Towards an Impact Weighted Account Framework
Meeting the climate targets set by the Paris agreement has proven itself to be challenging. This challenge has also led to a rising stakeholders demand for impact statements and reporting. In the past years, we have seen an increasing number of impact frameworks. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the EU Taxonomy are only some of the examples of large institutions calling for action by proposing a comprehensive framework for reaching our environmental targets.
With the myriad of frameworks, a questions still holds: how can organisations gain control over their impact and provide transparency to their stakeholders. And how can they achieve this while also complying with the regulations?
More and more organisations work on impact statements – often also referred to as Impact Weighted Accounts (IWAs). We are happy to see this, as IWAs are a key building block for the impact economy. At Impact Institute it is therefore part of our mission to help them in any way we can. In 2019 we published the beta version of the Framework for Impact Statements (FIS beta) that indeed provides key information and guidance to all organisations that work on Impact Weighted Accounts. FIS beta was received well. It is downloaded from our website over 1,000 times and received the prestigious ISAR Honours Award by UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) working group on International Standards for Accounting and Reporting (ISAR).
This year we aim to bring it a notch further. Instead of updating the Framework for Impact Statements, we decided to team up with internationally renowned organizations to work on a publication that incorporates the newest ideas on impact measurement and valuation from around the globe.
We are proud to announce the collaboration with Harvard Business School’s Impact Weighted Accounts Initiative and the Singapore Management University. Together with them and professionals from the field we will publish an ‘Impact Weighted Account Framework’ (IWAF) under flag of the Impact Economy Foundation.
Our aim is to publish a consultation version of the IWAF in the course of the summer. Stay tuned!
