Measuring the impact of our investments

Understanding the social and environmental impact of our investment portfolio is critical — it proves (or disproves) an investment thesis, it creates accountability, ensures the tracking of progress, and supports our learning so that we can be an effective investor. Rather than this being a meaningless ‘tick box’ exercise to support with definitions, impact measurement is the core tenet of impact investment.

The challenge in measuring the impact of investments is consistently referenced as a key barrier that prevents the wider adoption and growth of impact investment. Yet without being able to measure, manage and monitor the impact an investor is having, an investment ceases to be an ‘impact investment’.

In February 2024, we focused our attention on the way we assess, measure, manage and report on the impact created by investments across our two funds: Impact First Fund and Endowment Impact Fund. The self-assessment against the Operating Principles for Impact Management (OPIM) that followed presented a series of gaps.

In September 2025, we concluded the independent verification of our approach with BlueMark — a leading provider of independent impact verification — and sought to summarise our impact across the portfolio based on their recommendations.

The key lessons we learnt through this process included:

• Cognisance of power dynamics is critical in building relationships, trust and effective partnerships with investees.
• Impact management is complex, particularly when impact scope is broad. We have tried to be explicit about outcomes and aimed for simplicity to be able sustain impact management over time.
• Regular and continuous learning will support us to continue to refine and improve our approach.
• Longer-term investment requires a long-term approach to impact management to stay flexible to change and evolution, avoid over-prescription or specification of outcomes.
• Independent verification of impact can be used by investors for different purposes including as an independent market differentiator, for internal accountability, clarity and rigour in the approach across the ecosystem.
• There is a lot to gain from drawing on impact practice across ends of the capital spectrum from granting to investing.

This paper, co-authored by Laura Bird and Prebhjot Kaur, explores the challenges we faced, details the approach we have taken, our lessons learned and how we intend to further develop this work in the future.