- By Jeannette Gurung
After 20 years, social impact measurement and monetarization is at last getting attention from leading thinkers in the carbon markets and environmental finance providers, as was evident in the events of the New York Climate Week, attended by Jeannette, WOCAN Board member Tanushree Bagh, and WOCAN Core Associates Cécile Ndjebet and Danièle Ramiaramanana last week. All of which leads us to think that the W+ Standard -created almost 10 years ago – is finally gaining its due recognition and even a fan club within the climate finance and project development communities. All of this was helped by the release of the World Bank’s report that I authored a year ago, Scaling Gender and Climate Investment Opportunities.
Several events at the Nature Positive Hub and an event on using blended finance structures included speakers who focused on social impacts and how to finance social justice within the context of climate change. As one person from GHG Accounting put it, “there is now clarity that climate projects must include the measurement not only of carbon, but also of biodiversity and social justice. All three should be mandatory or projects should not go forward.”
Social impacts can now be monetized, which fills a gap of investors looking for credible ways to fund the “S” of ESG, that has stymied the private sector investors for decades. What was missing was a standard way to measure, verify and compare or benchmark progress. Some in the academic world of social measurement have now suggested that the carbon markets solved this problem through the rigorous and standardized way of verification and reporting.
“Hello – WOCAN figured this out in 2014, when the W+ Standard was designed using the carbon standards as a template.”
OutcomesX has emerged as a second framework for measuring and trading social outcome credits, that can also be applied to climate projects. Watch for an announcement of WOCAN’s partnership with this women-led organization that will scale and push the market development to provide solutions to the pleas for financing social justice we heard in the halls and events of NY Climate Week.
Another partnership that we cannot wait to formalize and announce is with Integrity Global Partners_- a women-led company with a mission to unlock fair and equitable capital at scale to deliver high-quality environmental assets to the market.
In meetings organized by EmpowerCo. with about 25 mostly women corporate and institutional investors interested in purchasing W+ credits and supporting climate projects that use the W+ to design indicators and monitor progress for gender outcomes within value chains and investments, we heard of a yearning to go beyond Net Zero goals, to find ways to do the ‘right thing,’ to show leadership and catalyze larger change beyond their steps to put more women in positions of power (what Morgan Stanly calls “scope 1 ‘ activities, in the language of emissions, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol). They are searching for ways to address Scopes 2 and 3- to affect positive gender outcomes within their supply chains and beyond.
And heard from the Head of Sustainable Finance at Morgan Stanley was the brilliant idea of flipping the notion of gender as a co-benefit of carbon credits, to seeing carbon as a co-benefit of gender (W+ credits)!
Jaws dropped as we envisioned an ecosystem that valued women and social justice first, and tying this to climate outcomes. Follow us as we build on this thinking in the next months/years and let us know your thoughts about the possibility of this world. I am imagining a parallel to IETA (network of carbon professionals) where members come to collectively explore and share thoughts about how to advance such a market, with the carbon market leaders on the fringe (as we have been around them for years), coming to learn from us.
With partners like OutcomesX and Integrity Global Partners, WOCAN members like Cecile and Daniele, and the support of investment managers like Morgan Stanley, the time may finally be right for WOCAN and its W+ Standard to turn the tide and finance women to take their place at the center of climate action.