We invite you to review the background and then share your views on the questions below.
On the topic of impact performance report verification broadly,
1. What are the key aspects of a report that should be independently reviewed in order to provide a report consumer with confidence that the report is fair, balanced, and accurate?
2. How can we ensure that investor-level verification is interoperable and non-duplicative with company-level impact verification? Should investor-level verification focus only on the investor’s actions and/or areas in which the investor is responsible for data collection and analysis?
3. Does the term ‘verification’ appropriately connote to the market how similar or different verification is to audit and assurance? Should other terms be considered (e.g., assessment)?
4. Should verifiers be expected to validate the data provided in impact performance reports? If so, how might they do so, and who has the willingness and appetite to pay for the additional cost? If not, what is the best way to ensure that verification consumers understand what aspects of impact performance reports are verified, and which are not?
5. Should smaller or emerging managers be held to a different standard for impact performance reporting than large and established managers? Why or why not?
In response to ‘Raising the Bar 2.0: Introducing BlueMark’s Framework for Evaluating Impact Reporting’ :
6. What is your overall feedback on the proposed approach?
7. Specifically with regards to the Ratings Schema on pages 10 - 15, what would you want to add, change, or remove? Do the ratings descriptions and criteria strike the right balance between providing clarity for consistent and comparable application by verifiers, while leaving appropriate flexibility for fund managers?
Lastly, we invite you to sign up for our Quarterly Newsletter as we will be sending out information regarding huddles on this topic in 2023. Sign up here.
