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One of the key elements of impact investing is impact measure.

Impact measurement stands for the process of quantitatively and qualitatively

evaluating the impact of a company.

But what is a good impact measure?

Answering this question, today is Natasha Gerda, had a research at Astaire.

First, measuring impact is not just a technical exercise, but also strategic and a leadership

imperative. It shows the willingness to take accountability for our actions. It is a transparent

way to report on the impact the companies or projects that are held in portfolio have in the real

world. Having said that, the interpretation of impact measure has to be put into context and perspective

of what the intentionality is. For an instance, when measuring the carbon avoidance of a product of a company,

the context is what would be the actual

CO2 emissions that would have been emitted if a traditional high carbon product would have

been used alternatively. So we assume the output such as electricity generation is not a variable,

but the source from which it is generated provides a positive impact when can be measured.

So essentially there are two ways to proceed.

At one point of the time you gather, reported and publicly available information about companies' impact that you hold in portfolio,

and you aggregate the data to show what has been really achieved.

The first issue is that you are highly dependent on the data reported by the company itself,

and its availability and accuracy raises a challenge when

it comes to aggregating figures.

The second way to measure impact of a portfolio is defined the impact as the use of a product

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