Standards and frameworks that organisations actually adopt

Organisations we work with

What you get

• Experience reviewing the standards

  Jeroen was a reviewer for IRIS+ and GRI and contributed to the Impact Management Platform. He knows how standards relate and where organisations get stuck.

• The user’s perspective

  Jeroen’s experience implementing frameworks at 120+ organisations helps you see your standard the way a first-time adopter does.

Why we do what we do

Read the film as text

1. We all want to know
2. our place in the world.
3. Thin grey lines join dots into a web.
4. We like to believe that what we do is part of something larger.
5. It is.
6. Together we make our surroundings, our brands, our communities.
7. We shape the work of others, as they shape ours.
8. The web grows dense.
9. We live in one web of cause and consequence.
10. Each path tells a story, part of a larger narrative.
11. A system of meaning.
12. So what is our impact?
13. Whose lives do we touch?
14. What changed? For whom? How much? And what part was ours?
15. Intended or not, for better or worse.
16. Knowing that changes what you do next.
17. A dark line draws a path through the web. Impact management helps you see it, steer it, and use it.
18. A large word: Lead. A purple path runs through the web. Lead with purpose, and fund your mission.
19. A large word: Improve. A green path runs through the web. Learn what doesn’t work and design for better.
20. A large word: Engage. A blue-green path runs through the web. Share your story, and bring others into it.
21. A large word: Account. A blue path runs through the web. State your claim, and prove it.
22. A large word: Discover. A yellow path runs through the web. Find your next impact before it happens.
23. “How do you measure impact?”
24. It sounds hard.
25. It isn’t.
26. It’s not about the how.
27. It’s about
28. Portraits of people fill the screen.
29. A large word: Who.
30. About rights-holders, whose lives are touched.
31. And stakeholders, whose choices shape them.
32. The people stand side by side, at the same height. A wave of colour runs through the web. Every voice, every perspective, equally weighed.
33. The web turns many colours. Pluriform and equivalent.
34. Who determines what.
35. And what determines how.
36. That’s it. No more, no less.
37. We count what can be counted, and listen to the rest.
38. Coloured paths wind across the web. We find the stories that connect the dots, and make sense of the whole.
39. We love our craft:
40. to ask the questions,
41. to measure what matters,
42. and narrate what works.
43. One dark path remains. Let’s reveal your path.
44. The word narrate, with the line: impact in numbers and stories.

What we often hear

• “Organisations see our standard as a box to tick.”

  We help you show organisations how to use your framework for steering and learning, not just for an audit, so adoption feels worth the effort.

• “Very different organisations are slow to adopt our standard.”

  We help you design tiered implementation paths and practical guidance, so organisations can start simple and add depth as their capacity grows.

• “Pilots and consultations give us little feedback we can use.”

  Together we set up pilots and consultation rounds that test the standard in real organisations, and translate the findings into concrete changes.

• “Users keep asking how our standard relates to ESRS, GRI and IRIS+.”

  We help you map overlaps and differences with frameworks such as ESRS, GRI, IRIS+ and B Corp, so you can explain how they work together and reduce duplicate reporting.

What you may be wondering

• What does a small practice know about developing standards?

  We know the user’s side: what goes wrong when organisations put a standard into practice. That is the view we bring.

• Will you stay independent?

  Yes. We also tell you what doesn’t work, with examples from practice.

• How does our standard relate to ESRS, GRI and IRIS+?

  We map that out: where they overlap and where they differ. So you can explain how they fit together.

To read

• Seventy years of impact management

  From a question about good intentions to European rules that are now being cut back. The history of impact management, the practices that meet in it, where its standards come from and why setting norms chafes. With a source at every step.

• Do the standards finally speak one language?

  The ISSB, the ESRS, GRI, the VSME and the new B Corp requirements are growing towards one another. What that harmonisation is, which principles it rests on, and what it still leaves open.