Resumen de Measuring and evaluating social impact: A new sdg-based framework for impact investing
Ana Isabel Tavares de Matos Pimenta
Impact investing intends to generate positive and measurable social or environmental impact together with financial return. It is a growing investment segment with approximately USD 715 billion AUM (GIIN, 2020a). Academics and practitioners have been calling for better social impact measurement and evaluation practices, highlighting the importance of having a common and standard impact measurement framework. This study proposes a novel approach to measure and evaluate social impact for the field of impact investing, the SDG Index +. This new proposed framework uses the SDGs to generate a common unit of measurement and quantify impact results. The present work also describes ten scenario analysis and five case studies, to analyse the behaviour of the main variables and to assess the feasibility and applicability of this new proposed framework. The results indicate that the SDG Index + verifies six key characteristics: comparability, accountability, completeness, simplicity, optimum and impact risk. Thus, this new proposed framework is considered more robust than others which allows investors to better assess and compare the social and environmental impact generated through their investments.
