Summa Impact Map & Infobric case study
Widening our understanding of impact
At Summa we believe we need to take a wider view of impact. We define impact as the negative and positive environmental, social, and governance-related (“ESG”) impacts a business generates for stakeholders across three spheres of influence: within its own operations, across its value chain, and beyond its value chain.
Introducing the Summa Impact Map
Over the past year, the Summa impact team has drawn on this wider view to develop a tool to help our portfolio leaders to see their organization’s impact performance and potential through a new lens. Crucially, the Summa Impact Map helps leaders explore the entire ESG terrain. For example, it encourages a systems view of the “E” – including but also going beyond measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions to also looking at other kinds of impact like air pollution, waste, materials intensity, and influence on biodiversity as well as land and ocean health.
Another feature of the Impact Map is how it borrows the idea of “scopes” of greenhouse gases by assigning three “spheres” to social and governance-related impacts to give these impacts more meaning. The tool invites business leaders to consider not only what kind of value their organizations create for their own employees, but also how they are improving lives across their supply chains, in the communities in which they operate, and more broadly across society. And by applying these spheres to governance, businesses are challenged to address their role in supporting (or undermining) stable, trusted institutions – upon which well-functioning markets depend.
Sphere 1: Impact from own operations
E1
GHG emissions, non-GHG emissions and other environmental impacts from your business's own operations
Social
S1
Your business's social impact on your workers (employed and contracted)
Governance
The degree to which your business´s governance meets or exceeds minimum standards of good practice
Sphere 2: Impact from creation and use of product/service
Environmental
E2
GHG emissions, non-GHG emissions and other environmental impacts from your supply chain, value chain and use of your products/services
Social
S2
The social impact your business and its products/services generate for customers, suppliers and the communities in which you operate
Governance
The degree to which your business is impacting governance across your industry
Sphere 3: Broader indirect impact
Environmental
E3
The degree to which your business enables reductions/increases in emissions and environmental impacts beyond your value chain and use of your products/services
Social
S3
The social impact your business enables beyond your value chain and use of your products/services
Governance
The degree to which your business is impacting national and global governance
The case of Infobric: Building an impact story big enough for its future
As a provider of platform solutions to the construction industry, Infobric has neither a big carbon footprint nor a significant social or governance one – that is, if only considering the company’s operations. By widening the aperture, the story becomes radically different.
In 2022, the Summa impact team, supported by strategic partner S7, worked with Infobric’s CEO, Dan Friberg; the CFO, Kristina Laurelli; and Cajsa Persson, a project manager. This trio shared a deep belief in Infobric’s impact potential but felt that the impact story wasn’t creating enough space for what was possible.
After exploring the Impact Map to build a systems view of Infobric’s negative and positive impacts, we followed these five steps:
Step 1: Impact ambition
The Infobric team articulated its overall ambition “to accelerate the construction industry’s journey to zero accidents, zero fraud and zero emissions by enabling our customers to radically improve management of their workers, contractors and equipment with our digital solutions.”
Step 2: Impact plays
With the potential to advance the impact ambition, concrete “plays” were identified, some of which were already live activities while others were still-to-be-tested business ideas, these include:
- Zero-accident workplace
- Fair competition
Step 3: Intended impact for which stakeholders
For each impact play, the Infobric team described what impact would be created for which core stakeholders.
Step 4: Indicators and targets
To track whether the intended impacts are delivered, KPIs associated to the above plays were identified:
1. Reduction in occupational accidents at Infobric sites
2. Reduction in contractors flagged for unsound business practices
From these KPIs we selected the most powerful and converted them into targets, describing how much progress would be made and by when.
Step 5: Actions for 3PP
Finally, we identified the activities required to meet the targets for integration in Infobric’s three-phase plan ("3PP") – which all Summa portfolio companies use to capture their business plan over their 3PP.
The big idea: striving for game-changing impact
Underpinning the Summa Impact Map is Summa’s deeply held view that no one should get special credit for doing things that should have already been done. Providing training to employees, ensuring equal pay for equal work, or implementing robust diversity policies – we put these kinds of impact in the “fundamentals” category.
This is not to say that the fundamentals aren’t important. They absolutely are: they are a precondition for the impact performance we as a purpose-driven PE firm strive to have across our portfolio. But what we really want to help our portfolio companies focus on is what we call “game-changing impact” – impact that leverages a company’s business model and strategy to benefit stakeholders across its value chain and beyond.
Group CEO, Infobric
–Infobric is a dynamic company with a widespread presence across the Nordics and UK, boasting a diverse team of employees. What unites us all is our shared passion to impact the construction industry by making it more sustainable, safer, and more efficient. We aim to eliminate accidents, prevent fraud, and reduce the industry's carbon footprint, all while fostering a culture of innovation and progress.