Shell Foundation is an independent UK registered charity that catalyzes enterprise-based solutions to global development challenges.
The foundation supports innovators to test new technology and enterprise models that can contribute towards the SDGs, achieve financial independence and operate at scale.
Shell Foundation and Future-Fit partnered between September 2016 and 2022 to establish the feasibility of building on the Future-Fit Business Benchmark to create a unified framework that can compare the contributions of social enterprises towards meeting the SDG targets. Development work was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, but initial testing with social enterprises proved highly positive. The long-term goal remains the creation of an open-source, web-based toolkit that could, in turn, lead to the creation of a mechanism providing the ability to value and trade impact.
“One of the greatest challenges that the impact investment sector faces today is that surprisingly few investors price impact into their terms. As a result, capital flows either to financially attractive organizations or to enterprises who shout loudest, regardless of the impact they deliver.
Our partnership with Future-Fit is all about tackling this inefficiency. We see outsized benefit in creating a benchmark that provides transparency and assurance on the positive and negative impact that enterprises have on the SDGs. By placing this data alongside financial information, we believe Future-Fit will equip impact investors, governments and donors to steer resources to areas where they deliver greatest benefit, as well as provide important intelligence that allows enterprises and corporates to optimize their value to society.”
Richard Gomes, Director of Market Development at Shell Foundation