IMP+ACT Alliance has announced its partnership with the United Development Programme (UNDP) to provide investors with digital guidance on engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The IMP+ACT Alliance's Impact Classification System (ICS), launched in June 2020 is collaborating with the UNDP's SDG Impact initiative to inform investment practitioners how to align their practices with SDG standards.
A spinoff initiative of Deutsche Bank, IMP+ACT is attempting to build a global consensus on how to account and report impact of investments, allowing for comparability between portfolios and to provide more consistency in how they are measured and managed.
The ICS will now integrate with UNDP's SDG Impact Standards, which were designed to provide guiance on how to move from intent to action. Users will now receive support from ICS to help enhance and support their investment management, classifying the environmental impact of funds.
This is aimed at creating greater transparency on how multi-asset portfolios meets the impact intentions set out by the SDGs.
The initiative forms part of the broader conversation about how financial institutions and individual investors are able to measure impact of their portfolios when different asset manages use different measurement and rating techniques.
Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen, director of SDG Impact, describes the Impact Standards as "grounded in existing high-level principles and provide context for applying other tools and frameworks, including metrics, taxonomies and reporting frameworks."
Claudia Coppenolle, the ICS' CEO and co-founder, describes the integration as "a natural extension" of the both parties' efforts to improve the consistency in measuring and managing impact.