The International Foundation For Valuing Impacts Inc

What The International Foundation For Valuing Impacts Inc does

The International Foundation for Valuing Impacts Inc (IFVI) is a Boston-based nonprofit organization founded in July 2022 as a spin-off from Harvard Business School's Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI). IFVI develops and disseminates standardized impact accounting methodologies that translate corporate environmental and social impacts into monetary terms, enabling comparability with financial performance. Its core technology is the Global Value Factor Database — nearly 100,000 numerical coefficients that convert operational data on air pollution, land use, water consumption/pollution, waste, GHG emissions, occupational health and safety, and wages into currency-denominated impact values, covering 430+ impact types across 268+ countries and regions. Supporting artifacts include General Methodology 1 (Conceptual Framework), General Methodology 2 (Measurement & Valuation Techniques, exposure draft), topic-specific methodologies, interim technical manuals, and downloadable spreadsheet models, all released as free public goods.

IFVI serves corporations (e.g., Eisai, KDDI, Oda Group), institutional investors and asset managers, consulting firms (Deloitte Tohmatsu), and standard-setting/regulatory bodies (ISSB, GRI, EFRAG). The organization distributes all methodologies, value factor databases, and technical manuals free of charge through its website and via partner channels (GRI, VBA, Harvard Business School), generating no licensing or subscription revenue. Funding is sourced entirely from foundation grants and institutional donations, with named funders including Apax, EQT Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Summa Foundation, and TPF II. GTM motion is partnership-driven and event-driven, anchored by high-profile events (e.g., Climate Week NYC), public comment periods, webinars, and direct engagement with financial regulators and standard setters. As of 2025, IFVI has merged into the Capitals Coalition, with the organization migrating to the coalition's platform.

Name

The International Foundation For Valuing Impacts Inc

Legal name

International Foundation for Valuing Impacts

Website

https://ifvi.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Acquired

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

IFVI is a Boston-based nonprofit (founded 2022) that develops and disseminates open-access impact accounting methodologies, translating corporate environmental and social impacts into monetary terms for companies, investors, and standard-setting bodies.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Boston

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Foundation Grants and Donations: IFVI is funded through grants and donations from foundations and institutional funders including Apax, EQT Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Summa Foundation, and TPF II. All methodologies are made publicly available as free public goods with no licensing fees.
2. Collaborative Funding with VBA: Joint funding proposals and aligned fundraising activities with the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA), as outlined in their partnership MoU. Both organizations pool expertise and resources to accelerate impact accounting methodology development.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

IFVI develops and disseminates open-access impact accounting methodologies, frameworks, and value factor databases that enable corporations, investors, and standard setters to measure and value environmental and social impacts in monetary terms (currency). Its core outputs include General Methodology 1 (Conceptual Framework), General Methodology 2 (Impact Measurement and Valuation Techniques), environmental and social topic methodologies (GHG Emissions, Water Consumption, Air Pollution, Land Use, Waste, Water Pollution, Occupational Health and Safety, Adequate Wages), an industry-specific product framework, and the Global Value Factor Database containing nearly 100,000 value factors spanning 430+ environmental impacts across 268+ countries and regions. All resources are made freely available as public goods, funded by foundation grants.

Product overview

IFVI offers a comprehensive suite of impact accounting methodologies and resources for measuring and valuing corporate environmental and social impacts in monetary terms. The portfolio includes: General Methodology 1 (Conceptual Framework) and General Methodology 2 (Impact Measurement and Valuation Techniques) as foundational frameworks; Environmental Topic Methodologies covering GHG Emissions (Final), Water Consumption, Air Pollution, Land Use and Conversion, Waste, and Water Pollution (all Interim or Exposure Draft stages); Social Topic Methodologies including Occupational Health & Safety and Adequate Wages; and the Global Value Factor Database containing nearly 100,000 value factors across 268+ countries/regions. Supporting resources include Interim Technical Manuals and Interim Models (spreadsheets). All methodologies are developed in close partnership with the Value Balancing Alliance (VBA) and build on existing standard setter frameworks including GRI, ISSB, and EFRAG.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Interim Methodologies
• Global Value Factor Database

Quantifiable outcome

• Eisai's social impact from free DEC tablet distribution was calculated at JPY 7 trillion total (JPY 160 billion annualized), compared to JPY 2.4B manufacturing cost
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 September 2024GRI and IFVI signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2024 to collaborate on advancing the application and measurement of corporate impacts. Under the MoU, both organizations agreed to: collaborate on building market uptake of each other's methodologies; mutual promotion of research, thought leadership, events and activities; joint stakeholder engagement such as seminars and roundtables; aligned fundraising through joint funding proposals; and joint capacity building initiatives (e.g., GRI's Sustainability Innovation Lab). GRI has been championing impact reporting for over 25 years with the world's most widely-used sustainability reporting framework.
• Harvard Business School / Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 12 July 2022IFVI was formed in July 2022 as a spin-off organization from the Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) at Harvard Business School. IFVI took IWAI's framework and datasets to implementation. IWAI continues to develop research, education and training activities in impact accounting. George Serafeim (Harvard Business School) serves as Chair of IFVI's Valuation Technical & Practitioner Committee. The partnership ensures academic rigor and continued research output.
• Value Balancing Alliance (VBA)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 10 January 2022VBA and IFVI formally joined forces in 2022 to develop one common impact accounting methodology for the public good. The partnership brings together corporate perspective (VBA-led testing with corporates and investors) and academic/institutional perspective (IFVI-led methodology development). Joint activities include methodology development flanked by academia, testing in daily business, joint marketing and market development with financial regulators and standard setters, and cooperation with Value Commission and Value Accounting Network members. T. Robert Zochowski (IFVI CEO) and Christian Heller (VBA CEO) lead the partnership.
• Capitals CoalitionminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerIFVI is now part of Capitals Coalition, as noted on the IFVI website. Capitals Coalition completed notable mergers in recent years to consolidate impact accounting and community-focused efforts. Both IFVI and VBA are members of the Capital Coalition's Value Accounting Network and Value Commission.
• Sorenson Impact InstituteminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Sorenson Impact Institute manages the $1 million Collaboration Fund, backed by Ford and MacArthur Foundations, which has sparked merger discussions in the impact investing field including organizations that IFVI has held merger talks with (e.g., GIIN).
• Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG Impact)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerSir Ronald Cohen (IFVI Interim Board Chair) is also President of GSG Impact. Rt. Honorable Nick Hurd (former UK Minister) chairs GSG Impact and sits on the IFVI Board. GSG Impact works across 40+ National Partners to implement and understand impact accounting. GSG's Impact Task Force report 'Time to deliver' called for mandatory accounting for impact.
• International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIFVI and VBA work closely with ISSB to ensure impact accounting methodologies build on and are interoperable with ISSB disclosure standards. ISSB's standards provide the data inputs that IFVI's methodologies then value in monetary terms. IFVI's work could also provide input into ISSB's future standard development.
• EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEFRAG builds on the global baseline established by ISSB and GRI for EU-specific requirements (ESRS). IFVI and VBA align their methodologies with EFRAG requirements to ensure EU regulatory compliance. Both organizations intend to work closely together to achieve consistent, high quality, transparent, reliable, and comparable information.

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Impact Management Platform (IMP): IMP is a forum of standard-setters focused on impact measurement and management for impact investing and sustainable development. It addresses the same impact measurement, valuation, and reporting needs as IFVI but with a broader practitioner convening model rather than a published methodology.
• Value Balancing Alliance (VBA): VBA is the most direct peer: it also develops impact accounting methodologies that translate environmental and social impacts into monetary terms for corporates and investors. IFVI and VBA have an MoU to co-develop a common methodology, but historically represented two parallel impact-valuation frameworks.

Emerging players

• Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi): SBTi develops methodology for corporate science-based climate target setting (GHG emissions reductions). It overlaps with IFVI's GHG Emissions Topic Methodology (social cost of carbon framing) and represents an emerging climate-accounting standard-setter with strong corporate adoption.

Broad incumbents

• International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB): ISSB (within IFRS Foundation) sets global baseline sustainability disclosure standards (IFRS S1/S2) that IFVI's methodologies build upon and complement. ISSB provides the data inputs while IFVI provides the monetary valuation overlay — a structural partnership positioning.
• Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB): SASB (now consolidated into the IFRS Foundation alongside ISSB) sets industry-specific sustainability accounting standards used for SEC and capital-markets disclosure. It addresses adjacent needs to IFVI's industry-specific product impact framework but with financial-materiality framing rather than monetary impact valuation.
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): GRI is the world's most widely used sustainability reporting framework and signed an MoU with IFVI in September 2024. While IFVI provides the monetary valuation layer, GRI provides the underlying disclosure standards — making GRI a complementary standards incumbent rather than a direct competitor.
• CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project): CDP runs the global environmental disclosure system used by thousands of corporates and investors for climate, water, and forest impact data. It addresses the upstream data-collection layer that IFVI's monetary valuation methodology would draw from, making it an ecosystem partner-adjacent.
• Capitals Coalition: Capitals Coalition is the umbrella organization that IFVI merged into in 2025. It convenes the Natural Capital Protocol, Social & Human Capital Protocol, and the Value Accounting Network, and represents a broader, more established ecosystem in impact and natural-capital accounting.

Others

• Climate Action Tracker (CAT): CAT is an independent scientific assessment body tracking government and corporate climate action against Paris Agreement goals. While focused on policy evaluation rather than corporate valuation methodology, it operates in the same impact-accounting research space as IFVI.
• World Resources Institute (WRI): WRI is a global environmental research organization that produces methodologies (e.g., GHG Protocol, Aqueduct) used in corporate environmental accounting. WRI provides the underlying scientific measurement standards that IFVI's value factors translate into monetary terms.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks4 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-international-foundation-for-valuing-impacts

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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