Archives 2023

IMPACTLAKE’s impact management tool, impactlake™, has been in beta testing since October last year. We’re pleased to announce its official launch after working with investors (institutional and venture capitalists) and businesses, including startups, and incorporating their feedback.

Background

As businesses and companies strive to create more value and increase their societal impact, addressing ESG issues has become a top priority. With the growing evidence of the diverse connections between ESG and corporate value, the significance of advanced ESG-focused impact management is on the rise.

On the other hand, achieving effective impact management still poses challenges in terms of both quantity and quality. IMPACTLAKE has been offering services to institutional investors, businesses, and other impact-driven entities to help them overcome these hurdles. As these activities are expected to grow, we developed this tool to allow impact generators to accumulate knowledge and information. This facilitates a gradual shift from outsourcing to self-driven approaches, promoting a company-wide understanding and awareness of impact management.

In creating this tool, we leveraged IMPACTLAKE’s experience in impact management across different stages and industries, gained through diverse support. We collaborated with the major institutional investor and the academic institution to establish a practical approach to impact management. Looking ahead, we anticipate further advancements and integrations in this field. IMPACTLAKE and impactlake™ will continue to refine frameworks and functionalities based on practical considerations.

*Reference Paper ：The Evolution of Impact Accounting and Utilization of Logic-Model in Corporate Strategy

Details

This tool is a full-stack impact management solution primarily designed for businesses and investors. It offers the following key functionalities (For more details, please inquire):

Logic Model Construction:

• Respond to IMPACTLAKE’s five-step categorization, including target categories, regions, and intentions (direction of impact creation).
• Based on the responses, a base logic model is generated for over 50 impact categories (Impact to Output).
• The created base model allows linking company or organizational activities using a highly visible tree-style UI, updating to match the corresponding logic model.

KPI Management and Impact Quantification:

• Set KPIs and estimation logic for each item constructed in the logic model, interlinked with the model.
• Accumulate references for statistical data in the estimation logic, enabling continuous historical management in the same model for subsequent years (approximately a 70% reduction in workload for the following year).
• Optionally, outsource quantification tasks quickly and efficiently.

Dashboard and Report Creation:

• Aggregate and manage quantified and economically valued impacts using predefined logic, categorized for integrated management.
• Understand impacts targeted for management from various perspectives such as overall, portfolio-specific, impact-specific, and chronological.
• Easily request impact report creation and quantification for each management subject.

Other Features:

• Portfolio Management: Segregate various information and access rights for units of management, such as departments and funds targeted for impact management. Set and manage initiatives (e.g., business or investment activities for impact creation) for each portfolio.
• Reference time-series statistical information related to each impact item and sustainability information related to publicly traded companies (reports, various disclosure data), linking them to the model (expansion planned gradually, subject to scope and freshness).

IMPACTLAKE will continue to drive business and solution development that contributes to impact management in the future.

Contact Us

For any questions or clarifications regarding this release or impactlake™, please feel free to inquire using the following contact information.

Contact Information：contact@impactlake.co.jp

IMPACTLAKE has released joint research results, developed with the support and collaboration of leading institutional investor and the academic institution, focusing on the evolution of impact accounting and the use of logic models in business strategies.

As businesses aim for sustainability, Impact Management—advanced ESG—is becoming more vital. Our joint research simplifies Impact Management, using Impact-Weighted Accounts to quantify impact universally. This method includes a logic model for visualizing corporate ripple effects and articulating business strategies. By adopting this integrated approach, we highlight the practical importance of Impact Management for companies and investors.

The research suggests practical ways for Impact Management and includes specific analyses for individual companies. The results highlight challenges like the need for broader use to enhance disclosure and reduce burdens. However, it also shows that the methodology is currently useful.

IMPACTLAKE will continue various initiatives and collaborations in the field to promote the simultaneous achievement of social value creation and sustainable growth for companies, contributing to the realization of a sustainable society.

Overview

Title

Progress of Impact Accounting and Utilization of Logic Model in Corporate Strategy
～Proposals for new management methods for impact oriented corporate management and the realization of a sustainable society～

Authors (in no particular order and titles omitted)

Reona Sekino (Chief Executive Officer, IMPACTLAKE Co. Ltd.)
Toshiyuki Imamura (Head of Responsible Investment Dept. Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd.)
Yumiko Miwa (Professor, School of Commerce, Meiji University)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Importance of Impact Management
3. Existing Methods of Impact Management and Their Practical Issues
4. Recommendations for an Integrated Model as a New Approach
5. Examples of Application of this Approach(Examples in Specific Domains and Companies)
6. Discussion and Conclusion

Bibliographic Information

Published on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
URL：https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4645148（English version）
※The Japanese version of this paper is scheduled to be published in a domestic journal from early to spring 2024.

Contact Us

For any questions regarding this release, please feel free to contact us using the details below:

Contact Information：contact@impactlake.co.jp

Background and Purpose

For companies, purpose-driven and sustainable management has unquestionably become a top agenda. Particularly in startups, while factors such as sustainability (ESG) considerations, including governance, are naturally taken into account, the evaluation is relatively more focused on future growth prospects. It can be said that, in a relative sense, impact (growth potential) is overwhelmingly more important than ESG (sustainability).

On the other hand, startups require intense focus on their business. Despite the importance, CEOs, even with strong dedication, may struggle to find time. Hiring individuals with impactful management skills is also tough due to cost and time constraints.

This service provides all the essential features for impact management in startups, seamlessly supporting from the early stages to full integration. It aims to contribute to achieving and sustaining effective impact management, going beyond simple consulting or tools.

Key Features of this Service

• Establishing effective impact management involves implementing practical strategies within the organization. This includes ongoing efforts for skill development and structural enhancements, ensuring a scalable and sustainable approach over the mid-to-long term.
• Providing impact assessment and economic value evaluation tailored to the practical perspective of businesses, while incorporating the ‘investor’ viewpoint based on collaborative research with major financial institutions.
• An impact management approach that emphasizes quick assessment, easy comparison, reproducibility, cost-effectiveness, and alignment with business strategy.

Mainly Beneficial for:

• Startups aiming to create impact and address social challenges (Seed to Early Stage)
• Startups aiming for an Impact IPO (Middle to Later Stage)

Package Overview

We comprehensively provide the following functionalities essential for impact startups:

Key features for sustained impact management in the future

• Offering the impact management tool, impactLake™

Essential features for the initial stages of impact management

• Establishing organizational structure and management flows to drive impact management forward
• Fundamental organization for future impact management

Steady-state functionalities essential for ongoing impact management

• Annual and quarterly evaluations (Updating and refreshing the evaluation system)​
• Annual and quarterly disclosure report creation (PDF and Web formats)

Features contributing to advanced impact management

• Individual project and plan evaluation at the launch of new initiatives, including PR support​
• Constructing equity stories, including tailored engagement with international impact investors
• Development of business strategy, research and development strategy, etc.
• Creative support (Creating sustainability concept videos, etc)

Plans

For detailed information and a quote for each plan, please contact us individually.

Minimum Plan

Provision of the Impact Management Tool, impactLake™, only

Basic Plan

(In addition to the above) Comprehensive provision of functionalities required in the initial stages (Project implementation only in the first year, continued tool usage)

Standard Plan

(In addition to the above) Comprehensive provision of a wide range of functionalities required for ongoing impact management (In addition to continuous tool usage, comprehensive provision of functionalities required regularly)

Fundamental Philosophy Behind our Service Provision

• This program and the tools/solutions that constitute it offer not just a framework for numerical management but insights and processes, with continuous updates to them.
• Beyond mere organization and visualization, true management lies in how you leverage it. We aim for a seamless integration into the strategy, disclosure, and fundraising aspects of impact startups.
• Empowering the organization to self-operate is the key in impact management. We achieve this by adjusting the balance between tools and individual support at each phase, moving away from constant reliance on external consultants.

Contact Us

For inquiries, detailed information requests, or proposal requests, please use the following link or contact the IMPACTLAKE office at contact@impactlake.co.jp

IMPACTLAKE Co., Ltd. (Location: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Reona Sekino) and Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd. (Location: Sumida-ku, Tokyo; Representatives: Yukihiro Maru, Akihiko Nagata) are pleased to announce the commencement of a collaboration aimed at further strengthening and advancing impact investment.

Partnership Background

In the midst of the irreversible trend of impact investing, Real Tech Holdings has been at the forefront. Since 2021, the company pioneered Japan’s first impact investment fund in the deep tech sector, dedicating efforts to maximize the economic and societal value of numerous startups.

IMPACTLAKE, supporting impact management for institutional investors’ decisions, and Real Tech Holdings have started collaborating to enhance support for impact startups. We aim to strengthen and advance assistance for these startups even further.

Details of the Partnership

By combining Real Tech Holdings’ track record and expertise in the deep tech impact investment field with IMPACTLAKE’s practical impact management tools and their application methods, we aim to strengthen support for impact startups.

This involves setting up structures and processes in startups to manage impact, organizing and measuring their strengths tied to impact, and helping with external communication to investors, like crafting equity stories.

Practical assistance, including impact measurement and management (IMM), has already begun for some of the Real Tech Fund’s portfolio companies. In addition, their impact report will be published as an external outcome in early 2024.

Through this collaboration, we will establish and evolve an impact-based corporate valuation framework and maximize the economic and social value of the recipients of our support, thereby creating impact-IPOs from the portfolio companies of the Real Tech Fund and promoting initiatives that will contribute to the revitalization of the overall market and the establishment of standards.

Contact Us

For inquiries, please use the link below or contact the IMPACTLAKE office at contact@impactlake.co.jp.

Overview

It goes without saying that Purpose Management and Sustainable Management are top of the agenda for companies. It has already become clear that the medium- to long-term value creation story for the realization of these goals not only serves as a guideline for companies, but also plays a particularly important role in evaluations by investors and other external parties. The term “impact (investment),” which has been in the news recently, has various definitions, but IMPACTLAKE defines “impact management” as a strategy and means of execution to maximize the medium- to long-term value creation.

The purpose of this service is to objectively learn the current status and potential of the impact created by your company, and at the same time, to help you take the first step toward materializing the actions necessary to realize your value creation story and to link this to ongoing impact management.

(Click here for more information on the significance of the program and how it can be used.)

Points

• Impact evaluation and economic value evaluation based on the “investor” perspective based on joint research with major financial institutions, but also from a practical corporate perspective
• Consistent implementation from target impact setting to impact accounting
• Not merely an impact assessment for external disclosure, but leads to the formulation of policies and specific actions necessary to maximize the impact
• Continuous impact management and delivery with a view to permeating the corporate culture with the strategy of purpose and value creation through these activities, and to Ops (Operations) to realize SX (Sustainability Transformation).

Target

• Those who are in charge of corporate planning, new business, R&D, ESG promotion, IR, etc. for large to medium-sized business enterprises.

Output Summary

Basically, we will report on the following items (output image).

Quick Review of your company’s existing sustainability initiatives

• Value Creation Story, Materiality Map, and Other Medium- to Long-term Strategies and Current Initiatives
• Status of ESG and other sustainability-related disclosures

Visualization of the impact your company creates/will create and its relationship to medium- and long-term strategies

• Clarification of impact creation pathways (part of the value creation story)

Quantification of the impact your company creates/will create, simplified impact accounting

• From business activities (with the impacts defined above in mind)
• Other management activities (mainly environmental and employment impacts are assumed. (For the environment and other areas, if there are already management activities, input those already in place.)
• Build a concrete action plan for the future based on the above

Plan

(All deliverables will be tools + ppt report)

Spot plan (from 9,000USD)

Visualization and economic valorization of specific/individual themes (about [3] themes, regardless of actual/future plans)

Standard Plan (from 30,000USD)

Visualization and economic valorization of specific/individual themes (about [3] themes, regardless of actual/future plans)

Advanced Plan (estimate required)

In addition to the above contents, even clarification of specific action directions based on the results of evaluation and construction

Schedule

4-8 weeks (*For Standard Plan. Spot plan is 2-4 weeks)

• First week: Initial MTG (interviews, etc.)
• Weeks 2-3: QA, initial draft construction of impact creation pathway, etc.
• Weeks 3-4: Initial report and discussion
• Weeks 5-7: Quantification, economic valorization, etc.
• Final week: Final report and discussion
• (Follow-up as appropriate)

Notes

• Impact evaluation itself is not the main objective. It is also not an index rating based on self-serving evaluations.
• It is intended only as a guideline for determining the direction of actions necessary to optimize and maximize the impact creation activities of the entire company, with a view to achieving essential improvements in corporate value (sustainability management) and the realization of a sustainable society.

Contact Us

For inquiries, please use the link below or contact the IMPACTLAKE office at contact@impactlake.co.jp.