PI Comments

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  • A call to standardize sustainability performance and not its management
  • PI comments on the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) Draft of the  European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG)
  • PI comments on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Draft of the International Sus­tain­abil­ity Standards Board (ISSB)
  • Public Comment of Positive Impacts® on IFVI/VBA’s General Methodology 1, along with an impact washing case study and recommendations how to avoid impact washing
  • Public Comment of Positive Impacts® on IFVI/VBA’s Adequate Wages Topic Methodology, along with a case study on how this methodology could flip impact valuation results upside-down
  • Public Comment of Positive Impacts® on IFVI/VBA’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Topic Methodology, along with some fundamental shortcomings in the accounting of GHGs/impacts

Special Reports

Special report of Positive Impacts (PI) GmbH on the forecasted climate performance of the DAX40

  • 17 companies are expected to exceed 100% climate target level achievement in the forecast for 2024-2050, but they represent only 14% of total DAX40 emissions
  • 16 companies are expected to fall below 100% climate target level achievement in the forecast for 2024-2050, these account for a total of 86% of DAX40 emissions
  • The average DAX40 climate target level achievement in 2022 was 47%
  • Projected present value of climate target level achievement for 2024-2050 is just 27% NPT®

Special report of Positive Impacts (PI) GmbH to the COP29

  • Corporate GHG Accounting needs to consider also purchased emissions
  • Countries should also include imported emissions and exclude exported ones
  • Read more on the “Who pays decides principle”

Special report of Positive Impacts (PI) GmbH to the COP28

  • Presenting the PI® scenario analysis on the societal costs of climate change
  • Quantifying the Societal Earnings of 1.5°C over 3.4°C
  • Understanding the ROI in % of going for 1.5°C

PI Paper Series

Learn more by downloading the three parts of our study series for free. We also offer summaries of each part or a summary of the entire series.

  • Study Series on “Demystifying the links between sustainability/ESG and Performance”
  • Paper No. 1 on how strategic sustainability management pays off
  • Paper No. 2 on the concept of double materiality and how materiality is approached by the biggest companies in Germany
  • Paper No. 3 on how companies create societal value
Study Series summary
go to the papers

Methodologies

Impacts on society

Methodology PI Impact Accounting Framework

The ins and outs of the PI Impacts Accounting Framework. If you want to learn even more, contact us and we will answer all your questions

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Positive, negative, and context-based impacts

We in general define an Impact as the effect that the activity of an organization or a stakeholder, a system, or any other event has

> on the society, including the economy and the lives of future generations (holistically named as an impact on society) or

> on an organization (called impact on business or financial effect, risk/opportunity),

which produces desired or undesired changes in the economy, the environment (nature) or the people at the micro or macro level. However, the EU decided to coin impact on society as Impact and impact on business as effect (for actual) and risk/opportunity (for potential effects).

Sustainability is always about both dimensions. However, in our Impacts section we focus on impacts on society. We connect these to impacts on business/effects in our Strategy & Both sections.

The first two visuals below explain the difference between a negative and a positive impact. Actions to manage them either lead to a less negative or a (more) positive impact, when taking the perspective of absolute impacts (bottom left visual). However, the main problem is that the added value of this distinction is very limited as it lacks context. PI solves this problem by innovating the concept of context-based impacts, where the distinction of positive and negative is in both cases done in connection with a science-based target (bottom right visual).

Positive & negative impacts

Let us explain this by using two examples:

> Example for a negative absolute impact: If organization A was able to reduce GHG emissions to 516 g/$ in 2020 and the science-based target was 416 g/$, then the context-based impact is negative (-100 g/$). If the competitor B  had emissions of 366 g/$ in 2020, then their context-based impact is positive (+50 g/$).

Example for a positive absolute impact: If organization A financed carbon sequestration of 0.1 g/$ in 2020 and the science-based target was 1.1 g/$, then the context-based impact is negative (-1 g/$). If the competitor B financed carbon sequestration of 2.1 g/$ in 2020, then their context-based impact is positive (+1 g/$).

Additional advantages

> Apply market economy principles and avoid unreasonable sector pathways that, by nature, apply a centrally planned economy approach (contact us if you are interested in learning content on this)

> Apply clear & consistent accounting rules for full comparability

> Consider rebound effects by factoring in GDP growth

> Avoid impact-washing by not hiding negative impacts behind false positives (such as training or remuneration)

> and by all of this, having a non-partisan approach free from political preferences

  Impact-washing approaches        

Various initiatives knowingly or unknowingly impact wash overviews of impacts, “Integrated Profit/Loss” statements, integrated capital accounting, or the like by mixing private gains with public impacts.

Possible motives for promoting such approaches are:

> Imagine you are a large company and have quantified your negative climate impacts, and they are massive. You may have the desire to hide these negative impacts of yours behind all the jobs that you and your suppliers offer, which is ultimately what lies behind your revenues that are used to finance the jobs, management salaries, and provide dividends to the owners

> You may even want to impact wash your results further by adding more “positives”, e.g., by quantifying all the GDP that is generated by the consumption impact that is induced by the salaries and dividends you and your suppliers generate to secure your revenues

Several other platforms, initiatives, and organizations may simply not know exactly what they do.

The basis of the framework

Our framework is built around three dimensions that reflect the full spectrum of strategic integration

 

> Covers areas such as overall strategy, materiality assessment, and executive compensation

> Nine criteria with 18 questions assessing fundamental aspects of sustainability strategy

> Covers areas such as governance structures, integration into core business processes, and operational practices

> Nine criteria with 17 questions assessing practical implementation of sustainability  

> Assesses stakeholder interaction and reporting practices

> Two criteria with five questions focusing on external communication and engagement

Indicators of the framework

We translate the answers into four core scores that reveal different aspects of strategic quality

                                           

  • Assesses the extent to which sustainability is embedded in strategy, governance, and operations
  • Each answer is mapped to one of the five ambition levels (e.g., No Ambition = 0, Legal Compliance = 0.5, Sustainability Driven = max. 5)
  • The final score reflects the weighted average of all answers – customizable based on your priorities (e.g. financial return, impact, or both).
  • Measures the consistency of answers across the 40 questions.
  • High inconsistency may indicate Only PR risk – where sustainability is communicated but not embedded.
  • Also includes a divergence score, showing whether ambition is concentrated in less or more important areas.
  • Measures how openly and clearly sustainability ambitions and performance are disclosed.
  • Includes both management transparency (based on the 40 strategy questions) and impact transparency (based on 14 indicators from PI’s Impact Accounting Framework).
  • Helps identify gaps in disclosure and opportunities to improve communication.

When consistency is low and the organization scores high in less material questions, it may signal an Only PR risk – a red flag for greenwashing, potential reputational risks and clear strategic misalignment. We flag this risk as low, medium, or high, based on the combination of assessing consistency and coherence scores.

Methodology PI Strategy Framework

The ins and outs of the PI Straregy Framework. If you want to learn even more, contact us and we will answer all your questions

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PI Newsletter

Video Introduction

Watch a video of a summary of our PI approach, explained by our founder and CEO Martin G. Viehöver below. Enable the subtitle in the video for the english translation.