Sustainability and Impact: What's Measured, Is Executed

The words of the owner and founder of the Indian group Mahindra,”What gets measured gets done” (what is measured, executed) summarizes the challenge and opportunity posed by sustainability and business impact.

This year's Annual Congress of GSG (Global Steering Group for Impact Investment), a global organization that promotes impact investing in the world and chaired by Sir Ronald Cohen, has brought together more than 300 connected people and a total of 24 top-level speakers including members of the government, the European Commission, managers, owners and founders of large companies, entrepreneurs and financiers.

All of them emphasized that the time for sustainability and impact had already arrived. We know what - measuring and managing impact - and, therefore, we are faced with the next major challenge, which is how.

And the questions posed by the speakers invite us to reflect on how to manage and measure impact. Are governments, through subsidies, taxes and grants, the ones giving signals to the market about what is or isn't highly profitable (gas for example)? , does requiring greater transparency of non-financial information mean greater regulation? , which financial vehicles available to small savers but also to large investors are the best to attract large flows of capital to invest in companies and projects that are changing the world? , when will a single impact measurement model be launched? , how to move from KPIs to monetary terms? , will audited and mandatory non-financial accounting at the same level as financial accounting be the solution?

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