Impact disclosure guidance released by Taskforce
Group chaired by JPMorgan, Natixis
Aims to help countries, companies raise impact finance

WASHINGTON, Oct 23 Reuters A new guide for countries and companies seeking financing for activities that have a positive and verifiable social or environmental impact could unlock an extra 200 billion a year for sustainable development, a JPMorgan executive told Reuters.

The voluntary guidance issued on Wednesday by the financesectorled Impact Disclosure Taskforce seeks to address an estimated 4.2trillionayear financing gap for the United Nations39; sustainable development goals.

Some ESG forms of financing, such as green or sustainabilitylinked bonds or loans, have had marketdriven classifications for some time. However, there is no common rulebook for assessing lending aimed at creating a positive social or environmental impact.

Many issuers have struggled to attract investors because of a lack of quality data, targets and reporting on impacts.

The new guidance has a fivestep process, including assessing the issuer39;s strategy to ensure that its products, services and operations target a country39;s most acute needs.

Issuers must also describe the impact they hope to achieve and how they expect to get there, establish targets to measure the impact and report on them.

It creates a market and an industry consensus of how development impact should be measured and disclosed, said Arsalan Mahtafar, head of the development…