Measuring the Social Dimension of Sustainable Finance

With an offset in several themes under the ‘S’, this workshop will invite participants to discuss how the finance and development community can collaborate to strengthen data design, collection, and usage of data for measuring the social impact of investments.

In this Building Bridges workshop, participants are invited to share their expertise, solutions, and any challenges they might face in their work on measuring impact on the `S`. The discussions will be structured around five themes, each one facilitated by a subject expert.

Thematic Groups

Respecting Human Rights
Moderated by Kristina Touzenis, Independent Consultant

Human Rights have been used in several tools by international organizations to create—not always strictly quantitative—indicators for impact. How can this be used in investments and the “sustainable business space” as well. How can the investment sector use human rights to measure their impact as well as address adverse effects of their activities? Links with Good Governance and Human Rights Due Diligence will also be considered.

Enabling inclusive and sustainable communities
Moderated by Daniela Bosniak, PeaceNexus

What is the contribution of business to societal wellbeing and how can it be measured? This group will explore practices, challenges, and opportunities for businesses to determine the impact of their activities, products and services on the communities in which they operate. This includes how to measure impact, evaluate it, and whether it should always be quantified.

Governance issues with a big social impact
Moderated by Ugo Panizza, The Graduate Institute

For multiple decades, activists have sought to institute an international legal Odious Debt doctrine that limits the ability of despotic governments to borrow money and then shift those obligations onto more democratic successor governments. The idea of such a doctrine is to limit financial flows to despotic and corrupt governments and promote flows to more democratic and accountable countries. Are these systems doable and what type of data would be needed? Would they contribute to the “S” component of ESG investment, or would they be a detriment to overall ESG finance?

Diversity and Inclusion, Gender diversity
Moderated by David Uzsoki, IISD

The credibility of mainstreaming gender considerations in finance relies on market participants having access to quality gender data. The working group will focus on the challenges of gathering disaggregated gender data, innovative ways to address data scarcity and selecting the right gender KPIs for financing instruments. We will also discuss solutions for collecting data for some of the more difficult gender indicators that are often ignored by issuers of gender smart products.

Decent Work and Quality Jobs
Moderated by Patricia Richter, ILO

The GIIN Annual Impact Investor Survey shows that 73% of investors target SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth. Thus, there is growing consensus that not only the quantity but also the quality of jobs matters for sustainable economic growth. But what metrics illustrate that we are on track, what quality jobs data can we reasonably collect? The breakout session will shed light on current practice, challenges encountered and discuss collaboration potential to improve quality jobs data.