Working group at Brazil’s Financial Innovation Laboratory considers creating a subgroup to discuss metrics and possibilities for improving and strengthening the industry, including standardization and comparability instruments.

Juliana Vilhena, Fundo Vale’s social and environmental impact and innovation management leader, was invited by the Financial Innovation Laboratory to attend a meeting of the Blended Finance Subgroup of its Financial Instruments and Impact Investing Working Group. The purpose of the meeting, held at the end of 2022, was to discuss the working group’s next cycle of activities. Fundo Vale was invited to speak about the experience it has obtained from implementing its impact measurement and management model, GIMPACT.

Together with Daniel Brandão of Vox Capital, Vilhena discussed different methodological approaches, challenges, prospects for progress in Brazil, opportunities to improve metrics for monitoring businesses’ positive social and environmental impacts, and blended finance operations. The guests also contributed their views on main gaps for the impact sector’s development in Brazil.

Following this online meeting, Felipe Vignoli and Rachel Sampaio, consultants in the Financial Instruments and Impact Investing Working Group, together with the group’s other members, decided to reactivate its Metrics Subgroup in the 2023 cycle. This topic was previously explored between 2017 and 2018.

The subgroup will first explore conceptual fundamentals, including the frameworks most commonly used by the market, share experiences and identify relevant cases. After that, it will discuss open data, the regulatory environment, and possibilities for standardization and comparability. It will also seek to improve international liaison to exchange experiences.

About the Financial Innovation Laboratory

The Financial Innovation Laboratory is a multisector discussion forum supported by the Brazilian Association for Development (ABDE), Inter-American Development Bank and Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM). In 2019, it formed a partnership with the German international development agency, GIZ. The Financial Innovation Laboratory is a forum for public-private dialogue, bringing together more than 280 institutions in various sectors, which interact collaboratively and voluntarily to promote sustainable finance in Brazil.