How to reportUsers and Objectives
The Reporting Norms assume that the primary users of an entity’s impact performance report are its providers of capital (i.e., asset owners and allocators). Other users may include policymakers, regulators, civil society organizations, current and prospective employees of the entity, and/or stakeholders affiliated with companies in the entity’s portfolio, including managers, employees, suppliers, customers, and local communities.
- The Reporting Norms focus on the needs of asset owners and allocators making decisions about investment and/or engagement in expectation of financial returns and social and/or environmental impact. These primary users seek to understand changes in the well-being of stakeholders and the natural environment caused by the entity and investee enterprises, so that they can make investment and engagement decisions that are informed by the experiences and interests of stakeholders and the natural environment.
Asset owners and allocators may seek to understand a reporting entity’s impact for reasons including:
- They believe that the entity’s impact influences its financial risks and opportunities;
- They believe that the entity’s impact influences the financial risk and opportunity of other entities in which they have invested (including systematic/undiversifiable risk); and/or
- They are intrinsically motivated by impact and are permitted by relevant regulations and by their own capital providers to take impact into account when making decisions.
Report users may need to interpret impact performance reports in light of information that comes from other sources and is not specific to the entity. For instance, information such as scientific thresholds, social norms, and contextual information about stakeholders and the natural environment may all influence users’ interpretation of impact.