2020
ISO management system standards
ISO’s management system standards define how an organisation can manage the interrelated parts of its business in order to achieve its objectives. These objectives can relate to a number of different topics, including product or service quality, operational efficiency, environmental performance, health and safety in the workplace and many more. The management system standards help organisations improve their performance by specifying repeatable steps that they can implement to achieve their goals and objectives. They can also help to create an organisational culture that engages in a continuous cycle of self-evaluation, correction and improvement of operations and processes, such as through heightened employee awareness, and management leadership and commitment.
ISO measurement and monitoring standards
ISO’s measurement and monitoring standards comprise a series of international standards that provide guidance and frameworks for effective environmental management. These standards cover various aspects of environmental management, including environmental policy, planning, implementation, monitoring and continuous improvement.
IRIS+ Guidance / Data Collection
This document belongs to the How-To guidance series of IRIS+ which provide examples of how to use IRIS+ in practice.
Use this resource to:
- Measure, assess and value: Answer what to measure and how to use impact data to inform decision-making.
Global guidance on the integration of environmental, social and governance risks into insurance underwriting
This guide is the first of its kind globally for managing ESG risks in risk assessment and insurance underwriting. It has an initial focus on non-life insurance business, also known as property and casualty insurance business.
Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:
- Identify: Understand the materiality of ESG risks to various lines of business and economic sectors, including characteristics that might affect the ability to assess and mitigate such risks.
- Implement: Address the growing concerns by stakeholders across society (e.g. NGOs, investors, governments).
Why and how investors should act on human rights
This paper sets out how investors can ensure they respect human rights across all their investment activities, as defined by the UN and OECD.
Use this resource to:
- Measure, assess and value: Understand the extent to which investors are facilitating human rights harm; the extent to which they could or should have known; and the quality of any mitigating steps.
Driving meaningful data: financial materiality, sustainability performance and sustainability outcomes
A framework that incorporates financial materiality and sustainability performance calibrated to progress on sustainability outcomes. This resource also considers sources of data needed to complete this picture across entities such as companies, governments and global institutions and activities.
Use this resource to:
- Identify: Identify current and forward-looking information that assesses the range of sustainable risks and opportunities.
- Measure, assess and value: Assess and interpret a company’s sustainability performance and alignment in the context of long-term sustainability goals and thresholds.
Definition of Sustainable Development Investing
The Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) Alliance, steered by UN DESA, reached consensus on a common definition of Sustainable Development Investing (SDI) to help establish norms that differentiate investment strategies.
Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:
- Implement: Refer to key definitions and recommended practices when embedding impact management into strategy, governance and management approach.
SDG Action Manager
The SDG Action Manager is a digital tool designed to help organisations measure their impact across various sustainability areas, set goals aligned with the SDGs, and track progress over time. The questionnaire, which draws from B Lab’s B Impact Assessment and the UN Global Compact’s 10 Principles, enables organisations to collect performance information on the SDGs that are most relevant to manage, based on its size, sector and geography. It was developed through research and public consultation and so provides an evidence-based starting point for identifying sustainability topics to measure.
Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:
- Governance: Prioritise governance mechanisms that address the organisation’s key sustainability risks and enhance its resilience against potential challenges.
- Identify: Understand the most relevant SDGs to manage based on the organisation’s size, sector, and geography.
- Measure, assess and value: Obtain a set of metrics.
- Set targets and plan: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) targets related to sustainable development. Organisations can align their targets with the specific indicators and targets outlined in the SDGs.
EU Taxonomy
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’.
Impact-financial integration: a handbook for investors
This handbook assists impact investors with integrating their impact considerations into their investment practices. It provides practical strategies, tools and case studies to help investors align their financial goals with positive social and environmental outcomes. The handbook covers various aspects of impact investing, including impact measurement, due diligence, portfolio management, and stakeholder engagement.
Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:
- Implement: Execute the strategies outlined in the handbook to integrate impact considerations into investment processes and decision-making. This involves incorporating impact metrics and assessment methodologies into investment analysis, due diligence and portfolio management practices.