The IMP+ACT Alliance announced today the launch of the IMP+ACT Classification System (ICS), a digital platform designed to provide investors and asset owners with information regarding the social and environmental impacts occurring in multi-asset class portfolios. The new solution also helps enable asset managers to increase transparency through tools that provide a digital process to self report how they classify, measure and manage ESG risks and impacts.

The IMP+ACT Alliance is a non-profit technology initiative, designed to drive greater convergence towards consistent and transparent impact measurement, enabling more informed capital allocation decisions towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The alliance is supported by the City of London Corporation, Deutsche Bank, the IMP and Bridges Insights and a network of strategic partners.

The new ICS system utilizes “impact classes,” developed through a related initiative, the Impact Management Project. Impact classes group investments with similar characteristics, enabling a greater degree of comparability between the impacts of investments at the portfolio level, paralleling the move toward greater consistency in the way impact data is being collected and reported at the enterprise level.

Commenting on the launch of the new system, Ben Constable-Maxwell, Head of Sustainable and Impact Investing at M&G Investments said:

“The ICS will help to drive greater education and adoption of impact measurement and management in the investment community by highlighting existing standards and best practices. It also fosters the right conversations among practitioners about how they are thinking about evolving their practices to strengthen and enhance oversight on ESG risk and impact.”

Allison Spector, Director of Sustainability, Real Assets and Private Markets at Nuveen, added:

“The more practitioners use a common logic and system to map investments by their impact class, the more realistic portfolio analysis and allocation from an impact perspective will become. The ICS is a practical way to start understanding and describing the types of impact consistently. It is a process which provides numerous benefits to asset managers and owners alike.

Catherine McGuinness, Policy Chair at the City of London Corporation, said:

“We are delighted to be supporting the IMP+ACT Alliance technology initiative. The ICS technology platform will increase transparency and help investors identify funds that are socially and environmentally responsible. We will continue to work with the IMP+ACT Alliance and encourage the UK investment community to use the ICS to help catalyse the development of ESG and impact investing in the UK and beyond.”