Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework

Summary to Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework

The Summary of the IWAF has been developed to guide organisations and investors in measuring impact and pursuing sustainability and value creation beyond financial value.

This executive summary provides an overview of the main elements of IWAF, explains the reasons behind the importance of IWAF, how the framework contributes to the field and gives an overview of all the documents building the framework, it’s content and target audience.

Introduction to Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework

Impact-Weighted Accounts – or IWAs – are a way for organisations to quantitatively assess their impact:
how they create value for all stakeholders. The uptake of compiling and publishing IWAs is a key step in the transformation of our economy into an impact economy: a sustainable economy that creates value for everyone.

The Impact-Weighted Account Framework (IWAF) helps organisations compile IWAs by providing key concepts, requirements, and guidance.

This introduction to why Impact-Weighted Accounts are crucial sets the scene for the need to measure beyond financial value creation and capture that in a framework. This document is to be read in conjunction with the other publications of IWAF.

Conceptual Framework for Impact-Weighted Accounts

Impact-Weighted Accounts – or IWAs – are a way for organisations to quantitatively assess their impact: how they create value to all stakeholders. The uptake of compiling and publishing IWAs is a key step in the transformation of our economy into an impact economy: a sustainable economy that creates value for everyone.

The Impact-Weighted Account Framework (IWAF) helps organisations to compile IWAs by providing the key concepts, requirements, and guidance.

This conceptual framework for Impact-Weighted Accounts introduces the key concepts It is to be read in conjunction with the other publications of IWAF.

Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework

Impact-Weighted Accounts – or IWAs – are a way for organisations to quantitatively assess their impact: how they create value to all stakeholders. The uptake of compiling and publishing IWAs is a key step in the transformation of our economy into an impact economy: a sustainable economy that creates value for everyone.

The Impact-Weighted Account Framework (IWAF) helps organisations to compile IWAs by providing the key concepts, requirements, and guidance.

Readers new to the material are invited to first read the two accompanying documents: The Introduction to the Impact-Weighted Account Framework that presents the rationale behind Impact-Weighted Accounts, and the Conceptual Framework for Impact-Weighted Accounts that introduces central concepts such as impact, the Integrated Profit and Loss Account and the Integrated Balance Sheet.

Impact Management with IWAF

This document presents how the Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework (IWAF) can be used as a framework for impact management, supporting companies in integrating their impacts in key decision-making processes. It introduces a comprehensive toolkit for effective impact management based on IWAF, showcasing tools such as the Integrated Profit and Loss (IP&L) Statement, Impact Return on Investment (IRoI), and impact-based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

This document bridges theoretical concepts with practical applications and is written for companies that want to have a clear, actionable framework that enables them to integrate impact at the heart of their organization. 

Key Impact Categories and Monetary Valuation Factors

This document provides the Standardised list of Impacts Categories, which specifies the most important impact categories and indicators used for impact assessment, and the list of Monetisation Factors. Monetisation factors are estimates of the remediation cost of the social and environmental impacts that must be included to estimate the societal cost of an organisation. These impacts are measured by a set of footprint indicators and every footprint indicator can be converted to a monetary unit using the corresponding monetisation factor.

Companies can use these monetiation factors to value their impacts on society and integrate this in decision-making.

Guidance to Impact-Weighted Accounts Framework

This document provides step-by-step guidance on compiling IWAs. It is written for everyone who would like to start working with IWAs for their organisation.

While this document provides practical guidance when compiling IWAs, it is also necessary to understand the formal definitions, principles and requirements underlying IWAs. We therefore recommend to also read the Conceptual Framework and the IWAF itself to familiarise with the general concepts.

This guidance document helps to understand each step and stage of an IWA project.

Frequently Asked Questions

A collection of some of the most frequently asked questions about IWAF.