The IRIS+ system aligns with over 50 standards bodies. IRIS+ materials therefore cover a diversity of industry types and disclosure requirements.

Alignment among impact measurement and management standards is key to advancing the use of social and environmental performance data for impact investing decision-making, and better alignment also helps alleviate the reporting burden on both investors and investee organizations. Use of generally accepted core metrics sets and best practices prevents confusion among stakeholders and paves the way for benchmarking of impact data.

There are many tools, methods and resources that help investors measure, manage, and report social and environmental information. What distinguishes the IRIS+ system is a focus on contextualized impact information backed by evidence covering a range of impact themes or SDGs to help investors translate intentions to impact results. The IRIS+ system focuses on contextualized impact information to ensure that investors are using only the most important impact data necessary to enable performance comparisons and ultimately optimize impact investing results.

Developed with broad stakeholder input—and as a result of extensive and ongoing alignment work with other standards bodies—IRIS+ can be used by investors, companies, researchers and others to implement and produce data according to any framework, assessment, or reporting tool. Whether used alone or to underpin other tools, use of the IRIS+ system enables impact investing stakeholders to measure, manage and optimize performance in a detailed, consistent, and powerful way.

The GIIN works alongside or has aligned with over 50 standards bodies to advance the use of social and environmental performance data for impact investing decision-making and to drive results. In addition, GIIN partners have co-authored a variety of pieces to explain the alignment or describe how the two organizations complement each others’ work.