IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact

The five dimensions of impact are: WHAT, WHO, HOW MUCH, CONTRIBUTION, and RISK. The WHAT dimension refers to identifying the level of outcome(s) one aims to deliver, contribute to, or both, based on how important stakeholders perceive the outcome to be. This dimension is essential in understanding the impact of an investment or enterprise. The IMP found that understanding impact performance requires collecting data across all five dimensions of impact. The WHO dimension involves understanding the baseline characteristics of stakeholders (people or planet) with respect to the outcome. This dimension is crucial in identifying the target population and understanding their needs and characteristics. The IMP recommends collecting data on the baseline characteristics of stakeholders to ensure that the impact is being measured accurately. The HOW MUCH dimension refers to understanding the degree of change experienced by those affected and identifying how many are affected. This dimension is essential in measuring the scale and depth of the impact. The IMP recommends collecting data on the degree of change experienced by stakeholders and identifying the number of people affected. The CONTRIBUTION dimension involves comparing performance towards market benchmarks as a proxy to understand what would have otherwise happened. This dimension is crucial in understanding the contribution of an investment or enterprise to the desired outcome. The IMP recommends collecting data on market benchmarks to ensure that the impact is being measured accurately. The RISK dimension involves understanding impact risks. This dimension is essential in identifying potential risks and mitigating them to ensure that the impact is being achieved. The IMP recommends collecting data on impact risks to ensure that the investment or enterprise is being managed effectively. IRIS+ enables investors and other impact investing stakeholders to measure and describe impact performance using a common language: the IRIS+ Core Metrics Sets and the IRIS Catalog of Metrics. The IRIS+ system standardizes impact performance data, helping to aggregate that data across investments with similar goals. The IRIS Catalog of Metrics contains the generally accepted social and environmental performance metrics. The alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact is not exhaustive, and further development of metrics relevant to RISK and CONTRIBUTION (INVESTOR) are planned for future development. Individual IRIS metrics may be relevant to more than one dimension of impact or may be useful only in very specific contexts. Metrics can be multi-dimensional, and some IRIS metrics are helpful both for measuring HOW MUCH: Scale and for identifying a specific WHO demographic. The GIIN is working with the IMP Structured Network to build further guidance on using IRIS metrics as a 'set' across the five dimensions. More, currently unaligned IRIS metrics, will likely be aligned with dimensions once more norms have been agreed. The GIIN also plans to work with the IMP to adapt existing IRIS+ metrics or add new metrics to more closely align with the five dimensions. The data categories under the WHAT impact dimension help enterprises and investors identify the outcomes to which they contribute and the importance of these outcomes to stakeholders. Each of an investor's strategic goals may lead to several different outcomes, and IRIS+ Core Metrics Sets highlight several common outcomes, backed by evidence, for each strategic goal. They also provide specific metrics to measure the importance of the outcome to the target stakeholders.