Last month, we attended the "Valuing Impacts to Make Better Decisions" event hosted by the International Foundation for Valuing Impact (IFVI) in NYC during UNGA/Climate Week. Why? Because IFVI is developing something called Impact Weighted Accounts (IWA), which allow for valued environmental (and soon social) impacts to be accounted for alongside a company’s financial statements. This approach enables the evaluation of a company’s net impact across social, environmental, and economic factors, bringing us closer to understanding a company’s true value creation. You can hear Sir Ronald Cohen’s talk here. 

Why is this important? We see this as a critical step not only for greater accountability among companies and measurement of outcomes, but also as a pathway for social impact (i.e., Verified Impact Assets) funded by corporations to be reflected in a company’s impact accounts. However, many corporations are still thinking traditionally regarding social impact and are hesitant to lead and adopt IWA. This is because they haven’t considered the benefits (and risks) of advancing their sustainability performance or understood how these investments can actually increase enterprise value. It’s time to embrace the theory that social accounting is both an emerging trend and likely a regulatory requirement in the future. We recognize that corporate leaders have a lot at stake and much on their plates, but we also believe that fortune favors the brave. Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the UK, said of Impact Weighted Accounts, “soon investors, consumers, employees, and all stakeholders will press for the social impact account to sit side by side with a company’s financial accounts.”

Who is leading here? If you’re a corporate leader that wants to take action and lead in this space, please get in touch with our CEO here to talk about our next big initiative: a Corporate Impact Collaborative that will launch alongside a landmark strategy paper for how the corporate sector can engage in trading impact. 

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