Principles for impact investments: practical guidance for impact measurement, assessment and valuation

Timo Busch (), Eric Pruessner, Hendrik Brosche, Christina Bannier, Young-Jin Choi, Gunnar Friede, André Höck, Roland Kölsch, Philipp Krüger, Michael Schmidt and Judith Ströhle
Additional contact information
Timo Busch: University of Hamburg
Eric Pruessner: Advanced Impact Research GmbH
Hendrik Brosche: University of Hamburg
Christina Bannier: Justus Liebig University Giessen
Young-Jin Choi: Vidia GmbH
Gunnar Friede: DWS Investment GmbH
André Höck: EB - Sustainable Investment Management GmbH
Roland Kölsch: F.I.R.S.T. e.V.
Philipp Krüger: University of Geneva
Michael Schmidt: Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee of the Federal Government
Judith Ströhle: University of St.Gallen

SN Business & Economics, 2025, vol. 5, issue 5, 1-26

Abstract: Abstract Impact investments have gained tremendous recognition among investors as well as policy makers in the last years. However, specific details about impact investments are not well understood yet. Specifically, academic research about the magnitude, life cycle, and tradeoffs of impact is still in its infancy. This paper provides practical guidance by developing principles for critical topics of impact measurement, assessment, and valuation using an exploratory approach. Questions that will be tackled include, among others: What is a significant positive company impact (impact magnitude)? Can impacts be transferred between investors (impact life cycle)? How should tradeoffs between impact categories be handled (impact tradeoffs)? The paper proposes 16 principles that provide answers to these and other questions, illustrates their real-world significance through case studies, and provides a discussion of their implications and limitations. It is, however, only one step and much more work is required to standardize the measurement, assessment, and valuation of impact in impact investments. Overall, this paper suggests important steps for this standardization process.

Keywords: Impact measurement; Impact investing; Sustainable finance; ESG (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G10 G11 G15 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s43546-025-00796-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:snbeco:v:5:y:2025:i:5:d:10.1007_s43546-025-00796-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/43546

DOI: 10.1007/s43546-025-00796-w

Access Statistics for this article

SN Business & Economics is currently edited by Gino D'Oca

More articles in SN Business & Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().