Methodology
impacts
Our frameworks are based on years of research. Find out about our methodologies below.
about impacts what sets us apart
Positive and negative impacts
What they are 
An impact is the actual or potential change on the environment, people, and the economy.
- Positive impacts represent desired changes and
- negative impacts represent undesired changes.
We in addition summarize the (historical) financial effects and (future) risks and opportunities driven by your impacts as Value & Risks. Together they are also coined as Impacts, Risks & Opportunities (IROs).
Sustainability is always about two dimensions, impacts on society and how these have an effect on financials. Our Impacts Accounting Framework clearly focuses on impacts on society. We connect these to financial effects, risks and opportunities in our Value & Risk section and provide guides for identifying the right strategy in our Strategy section.
Actions can lead to both less negative or more positive impacts.
Plain performance indicators can only explain the principle direction of the actual or potential total future changes in the environment, on people, and the economy. However, they cannot determine if an impact is positive or negative. They can consist of, in principle, undesired, e.g., GHG emissions, and desired changes, e.g., afforestation. The graph on the left shows an example of the forecasted GHG emissions of the DAX40 and their translation into climate impacts (graph on the right):
Additional advantages
Explanation
The PI Impact Accounting Framework
- Applies market economy principles and avoids 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
Impact-washing approaches
How to identify them
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.
Our Science-based Impact Accounting Framework uniquely offers:
- Evidence-based assessments — rigorous, data-driven, and impact-washing-free
- Objective rules for material KPIs — ensuring clarity, comparability, and credibility
- A long-term vision — guiding organizations toward a sustainable market economy by 2050 and beyond
Assessment scopes
Impacts go beyond direct operations. Our tool lets you assess:
- Own operations
- Operations + upstream value chain
- Downstream value chain
- Entire value chain (upstream – downstream)
This flexibility ensures assessments are aligned with your sustainability strategy — whether focused narrowly on operations or across the full value chain.
Holistic framework
The PI Science-based Targets Path® provides a holistic view of organizational impacts, covering six key sustainability topics: climate change, water, biodiversity (nature), health, social matters, and net tax. Together, these are measured through 14 science-based indicators such as CO₂e.
Each indicator is selected because it is:
- Science-based — linked to societal targets or derivable from historical values
- Relevant — directly connected to organizational, project, investment, or consumption activities
- Transparent — measurable along the value chain, preventing “outsourcing” of negative impacts
- Graded — providing performance levels beyond binary compliance
- Neutral — free from party-political bias
Rigorous data verification process
Data integrity is essential. Our verification process ensures your impact assessment is as complete and reliable as possible:
- Check completeness — review all data provided and close gaps with robust estimation methods
- Assess reliability — evaluate internal controls and validate where external audits exist
- Ensure comparability — fill missing data points consistently so results remain fair and benchmarkable
This rigorous process gives you confidence that your results are trustworthy, transparent, and decision-ready.
AI-supported data modeling
Our tool uses AI-powered modeling to close data gaps and ensure completeness. By leveraging your CRM data, revenue, spend, and industry benchmarks, we deliver a reliable, comprehensive assessment — even when some inputs are missing.
This capability makes our framework uniquely powerful, offering a level of analysis and coverage rarely matched in the market.