About

The IMP provides a forum for building global consensus on how to measure, manage and report impacts

What is the Impact Management Project?

What is the IMP’s focus through to 2021?

What are impact management norms?

The Impact Management Project (IMP) provides a forum for building global consensus on measuring, managing and reporting impacts on sustainability. It is relevant for enterprises and investors who want to manage environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks, as well as those who also want to contribute positively to global goals.

The IMP convenes a community of over 2,000 practitioners to share best practices, delve into technical issues and identify areas where further consensus is required in impact measurement and management.

We also facilitate standard-setting organisations that, through their specific and complementary expertise, are coordinating efforts to provide comprehensive standards for measurement, management and reporting of impacts on sustainability. This includes 16 standard-setting organisations that have formed a structured network to work together with our support.

The IMP is a time-bound global public interest project, funded by a diverse group of donors from Europe, the US and Asia. The team also brings perspectives from a wide range of countries, including the UK, Norway, USA, Canada, South Africa, Romania and Australia.

The IMP is building consensus around standards in three areas:

Processes for managing impact (practice)
Frameworks and indicators for measuring and reporting impact (performance)
Valuation for comparing impact (benchmarking)

Through our IMP Practitioner Community, we continue to debate and find consensus (norms) on technical topics in all three areas. This is complementary to our facilitation of the IMP Structured Network, through which standard-setting organisations are coordinating – and sometimes even co-creating – standards in these areas.

From 2016-18, a sizable cross-section of the market came together to agree on the definition of impact and the types of data that one would therefore expect to find in any good impact framework and impact report. These norms provide a logic for sharing information about impact goals and performance across value chains – from people and planet experiencing impact, to enterprises, to investment intermediaries, to advisors, to asset owners. The content in this website describes and illustrates the norms agreed by over 2,000 practitioners globally.

The IMP has brought together the perspectives of investment, grant-making, business, non-profits, social science, evaluation, wealth management, policy, standards bodies and accounting (among others). The approach has been global, open and iterative through in-person and virtual sessions – and we want your continued input. Contact us with your ideas, comments and insights, or participate in our Practitioner Community, which is open to everyone. Tell us how you are using this content to manage impact.