Belief
Finance is a sector that generates a great deal of debate and mistrust among stakeholders concerned with the common good.
Impact finance is quite specific: in addition to financial profitability, it aims at concrete performance on certain extra-financial factors, notably social and environmental. It differs from ESG, which assesses the risks of the way an activity is conducted on the financial performance of that activity.
More precisely, impact finance refers to “any investment that explicitly and simultaneously seeks economic profitability and the creation of a positive and measurable social and environmental impact”.
Citizing is thus convinced that the measurability of impact is essential for impact finance to truly flourish.
Method
For the time being, there is no established standard of measurement shared by the actors of impact finance.
Citizing is convinced that the development of these approaches and their sustainability depends on the use and propagation of proven methods. This is essential to avoid impact washing, i.e. advocating impact without any real basis or transformative actions, and for reasons that are essentially communication or image-related.
While a gap between rhetoric and reality is likely to generate a loss of confidence that is difficult to reverse, the sector needs to equip itself with robust and proven methods. This is what Citizing proposes, by mobilizing the foundations of socio-economic evaluation.
Indeed, the use of the Socio-Economic Assessment reference framework allows to monetize impacts and to calculate social, environmental and economic ROI to be compared with purely financial ROI.
Application / deliverable
Thanks to our intervention, clients can :
- Determine whether or not it is appropriate to invest in a company (impact due diligence)
- Accompany, as a shareholder, the development of the company, focusing on the activities of the company that have the most socio-environmental impact
- Calculate the leverage effect of the fund in terms of impact (for 1€ invested in the fund, the creation of socio-economic-environmental value is X)
Our achievements
Raise Impact / Banque des Territoires / Green OAT
For other achievements, see our other references.