Principles for Responsible Banking

Last updated: 2019

The Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) guide banks in aligning their business strategies with society’s goals, as well as promoting sustainability. These principles aim to encourage banks to play a crucial role in achieving global sustainable development objectives, including addressing climate change, promoting financial inclusion and fostering sustainable economic growth.

This is a cross-cutting resource, meaning that it supports the internal impact management process as a whole, rather than one or a few of the Actions of Impact Management.

Principles for Positive Impact Finance

Last updated: 2017

The principles provide guidance for financial institutions and their public and private stakeholders to transition to an impact-based economy that can deliver on people’s needs and aspirations within planetary boundaries. The Principles promote Positive Impact Finance as a key solution for bridging the funding gap required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

  • Implement: Understand key definitions and requirements for the delivery and assessment of positive impact finance.

Maximise Your Impact: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs

Last updated: 2017

“Maximise Your Impact: A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs” proposes a practical approach for social entrepreneurs to understand and maximise the positive social value they create, supporting both the creation and development of impact-oriented organisations.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

  • Strategy: Develop a strategy and business model that address the root causes of the problem that the organisation is trying to solve.
  • Governance: Set the right governance structure and practices to serve the organisation’s mission.
  • Identify: Identify the problems and solutions that the organisation will seek to address, including through qualitative research and stakeholder engagement.
  • Measure, assess and value: Check whether the organisation has all the information it needs to assess its impacts. The guidance contains 10 questions that guide impact assessment, functioning as a checklist to ensure all necessary contextual information is collected.
  • Set targets and plan: Create an impact goal (the core problem that the organisation is trying to achieve), set targets and forecast changes that the organisation is planning to make towards the impact goal and associated targets.
  • Implement: Integrate information on social value into management decision-making.
  • Monitor, learn and adapt: Understand how to use the collected information to decide whether to change, stop or scale-up activities, and learn how to develop a set of recommendations about adapting targets.

GRI Sector Standards

Last updated: n/a

GRI is developing standards for 40 sectors to compliment their current topic standards.

Use this resource to:

  • Identify: Identify sustainability topics to measure using the list of topics listed for each Sector Standard.
  • Measure, assess and value: Identify metrics to measure for each significant topic. The standards themselves provide guidance on selecting metrics to report.
  • Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on ‘material topics’ that reflect the organisation’s most significant impacts. The Sector Standards are a helpful starting point for identifying likely significant impacts.

Report Assurance Standard

Last updated: 2018

Report Assurance standard that provides criteria to assess the application of SVI’s Social Value Principles as evidenced in a report. Assurance is conducted acting in the interests of the affected stakeholders, an important distinction versus other assurance standards that are currently available.

Use this resource to:

  • Assure a report that has been prepared in accordance with the Principles of Social Value. The Principles of Social Value and associated practice standards help organisations measure and manage the social value generated through their business activities. This means the assurance standard is best applied to a report that has been prepared in accordance with the principles from the outset. The assurance standard is used to assess application of the principles, it does not assure accuracy of performance information.

Social Value Management Certificate

Last updated: 2021

This certification process assesses to what extent the Principles of Social Value are embedded in an organisation’s systems and processes. The certificate has three levels that set out a progression pathway for organisations looking to continuously improve how they optimise social value for their stakeholders.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

  • Verification, assurance and certification: Certify that an organisation’s systems and processes adhere to the Principles of Social Value.

B Corp certification

Last updated: 2019

The B Corp Certification is an assessment process that evaluates a company’s social and environmental performance, as well as governance and transparency. Organisations that achieve B Corp Certification demonstrate a commitment to meeting a high standard of responsible business practices and accountability.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management

  • Verification, assurance and certification: Achieve B Corp certification by meeting the standards set by B Lab, demonstrating a commitment to social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.
  • Benchmarking and rating: Compare impact scores and metrics with those of other organiations within the same industry or sector.

WBA Benchmarks

Last updated: 2021

These benchmarks rank companies and financial institutions based on their impact performance. The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) recognises that transformational change across seven systems (financial, decarbonisation and energy, food and agriculture, digital, social, urban, and nature) are needed to achieve sustainability. In each of these systems, companies that have a big role to play in hindering or advancing progress towards a sustainable future are identified as ‘keystone’ companies. The WBA then draws from existing standards to develop a publicly available methodology for each system (or component of a system). The methodology identifies the relevant topics and associated metrics for companies to disclose against.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

  • Benchmarking and rating: Compare performance with other companies ranked according to WBA’s benchmarks.

Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals into Corporate Reporting: A Practical Guide

Last updated: 2018

Guidance on how to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into reporting processes.

Use this resource to:

  • Communicate: Use the guidance to disclose positive and negative contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Standard on applying Social Value Principle 4: Only Include What is Material

Last updated: 2018

Standard and guidance on how to apply the fourth of SVI’s Social Value Principles.

Use this resource to:

  • Measure, assess and value: Follow the guidance to determine whether an impact is significant to people or the environment, requiring management.