Taking stock of where the needle is on impacting investing, a leading body has published a new metrics platform to help manage growth and stop mission drift.

This week the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) launched IRIS+, a new suite of tools which aim to make it easier for investors to compare and communicate impact results.

Users of the new IRIS+ platform will be able to identify the evidence-based metrics most relevant to their strategies and goals, and get clear and comparable data which takes the guesswork out of impact management, GIIN said.

The move by the San Francisco non-profit body is part of various efforts to introduce more clarity and standard practice to the sector and help bring about the “scale with integrity” that asset owners and allocators are increasingly concerned about, especially as the lines between ESG and impact investing become increasingly blurred.

Impact investing is generally seen as investing in companies and funds aimed at generating a positive and measurable social return as well as a financial one. The space grew into a roughly $500 billion market by 2018 and is positioned to capture some of the trillions in wealth that a more socially driven next generation of investors stands to inherit in coming decades.

Another big driver, and arguably what is confusing the impact market, is the rapid rise in portfolios aligning themselves to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in a market approach aimed at closing global inequality and strengthening internal governance.

Mid-stream of that, this is one effort to counter that messy convergence.

“With the industry’s rapid growth and increased calls for precise tools, investors are eager for streamlined practical guidance on how to measure and manage their impact,” GIIN said in launching the revised metrics platform.

“IRIS+ gives investors an easy-to-use system, including sets of core metrics for certain key themes such as clean energy access, financial inclusion, health, and affordable housing,” the organisation added.

CEO Amit Bouri, who founded GIIN a decade ago to build capacity in the space, said the world’s challenges are “too urgent for impact capital to underperform.” He said that with IRIS+, investors have a way to “translate impact intentions into real impact results.”