. Shah said.
