Office Hours: I’m Sam Duncan, founder of Net Purpose. I make impact measurement more effortless for investors. AMA!Featured

Posted in:Office Hours Management and Leadership Founders

Hi Elphas!

I’m Sam Duncan. I founded Net Purpose to make impact measurement effortless for investors, so we can mobilise the trillions of dollars needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Previously Head of Impact at LeapFrog Investments, and on the Investment Banking Team at Goldman Sachs, I helped define the standards for sustainable and impact investing with the Global Impact Investing Network, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, B Lab, and the World Economic Forum. It was in these roles that I realised investors need the facts on sustainable performance for us to achieve global goals.

During my downtime, I enjoy running with my dog Leo, traveling with my husband, beaches(!), reading, trying new restaurants and cuisine in London, and spending time with my family and friends.

Ask me anything about impact investing, sustainability, my career journey, what it means to be head of impact, how to measure the contribution of your investments to the SDGs, or anything else!

ElphaStaff·Nov 25

Thanks so much for joining us @samduncan!Elphas – please ask @samduncan your questions before Friday, November 29th. @samduncan may not have time to answer every questions, so emoji upvote your favorites 🔥👍🏾➕

judithsoldyess·Nov 28

Hi Sam,I'm curious to know what challenges companies run into, operationally speaking, when trying to gather and report on their outcomes. Are there common pain points for them to demonstrate their performance levels?

samduncan·Nov 29

Hey there Judith! Thanks for the question. We work mostly with investors today at Net Purpose, but in my prior roles I worked closely with companies and would segment the challenges I helped with into a few buckets: a) what to measure - what's meaningful, what should I measure, and why?; b) how to collect the data; c) how to interpret the data and communicate results; d) how to benchmark performance of their company vs others. I think the hardest thing is a) and b), but a quick way to start is to pick a standard list of metrics e.g. GRI or IRIS+, and start with data the company already has in their operations - most "impact" metrics are data the company likely already has e.g. number of customers (and segments), MWh energy usage (used to calculate CO2e emissions), water usage etc. They could then use the Net Purpose platform to benchmark their results.

Ray8·Nov 27

Hi Sam –I'd love to hear your thoughts on greenwashing/greenwishing and how it can be damaging to impact investing and generate skepticism on the authenticity of these types of investments. I recently saw the documentary on NEtflix "Buy now", and it's been a bit top of mind lately. Would love to hear your thoughts!

samduncan·Nov 29

Hey Ray! Thanks for the question! I haven't seen Buy Now - but have just added it to my list! It sounds like an important example of how the push for "more growth" has a big environmental impact if this is not priced in.

samduncan·Nov 29

Greenwashing / greenwishing is also really important - the challenge is that without quality data, it's really hard to prove whether something is greenwashing or actually green, which is the problem we're working to solve. But other factors like regulation will play a big role here. I think the UK is leading with their new sustainable labels regulation which seeks to limit the risk of greenwashing for UK offered investment funds. One foot in front of the other ; )

Lynn36·Nov 27

Hey Sam! Great work you're doing with Net Purpose – can you explain more about how your company makes impact measurement "effortless"? What innovations are you most proud of? Thanks!

samduncan·Nov 29

Thanks for the kind words and question Lynn! I've always believed that to make investing more sustainable, investment professionals need to understand and measure their impact, just like they do financial returns. So we spend a lot of time at Net Purpose thinking about how to translate impact concepts into financial concepts, so the bridge to cross for investment professionals is more "effortless." I'm most proud the way we've structured the data, the time series analysis, the way it's exportable to excel so investors can embed it in their own financial models, and we spend a lot of time on visualisations, to make the time to "aha" as short as possible!

Tajuana122·Nov 27

hi sam! your career journey is so impressive! what were some of the standout challenges of defining the standards for sustainable and impact investing?

samduncan·Nov 29

Hey there Taj! Thanks for the kind words and the question! I think one of the biggest challenges is that everyone talks about the same thing in different words. Most investment professionals have grown up with a strong foundation (and common vocabulary) in financial analysis. But with impact measurement, we're looking at other business KPIs that have an impact on the business and on people and the planet. Depending on what lens you're taking, you'll have a different word for the metric - e.g. "number of customers" (business lens) vs "people with access to financial inclusion" (social lens). This is the same metric, but called different things. It's really hard to get alignment on what the standards should be, when stakeholders think we're talking about different things ; )

gabi·Nov 27

Hi Sam! I worked in impact measurement for a while, so it's very cool to see Net Purpose making waves in the space. One of the major challenges I've observed in IMM is that the most widely accepted standards (e.g. IRIS+) are very Western-centric, so the organizations that I worked with across Asia often didn't find them relevant to their work. What can these organizations do to demonstrate their sustainability and impact, especially when seeking out investments from investors in Western countries? What are some of the challenges you've faced working with investors to quantify the ROI of their contributions to the SDGs?

samduncan·Nov 29

Hey Gabriella! Thanks for your question and great to meet a fellow impact geek! ; ) Great question and interesting point about IRIS+ - I worked to implement IRIS+ (and other) metrics with companies in Asia and Africa at LeapFrog, and found that the metrics were reasonably transferable, but the segments of the metrics often differed. For example: the companies typically had the same "type" of environmental impacts (energy, water, waste) but social impact was different, depending on the geography and demographic. I would consider these segments of the same metric "patients treated" "customers with financial access" so maybe that's one way to think about it. Separately, the companies might need some coaching on why it matters to measure this at all.