The closing plenary on Day 2 was a panel moderated by Antony Bugg-Levine of the Rockefeller Foundation. Andrew Kassoy of B Lab, Brian Trelsted of Acumen Fund, and Chris Park of Deloitte talked about the state of standardization and why having a common set of standards is important to engaging in the market.
The sentiment was summarized, "What is it going to take for us to go from the promise of entrepreneurial energy to create a world we all want to see? Many of us are incredibly humbled by how much is left to do. What is it going to take so that we can be confident that we’re on track?"
Towards this end, a rating system, GIIRs was introduced as a top-level "quality of investment" summary metric, like "5 stars." It's built over the IRIS framework, which can be viewed and commented upon.
I am most interested in governance of the evolution of standards, and how one might be part of this process. As someone who has spent time within the technology industry, I'm familiar with how technologists do standardization. I'm eager to hear the developments pursuant to this paragraph, from the FAQ:
- How will the taxonomy be updated and revised over time?
- A governing body will be created that will oversee the evolution of the IRIS taxonomy. This body will likely be housed at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) with one or two full time employees working to establish a system that allows for the revision of the taxonomy over time as comments and feedback are obtained from the broad stakeholder universe.
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