Library | Sustainable Finance Practices

Impact measurement and verification

Approaches for defining, measuring, monitoring, and verifying the environmental, social, and financial impacts of investments using metrics, indicators, and verification standards.

Refine
Resource type
Sustainable Finance Practices
ESG issues
SDGs
SASB Sustainability Sector
Finance relevance
Asset Class
Location
TAG
318 results
REFINE
SHOW: 16

Just transition metrics benchmark

Power Shift Africa
Just Transition Metrics is a benchmark series developed by Shift in collaboration with multiple organisations. It provides a foundational, sector-agnostic set of quantitative metrics designed to assess the 'justness' of companies' climate-related transition plans, covering workforce, communities, and value chain impacts.
Benchmark/series
14 April 2026

GIIN state of the market series

Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN)
The GIIN's State of the Market is an annual benchmark series tracking the scale, activity, financial performance, and allocation patterns of the global impact investing market through a comprehensive survey of impact investors across asset classes, geographies, and sectors.
Benchmark/series
3 October 2025

Scientific Climate Ratings

EDHEC Business School
Scientific Climate Ratings delivers forward-looking, science-based climate risk ratings quantifying financial materiality of physical and transition risks for infrastructure assets globally.
Online tool/database

Plastic footprint guidelines

EarthAction
The Plastic Footprint Network's guidance document presents a science-based methodology for assessing corporate plastic footprints. Developed by over 100 professionals from 35 organisations, the framework comprises 11 modules covering macroplastics and microplastics, providing practitioners with a step-by-step process for measuring plastic leakage and reporting results.
Research
1 November 2023

Widening the lens: Scaling climate adaptation and resilience through sustainable finance

Sustainable Fitch
This report examines climate adaptation and resilience in sustainable finance, highlighting a significant financing gap in emerging markets and limited formal allocation in labelled debt markets. It argues for a broader lens that recognises resilience outcomes already embedded in policy-driven investments, using Ecuador's sovereign housing framework as a case study.
Research
1 June 2026

Interest rate caps, competition, and strategic borrowing: Evidence from Kenya

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
This paper examines Kenya's 2016 interest rate regulation, which capped bank lending rates but exempted the digital platform M-Shwari. Using borrower-level administrative data and a structural model, the authors find that the M-Shwari carve-out preserved credit access for high-risk borrowers, while a uniform cap would have eliminated it entirely.
Research
6 May 2026

Potential business cases in measuring biodiversity state and impact in agriculture

Svensk Kolinlagring
A joint Mistra FinBio and Svensk Kolinlagring report identifying three business cases linking biodiversity data to agricultural finance: baseline databanks for bank and insurance risk assessment, and an MRV system for biodiversity claims. It highlights the financing gap in regenerative agriculture and outlines potential biodiversity-linked financial products.
Research
1 December 2025

Measuring the impact of data centers in the United States economy: Monetary damage from air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
This NBER working paper quantifies the environmental costs of US data centre electricity use in 2025. Using facility-level data for approximately 2,800 data centres, it estimates gross external damages of $24.6 billion from air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, with Texas and Virginia accounting for 30% of the national total.
Research
1 April 2026

Valuing Impact Dataset

Valuing Impact
Valuing Impact provides a dataset, insights, methods and case studies to support impact valuation and measurement across organisations.
Online tool/database

Social performance measurement: Practical insights and tips for financial institutions

Power Shift Africa
This report by Shift distils insights from practitioner clinics for financial institutions on social performance measurement. It identifies key challenges and misperceptions, and provides eight practical tips for building more effective human rights due diligence measurement approaches, covering HRDD maturity assessment, theory of change, and quantification at scale.
Research
19 May 2026

From measurement to decision: How impact valuation is changing the way leaders decide

Valuing Impact
This paper by Valuing Impact examines how 19 organisations are moving beyond sustainability measurement to use impact valuation as a decision-making tool. Covering strategy, investment, steering, operations and stakeholder engagement, it presents case studies and six practical lessons for embedding impact data alongside financial information in real business decisions.
Research
12 June 2026

Navigating nature-related data: Metrics, sources and uses

Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)
This NGFS information note examines available nature-related data resources and methods for integrating them into financial risk assessment. It reviews metrics and indicators against five key criteria, presents four case studies, and identifies data quality, availability, and standardisation challenges. Public-private collaboration and targeted investment are recommended to address data gaps.
Research
2 April 2026

Airports and aviation emissions: The Airport Tracker as a tool for data-driven advocacy

ODI Global
This policy brief presents findings from the third update to the Airport Tracker, a global inventory covering the world's 1,300 busiest airports. Using 2023 data, it analyses CO₂ and local air pollution from passenger, freight and private jet flights, finding that aviation remains off track to meet net-zero goals.
Research
1 April 2026

How to use consensus state of nature metrics to understand business dependencies on ecosystem services

The Biodiversity Consultancy
This briefing note explains how businesses and financial institutions can configure the NPI consensus State of Nature metrics to understand their dependencies on ecosystem services. It outlines a four-step practical process, identifies where the metrics provide strong insight, and highlights where complementary indicators are needed.
Research
2 June 2026

Annual snapshot series

Climate Leaders Coalition
This benchmark series provides annual snapshots of the Climate Leaders Coalition, tracking how New Zealand businesses are progressing on climate action. It outlines signatories’ commitments, emissions management, climate risk and resilience efforts, collaboration initiatives, and leadership activities supporting the transition to a low-emissions economy.
Benchmark/series
7 May 2026

From fragmentation to insight: Why data convergence matters for scaling impact

Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN)
This report examines the need for data convergence in impact investing to address fragmentation. It advocates adopting a structured, Theory of Change-based data model to standardise information across portfolios. Such a structure enhances interoperability, streamlines data management, and enables advanced analytics, ultimately improving decision-making and scaling impact effectively.
Research
24 April 2026
PREV
1 of 20
NEXT
Join or sign in to use Alma, Altiorem’s AI Agent. While the Altiorem library is free, Alma is exclusive to paying subscribers.