Grant recipients include Impact Frontiers, JUST Capital, the OpenEarth Foundation, Rights CoLab, and the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD)

The Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing (TPF) today announced that it will award approximately $1.2 million in grants to five organizations doing catalytic and impactful work to advance best practices for data, metrics, and measurement within the ESG and impact investing fields. The TPF is a donor collaborative committed to creating and supporting public goods critical to the impact investing market's continued growth and fidelity.

“Investors are increasingly calling for corporate disclosure of high quality, decision-useful data on a range of human capital and related social issues,” said Fran Seegull, Executive Director of the TPF and President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance. “Meeting this investor demand requires not only consensus on the right metrics to track but also interoperability – and better data infrastructure – between different industry standards and regulations. This cohort of grantees are conducting important, innovative work on advancing the field in both of these crucial areas.”

“We continue to be impressed by the many organizations working to address data and measurement challenges for ESG and impact investing,” said Jessie Duncan, Lead Program Officer at the TPF. “This cohort of grantees represents truly innovative and leading-edge approaches to addressing gaps in the sector – from applying AI to improve digital interoperability across disclosure regimes, to generating consensus around leading DEI metrics, to informing human capital standards development at the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Each grant proposal was evaluated based on its potential contribution to one of two 2023 focus areas that the TPF considers vital to the continued growth and success of the ESG and impact investing fields:

Advancing the ‘S’ in ESG and impact investing, specifically related to ‘Social’ issues such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), human capital management, human rights, and inequality
Improving ESG and impact data interoperability

Each grant recipient will use funding from the TPF to work on a specific project or deliverable. The complete list of grant recipients and their projects is available below and on the TPF website.

Impact Frontiers – Impact Frontiers will work with prominent experts in racial, gender, and data equity to develop social equity best practices for impact management professionals and to explore new impact management strategies for investors with specific social equity objectives.
JUST Capital – JUST Capital will build the business and investor case for advancing engagement on human capital disclosure issues by providing companies, investors, and government leaders with relevant market performance data using index concepts and investor guidance. JUST Capital will also produce a research report and survey on the use of human capital data by leading asset owners.
OpenEarth Foundation – Using AI, the OpenEarth Foundation will develop an open-source tool that will enable better and more efficient ESG data reporting by companies, investors, and government entities. The open source tool will greatly simplify ESG data reporting across jurisdictions and standards by using AI to map emerging disclosure regulations to one another – the pilot (supported by the TPF grant) will be applied to the EFRAG and ISSB climate standards and the underlying data taxonomies behind the standards themselves.
Rights CoLab – Rights CoLab will conduct research to identify financially material metrics on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics and develop a prototype human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) international standard that can be used to engage with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to ensure the ISSB’s human capital / human rights standards will build on existing DEI and human rights best practices for companies and investors. This work also builds on Rights CoLab’s deep expertise on DEI metrics and HREDD best practices.
Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures – The Interim Working Group supporting the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) will execute a public consultation and co-creation process to prepare for the launch of the TISFD. The taskforce will aim to strengthen the development of financial disclosures regarding inequality and social-related issues. It is expected to be formally launched by mid-2024.

Martin Wainstein, PhD, | Founder and Executive Director, Open Earth Foundation: "We are thrilled to receive this grant and advance important work towards impact data interoperability across different mandatory standards. We are constantly discovering new application of AI to remove frictions in ESG and climate accounting."

Joanne Bauer, Co-Founder, Rights CoLab: "Integrating human rights into investor-backed standards has the potential to transform capital markets. At Rights CoLab, we are keen to continue our work on developing the evidence for the financial materiality of human rights and model how human rights can be integrated across ISSB standards."

Interim Working Group for the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD): “There is an urgent and growing need to assess material financial risks to enterprises and investors as it relates to inequality and social issues. Through the TISFD, we aim to meet the distinct needs of providers of capital, companies, regulators, and civil society and labor organizations while also strengthening the stability of financial systems and improving outcomes for people, in particular those who are marginalized or disadvantaged.”

About the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing

Launched in late 2019, the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing (TPF) is a donor collaborative developed to create and support public goods critical to the continued growth and fidelity of the impact investing market. The funding provided by the TPF builds on existing field-building efforts by prioritizing the areas that are chronically underfunded, are best suited for collective action, and require additional support beyond that provided by individual grantmakers. Learn more at www.tpfii.org.