Impact investors have a new way to measure results, thanks to a collaboration between the Global Impact Investing Network and data management provider Novata.
Novata will integrate GIIN's IRIS+ standard impact investing metrics into its data management platform for private markets, the organizations said Thursday in a joint release.
That should address one challenge for impact investors: the lack of impact data and platform interoperability that can integrate impact measurement and management tools into operations.
It also offers fund managers a way to push out metrics to companies, which helps produce benchmarks, said Sapna Shah, chief program and operating officer of GIIN, in an interview. "Embedding it in a third-party software solution allows fund managers to streamline reports back to (investors)," she said.
"This is a way to bring our metrics to investors through the platforms they currently use," she said, and the collaboration "hopefully will generate momentum for these types of partnerships."
A June 28 report from GIIN found that impact investing assets grew by an 18% compound annual growth rate between 2017 and 2022, based on a sample of 308 impact investors around the world managing a collective $371 billion. Pension funds made up the largest share of the investment managers' impact capital at 20%, followed by family offices at 15%, development finance institutions at 14% and insurance companies at 7%.
Capital from pension funds and insurance companies grew the fastest, at 32% annually between 2017 and 2022, according to the report.
