Impact Washing: The Elephant in the Room

Scene of Washington DC - by Juanita Pied

In an earlier post, I discussed ways to assess, measure and manage impact. In the path towards net positive impact, there are hurdles along the way. Companies and investors may fall prey to the urge to claim too quickly their achievement of positive impact to build their brand and reputation, forgetting or minimizing their negative impact.

When companies overstates or falsely claim its positive environmental and social impacts, it’s called Impact Washing.

How to avoid Impact Washing?

1 - Adhere to recognized Impact Frameworks

2 - Adopt reporting practices that follow known standards

3 - Engage with third-party auditors who will verify the claims

4 - Foster stakeholder engagement*

*The last point relates to engaging not only with the community, but other actors of the civic society (associations, NGOs) that can give valuable feedback and keep you in check when a constructive dialogue is established.

Next time you see companies making outsized claims on their positive impact without complying with these 4 activities, it’s probably a red flag to help you spot Impact Washing.

To go a little further…

Sam Vionnet packs great tips on ways to spot and address impact washing, so chapter 5 of Sam Vionnet’s book “Impact Thinking”. Sam Vionnet is the visionary founder of Valuing Impact, a consulting firm that helps companies integrate the value of human, societal and environmental impact into their decision-making. They’ve worked with Nestle, Nespresso, Ikea, ISO and so forth. His book goes to the point and is easy to read, it is a great way to learn about impact assessment and impact strategy.

//25