One compass, several instruments: how to combine AGILE and UNEP FI tools to steer impact
Following the intervention by the UNEP Finance Initiative at the Geneva Forum, a practical proposal for determining which tool to use, at what stage, without imposing the same technical system on all stakeholders.
During the opening session of the Geneva Forum dedicated to impact finance, on December 8, 2025 at the Palais des Nations, Ms Careen ABB, Programme Lead, Impact & SDGs within the UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), emphasized the importance of the tools already developed to enable financial institutions to identify their impacts, link them to the Sustainable Development Goals, work with shared taxonomies and move towards more harmonized reporting. [1]
The Opening Conference of the 2025 Geneva Forum on impact finance raised a very practical question. When an impact project, an NGO, a company, a fund, a bank, an investor, an international organization or a public authority work together, should they adopt the same evaluation tool? And, if they retain their own methods, how can we prevent everyone from speaking a different language?
The response proposed here is to distinguish between two functions that are too often confused.
On the one hand, there is a need for a common language that is simple enough to be used on a daily basis, from the initial design of an initiative through to its financing, management and monitoring. This is the function proposed for AGILE, developed as part of the work of the Geneva Foundation for the Future carried forward by the Geneva Forum.
On the other hand, there is a need for specialized technical tools, often more detailed and adapted to each stakeholder’s profession: bank portfolio analysis, sectoral impact mapping, company analysis, indicator selection, regulatory reporting, biodiversity measurement, greenhouse gas emissions calculation, social assessment, financial analysis or health outcome measurement.
These two levels are not in competition. On the contrary, operators benefit from combining them.
The issue is therefore not to choose the best universal tool, which probably does not exist. It is to know which tool to use for which question, and at what stage, while retaining a small number of common reference points that enable stakeholders to understand one another.
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Keywords: impact finance ; impact management ; UNEP FI ; AGILE ; Impact Radar ; SDGs ; interoperability ; impact measurement ; impact investing ; reporting ; taxonomies ; impact projects.
1. The problem is no longer the absence of tools, but how to combine them
The field of impact has changed in nature.
For a long time, one of the main difficulties was having methods capable of describing environmental, social or socio-economic impact. Today, the opposite difficulty is emerging: methods, standards, taxonomies, indicator libraries and reporting requirements are multiplying.
A bank may work on the basis of UNEP FI’s Principles for Responsible Banking. An investor may use IRIS+. A large company may organize its reporting around the ESRS, GRI or other standards. A public institution reasons on the basis of public policies and statistical indicators. A United Nations organization works on the basis of its mandate, programmes and the SDGs. An NGO has its logical framework, theory of change and outcome indicators. A biodiversity, water, health or education specialist uses yet other protocols.
This diversity is not necessarily a flaw.
An indicator relevant for assessing the ecological quality of a river has no reason to be identical to one used to measure financial inclusion. A bank and a field-based association do not have the same obligations, the same data or the same decision-making procedures.
Attempting to replace all these tools with a single framework would therefore result in a loss of information.
The difficulty lies elsewhere: how do these stakeholders communicate when they need to make decisions together?
This is where the image of a Rosetta Stone becomes useful.
The Rosetta Stone did not replace the languages it connected. It made it possible to move from one to another.
A common impact interface should serve the same function.
2. AGILE: a compass before being a measurement instrument
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