Impact-Weighted Accounts
A framework to monetize company impact
Growing from our initial collaboration last year, Summa has once again partnered with the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (“IFVI”), which spun out of Harvard Business School this year, to advance the use of impact accounting for its portfolio companies.
The Impact-Weighted Accounting (“IWA”) methodology aims to provide a monetized view of the positive and negative impacts of a company on its employees, the environment, and the end consumers of its products and/or services.
The long-term objective of impact monetization is to enable LPs, asset managers, senior leaders, and other key actors to understand and compare the impacts companies have on key stakeholder groups. Monetization on a per-company basis can help inform management decisions, particularly when year-over-year analysis is available (e.g., inform the value proposition for specific customer segments, identify underserved markets, etc.)
Yet, impact accounting’s greatest potential lies in its use as a means of comparison across companies within similar industries to assess how companies differ in the value they create (or destroy) for society.
Achieving the mainstream use of impact monetization will require significant commitment and investment in capabilities on the part of key actors across the sector as well as widespread adoption within and across industries. As early adopters of impact accounting, Summa is helping lay the foundation for others seeking to develop the measurement and management capabilities necessary for a more stakeholder-centered economy.
Environment
Carbon-monetization capturing impacts of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions of the company on environmental “goods” such as human productivity, crop production capacity, food and water availability, abiotic resources, and biodiversity.
Employment
Monetization of the impact of human capital and employment practices on company employees. This may include dimensions such as wage quality, career advancement, and health and wellbeing.
Consumer
Monetization of the impact of product/service use on the consumer. This may include dimensions such as the healthcare costs averted from product consumption or the economic growth due to access to a service. In last year’s pilot (2021), we called these impacts “product impacts” and have since evolved to call these “consumer impacts” to further clarify the focus of this analysis on consumers as the key stakeholders.
Case studies: Milarex and Pagero.
“As more entrepreneurs are creating impactful businesses, the opportunity for investors is to partner with them to scale that impact by reaching new customers with innovative and superior products that are delivered by a highly engaged workforce in the least environmentally damaging way. Impact-Weighted Accounts represents the measurement infrastructure that helps entrepreneurs and investors understand if they are achieving this purpose.”
What is climate IWA?
Climate IWA is a type of impact-weighted accounting that measures the monetary value of a company’s environmental impact. The methodology for the environment enables a cost analysis by attributing a price to a range of clearly defined adverse impacts on nature and human health associated with emissions.
The current methodology used by Summa includes GHG-only monetization, capturing impacts of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions on “environmental goods” such as human productivity, crop production capacity, food and water availability, abiotic resources, and biodiversity. Summa will seek to proceed with a full-scope environmental IWA in the future to include non-GHG emissions, water use, and abiotic resource use on environmental goods.
The societal cost of environmental degradation
The 2022 results show that the aggregate portfolio generates a climate value equivalent to about EUR 36m, or about 2% of our aggregate portfolio revenues. The results provide a monetized view of the portfolio companies’ positive and negative impacts on the environment, thus providing insights into their climate strategies to improve their impact.
In 2021, the portfolio monetized impact was equivalent to about EUR 62.5m, 4% of aggregate portfolio revenues. The decrease from last year stems from a higher aggregated portfolio revenue, and as NG improved their carbon accounting methodology, their Scope 3 emissions increased. Additionally, certain new investments are more carbon intensive without having measurable carbon avoidance, such as TBAuctions. Consequently, there is a lower weight of companies with avoided emissions and the overall portfolio carbon footprint has increased. Summa will engage with the portfolio in 2023 to set long-termstrategies to reduce their emissions, specifically through setting Science Based Targets.
Montetized climate impact (EURm)
Employment IWA results
What is Employment IWA?
Employment IWA is a type of impact-weighted accounting that measures the monetary value of a company’s employment practices. The employment impact consists of six subcategories that make up the total monetized value, total wages paid, wage quality, diversity, opportunity, job creation, and career advancement.
Approach & insights
This year, Summa created its own tool for calculating the monetized impact of its portfolio, which builds upon the IWA method that was used in the 2021 report. While a company may define the impact of employment solely in terms of “total wages paid,” the IWA employment framework takes a more nuanced approach by adjusting for negative impacts. Specifically, instances such as unequal wage distribution, demographic underrepresentation, and unequal opportunities are penalized. Furthermore, positive impacts, such as an increase in the local employment rate, are considered.
The 2022 results reveal that the Summa portfolio has a total employment impact of EUR193m against a total wage bill of EUR 351m, which corresponds to about 55%. These results indicate a positive trend from last year but should ideally be benchmarked against peers. TBAuctions is not included in the analysis due to incomplete employment data caused by integration of new data system.
Potential improvements pathways include further strengthening diversity, particularly in specific job categories and higher levels of seniority, as well as reducing reliance on parttime workers. Each company’s results can be found on the individual scorecards in the latter part of the report.
Impact categories
Living wage
Adjusts for wages paid below the local living wage benchmarks to ensure that employees can meet their basic needs based on their earned income.
Marginal utility
Adjusts the impact to consider that an increase in salaries will have less impact on the employee’s well-beingabove a certain income level.
Diversity
Compares gender representation in each category with those of the surrounding community and adjusts the wage impact for any deficits among employees.
Opportunity across job categories
Considers gender representation within the disparities in high and low salary job categories (e.g., female underrepresentation in higher-paidcategories create a larger deficit).
Opportunity across seniority levels
Considers the gender representation within the levels of seniority (e.g., fewer females in leadership roles will result in a greater negative impact)
Location
Measures impact on the local employment rate resulting from a firm’s job creation. This impact is always positive.
Career advancement
Compares job mobility within the company against a benchmark job mobility rate. More internal promotions relative to external hires will improve this figure.
Milarex IWA results
Approach and insights
Milarex has built off last year’s pilot to develop a more nuanced monetization of impact on consumers of their products, primarily through refining our assumptions to estimate consumers reached and consumers benefiting from Milarex product consumption. The positive impact of Milarex’s products is estimated to be about EUR 588m.
Most of this impact is driven by the averted healthcare costs for Milarex consumers receiving health benefits from the effectiveness category through consumption of Omega-3s and other nutrients found in Milarex’s products (e.g.,lower risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular episodes), as well as from averted productivity losses from adequate food nutrition. Moving forward, there is a need to advance measure-ment and benchmarks to more comprehensively capture the impacts from fish-based protein and aquaculture more broadly.
Impact categories
Reach
The annual volume of fish sales (kg) and estimated number of consumers are used to estimate the number of individuals reached by Milarex’s products
Effectiveness
The impact of consuming Milarex’sprotein-dense products as part of a balanced diet is demonstrated by their role in mitigating the onset and management of disease.
Underserved
Access to fish products in emerging economies helps mitigate the adverse health impacts of food insecurity and malnutrition in addition to satisfying the basic human need for food.
incremental value realized by underserved customers who derive a higher marginal utility of consumption due to belonging to an emerging economy.
Basic need
Milarex’s fish products provide a basic need for consumers by providing nutrients that enable productivity.
averted costs associated with access to a direct human necessity (i.e., food) and is therefore applied to all Milarex’s markets
Health & safety
The quality of Milarex’s product is demonstrated by a lack of treatment costs incurred for consumers due to product recalls.
Pagero IWA results
Approach and insights
Pagero has advanced last year’s pilot by implementing more granular assumptions around regional market size, total tax liability, and VAT gap. The positive impact of Pagero’s services is estimated to be about 126.3m EUR, most of which is driven by cost savings to clients previously using manual invoicing, both directly and from reduced days sales outstanding.
Moreover, Pagero estimates substantial contributions from enabling VAT recovery in Europe and in emerging economies in Sub-Saharan Africa where Pagero has a substantial share of the existing e-invoicing market. As data availability matures, specifically around e-invoicing market size and regional VAT gaps, there is an opportunity for Pagero to refine its assumptions to more accurately assess its impact.
Impact categories
Reach
The annual volume of e-invoice order-to-cash and purchase-to-pay transactions are used to estimate the scale of cost savings to Pagero consumers.
Effectiveness
Adopting e-invoicing enables cost savings and facilitates VAT compliance, generating greater tax recovery for the public sector.
Underserved
Access to e-invoicing technology in emerging markets helps to support the development of domestic technology infrastructure.
Affordability
Pagero’s “freemium” transaction model enables clients to access a limited number of e-invoicing services free of charge.
Health & safety
The quality of Pagero’s services is measured by calculating the costs incurred by individuals impacted by data breaches on the platform.