Industry-specific

ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice provide a globally recognised framework, defining practices for effective and credible sustainability systems.

User this resource to:

• Define how a standard should be developed, structured and improved over time. The Code addresses multi-stakeholder consultation and decision-making, and ensures the standard contains clear requirements that can be measured and assessed.
• Provide a framework for assessing compliance with standards, so that consumers, supply chain partners, investors and other stakeholders know they can trust the results of assessments. It encourages assurance that is rigorous and accessible, providing accurate and transparent results.
• Support robust monitoring and evaluation that helps systems to understand how effective their standards are in achieving what they set out to do. It provides standards with a roadmap to measure progress against sustainability goals and to improve practices over time.

The Credibility Principles define the core values of credible and effective sustainability systems. They provide the foundations for systems to deliver greater impact.

User this resource to:

• Develop standards and similar sustainability tools to understand which attributes of their system are critical to the credibility of their approach, and why this matters for improving sustainability performance and delivering impacts.
• Identify systems that can be effective partners in delivering against shared sustainability objectives.

Guidance on how an investor can develop a responsible investment policy.

Use this resource to:

• Governance: Develop investment policies and incorporate sustainability considerations into the investment process.

This report recommends a set of sector-specific, SDG-related metrics by drawing on metrics from existing standard setters and benchmarks.

The Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD) is a group of 30 large investment firms convened by the United Nations Secretary General. The GISD sits within the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and aims to scale-up long-term finance and investment in sustainable development.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: Identify SDG-related metrics for eight sectors. Organisations can consider measuring the metrics specific to their sector.
• Communicate: Include recommended SDG-related metrics in disclosure to stakeholders.

This short guidance recommends an approach to SDG-related disclosure based on the approach set out in the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

The Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD) is a group of 30 large investment firms convened by the United Nations Secretary General. The GISD sits within the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and aims to scale-up long-term finance and investment in sustainable development.

Use this resource to:

• Communicate: Organisations can use the recommendations to guide their disclosure related to SDGs.

A set of harmonised metrics developed by subject matter experts and impact management practitioners, that have been agreed upon by Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and other private sector partners.

In March 2021, HIPSO together with IRIS+ have published the Joint Impact Indicators, a harmonised set of basic indicators that are available for the impact investment community at large. Further harmonisation work continues: work is underway to map various investor metric sets and corporate disclosure standards, with a view to achieving global consistency. E.g. IRIS+-GRI, B Lab-GRI, HIPSO-IRIS+.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: Select from a catalogue of metrics specifically designed for Development Finance Institutions.

Reporting standards that provide industry-specific disclosure topics and associated metrics that measure performance against 26 General Issue Categories (or sustainability topics). Management or mismanagement of performance on these sustainability topics may create, preserve or erode value for the typical company in a given industry over time.

Use this resource to:

• Identify: Understand whether a given topic is reasonably likely to materially affect the financial condition, operating performance, or risk profile of a typical company within an industry. Find industry-specific topics and accounting metrics. The standards themselves provide guidance on selecting metrics to report. Using standardised metrics helps the organisation and its stakeholders compare performance with others.
• Communicate: Report to providers of financial capital on sustainability topics that are likely to affect how value is created, sustained or eroded for the organisation over the short-, medium-, and long-term.

Regulation that sets out performance thresholds for organisations to classify their economic activities as “sustainable” according to European policy objectives.

Use this resource to:

• Identify: Find the economic activities that correspond to the financial institution’s activities and review what the taxonomy says about likely impacts on sustainability. This can be an input into identifying sustainability topics to measure. This regulation is based on research connecting economic activities to likely significant impacts on six environmental objectives. Currently, research related to objectives of climate change mitigation and adaptation are most developed.
• Measure, assess and value: Assess whether underlying assets are sustainable. Underlying assets that fall under the taxonomy regulation will report on the portion of their revenue, capital expenditure and operational expenditure that are ‘taxonomy aligned’, and therefore considered a ‘sustainable investment’ according EU policy objectives.
• Set targets and plan: Set objectives for a portion of the portfolio to be ‘taxonomy-aligned’. Regulation provides investors with a set of performance thresholds that have to be met for an underlying asset to be viewed as operating sustainably in relation to one the EU’s six environmental objectives. Underlying assets that are ‘taxonomy aligned’ are generating sustainable outcomes and are therefore also ‘Benefiting stakeholders’.

Guidance that contains disclosure recommendations for information on the material financial impacts of climate-related risks and opportunities, including those related to the global transition to a lower-carbon economy. The TCFD recommendations are structured around the four pillars of Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets.

Use this resource to:

• Communicate: Follow recommendations to structure climate-related financial disclosures. Other voluntary standards can be used in conjunction with TCFD recommendations.

Tool for investors to publicly classify the impact of their portfolios. The tool uses Impact Classes as a means to segment a portfolio by type of impact on two axes: the impact of underlying assets (A, B or C) and investor’s contribution. Users can also express the portfolio’s contribution to SDGs.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: Assess the actual or expected performance of a portfolio of investments using classification.
• Communicate: Publicly disclose the performance of a portfolio of investments using classification.