What is an activity?

How does Vested Impact define “activity” when you are assessing your business

In Vested Impact, an “activity” refers to a product, service, or an action your business undertakes to make your products and services operate. This lets us get into the details that determine your impact. For example, your service might be literacy training. If you deliver the training online rather than in person, this affects the impact your training has on goals like preventing climate change. Similarly, if you use sustainable and fair-trade farming practices, it affects the impact of your products, and will get captured in your activities. We do not, however, assess how your business operates. For example, we do not look at things like the percentage of women on your board or labour standards. This is because we are assessing the impact of your products and services, not of your business. These details are important, but get captured by other ESG metrics.

There isn’t always a clear delineation between these different types of activities. We regularly review our methodology, and also welcome feedback from our client companies if they think a new activity needs to be added.