Impact measurement challenges: what the SSF Spotlight paper reveals

Impact investing now accounts for CHF 228 billion in assets under management in Switzerland alone. Yet a persistent question hangs over the industry: can investors actually prove the outcomes they claim to deliver? A new report from Swiss Sustainable Finance offers some of the clearest evidence to date that the answer, for most, is not yet.

Published in February 2026 as part of the SSF Spotlight series, How much change? Addressing Challenges for Investors in Measuring Impact draws on practitioner exchanges with 15 representatives from private markets, listed equity, and data providers. The paper was developed in collaboration with the Swiss Platform for Impact Investing (SPII) and examines where impact measurement works, where it falls short, and which tools and processes can help bridge the gap.

Anna Shpak, CEO of Generation Impact Global, participated in the focus group that shaped this paper, contributing a technology-infrastructure perspective to a discussion often dominated by frameworks and regulation. The result is a report that is unusually candid about operational realities.

The scale of the measurement gap

The SSF Swiss Sustainable Investment Market Study 2025 found that 45% of asset managers and 44% of asset owners are measuring impact using some kind of in-house or external framework. The most widely referenced tools are the Principles for Responsible Investment, SFDR, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: none of which were designed specifically for impact investing. More purpose-built frameworks like IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact remain comparatively underused among the broader investment community.

This data reveals a deeper problem. Framework adoption is fragmented, and most institutions are building proprietary measurement systems in isolation. The paper identifies this as a structural weakness: while customisation allows flexibility, it also creates an industry where comparison across funds, asset classes, and geographies is exceedingly difficult.

Four categories of challenge

The report organises the obstacles facing impact investors into four overarching themes that cut across asset classes. In private equity and private debt, the close relationship between investor and investee should, in theory, make measurement easier. In practice, challenges around setting up measurement systems, receiving accurate data from portfolio companies across different cultural and digital contexts, and aggregating results across thematically diverse funds remain significant. The report notes that certain KPIs may take longer to measure than others, and that cultural differences between those designing the data frameworks and those completing them can introduce subtle but material errors.

In listed equity, investors hold minority stakes and cannot directly influence what companies measure or how they report. The paper draws a useful distinction between company impact (the outcomes generated by a company through its products and services) and investor impact (the outcomes attributable to investor actions such as engagement and capital allocation). Demonstrating the latter with any rigour remains one of the sector’s hardest problems.

Data providers, meanwhile, face their own set of dilemmas. Determining what constitutes the “impact” of a company requires subjective judgements about value chain boundaries, the weighting of positive versus negative outcomes, and whether to use absolute or relative metrics. The paper flags a growing concern about AI-driven ESG ratings derived from automated data scraping, contrasting them with analyst-led assessments that include multiple layers of quality control.

What practitioners are actually doing

The paper includes five case studies from asset managers working across different asset classes, geographies, and thematic priorities. What emerges from these examples is not a picture of theoretical frameworks being neatly applied, but rather of institutions improvising pragmatic solutions to persistent measurement problems.

BlueOrchard, for instance, uses a proprietary B.Impact framework for its Latin America gender, diversity, and inclusion strategy. The fund collects data directly from financial institutions it lends to, but faces a recurring challenge: certain data points, such as identifying indigenous clients among borrowers, may not be collected at all by investees at the start of an investment. Workarounds include developing proxies, for example using the preferred language of a borrower as an indicator of indigenous identity. This kind of operational improvisation is common across the industry, and it highlights how far real-world practice diverges from the clean taxonomies of framework documentation.

ResponsAbility, managing over 60 portfolio companies across 30 developing countries, collects approximately 50 impact indicators annually and embeds historical comparison data directly into its reporting templates. When a current-year value deviates beyond a defined threshold from the previous year, the system automatically flags it for review. This is precisely the kind of automated validation logic that distinguishes mature impact measurement systems from manual data collection processes.

Vontobel, working in listed equities, tracks impact through six environmental pillars and uses revenue-based purity analysis to quantify how closely a company’s activities align with environmental solutions. The approach illustrates how listed equity investors must build their own attribution methodologies, since the connection between share ownership and real-world outcomes is inherently indirect.

Where technology meets the measurement problem

The report repeatedly identifies digital tools, standardised data portals, and AI-enabled aggregation as practical solutions to the challenges it documents. Shared data portals allow investee companies to submit information in a consistent format year after year. Process flow charts standardise data collection regardless of thematic focus. Alternative investment management platforms — the paper surveys several, from eFront to S&P’s CSAaaS — can track, compare, and report impact data across portfolios.

Yet the paper also acknowledges that many of these tools are costly and may be inaccessible to smaller teams. This is precisely where a platform approach matters. At Generation Impact Global, our data management architecture is designed around the kind of structured, governed data collection that the SSF paper calls for: standardised templates, multi-framework alignment, automated validation checks, and questionnaire-based data gathering that can be distributed across portfolio companies regardless of their digital maturity.

The SFDR reporting challenge is a case in point. The paper notes that private market impact investors in developing markets often struggle with SFDR’s 14 mandatory Principal Adverse Impact indicators because the concepts feel abstract or misaligned with local operational realities. Some practitioners are advocating a dual-track approach: complying with SFDR where required, but prioritising bespoke impact metrics alongside it. This dual-track approach requires technology that can handle regulatory disclosure frameworks and custom impact KPIs within a single system — rather than running two parallel workstreams.

Recommendations by role: the interactive explorer

One of the most actionable sections of the SSF paper is its recommendation matrix, which provides specific guidance for private markets, listed equity, data providers, and industry associations broken down by challenge category and maturity level. We have re-organised this content into an interactive explorer to make it easier to navigate.

What the paper does not say, but implies

Reading between the lines, the SSF paper makes a compelling case for platform convergence. The report catalogues no fewer than eleven international frameworks for impact measurement, from IRIS+ and HIPSO to the OECD Impact Standards and the 2X Challenge. It also surveys seven alternative investment management platforms used for impact data. The implication is clear: the current landscape is fragmented to the point where comparability across funds — let alone across asset classes — remains aspirational for most investors.

The report also signals a shift in how the industry thinks about the relationship between ESG compliance and impact measurement. The section on SFDR reporting is particularly telling. Several practitioners described the regulation’s 14 mandatory PAI indicators as abstract or misaligned with real-world impact strategies. Rather than abandoning regulatory reporting, the emerging consensus favours a dual-track system where compliance and genuine impact measurement coexist within the same operational infrastructure.

For technology providers like Generation Impact Global, this dual-track reality validates the multi-framework approach we have taken from the outset: building systems that can handle regulatory disclosure and bespoke impact KPIs simultaneously, rather than treating them as separate workstreams.

Looking forward

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, held in July 2025, explicitly named IRIS+ indicators as a useful tool for incorporating sustainable development outcomes into private-sector decision-making. The political signal is clear: impact measurement is moving from voluntary best practice towards expected market conduct.

For investors still building their measurement capabilities, the SSF paper provides a practical starting point. For those already advanced, it offers a benchmark against which to test their own approaches. And for the industry as a whole, it is a reminder that robust measurement infrastructure is not a cost centre — it is the foundation on which the credibility of impact investing depends.

This article is based on How much change? Addressing Challenges for Investors in Measuring Impact, an SSF Spotlight publication by Swiss Sustainable Finance, published in February 2026. The full paper is available for download from the SSF website.
Download the full report