The Rockefeller Foundation and Radicle Impact have agreed to be founding investors in BlueMark
October 1, 2020—Tideline, a specialist consultant for the impact investing industry, today announced the launch of BlueMark, an independent business providing impact verification services for investors and companies. BlueMark’s mission is “to strengthen trust in impact investing” through rigorous and independent assessments of an investor’s or company’s impact practices and performance, thereby building confidence and credibility in the impact label. The new business draws on Tideline’s deep expertise helping clients develop sophisticated impact investment strategies and practices, with third-party verification now emerging as the next critical piece of a best-in-class approach.
“Independent verification is essential for scaling the impact investing industry with integrity,” said Christina Leijonhufvud, a Managing Partner at Tideline who has transitioned to become CEO of BlueMark. “By introducing a reliable mechanism for establishing trust and accountability in the impact investment market, stakeholders can have greater confidence in impact claims and performance. Asset owners and institutional allocators especially benefit from the introduction of impact verification, which has the potential to dramatically simplify the impact screening and monitoring process and thereby mobilize greater capital flows toward positive societal impact.”
Impact verification came to the forefront in April 2019 with the introduction of the Operating Principles for Impact Management (“OPIM” or the “Impact Principles”), led by the International Finance Corporation (“IFC”) and now featuring a growing group of more than 100 signatories with $300+ billion in combined impact assets under management dedicated to “establishing a common discipline around the management of investments for impact.” One of these Principles—Principle 9—specifically requires signatories to publicly disclose and independently verify their alignment with the Principles on a regular basis.
Shortly after the launch of the Impact Principles, Tideline completed the first-ever published OPIM verification on behalf of LeapFrog Investments. To date, Tideline has completed 16 OPIM verifications for clients managing more than $80 billion in combined impact assets, representing approximately 40% of the verifications published thus far. The aggregated results of the first 13 of these verifications were featured in Tideline’s April 2020 report, “Making the Mark,” that explored how impact investors are coalescing around best practices and addressing shared challenges. These results spotlighted what is now BlueMark’s signature impact management practice verification, and influenced the introduction of additional verification services that span impact mandate and impact reporting assessments as well.
The launch of BlueMark represents the formal separation of the verification business from Tideline, thereby establishing a dedicated team to provide independent impact verification services. BlueMark will also serve non-US clients out of a newly established London office.
The BlueMark team has designed proprietary methodologies for evaluating how each of the three key components of an investor’s impact management process—impact mandates, impact management practices, and impact reporting—are aligned with industry standards like OPIM, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Impact Management Project (IMP), the Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) IRIS+, UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and others.
BlueMark also today announced the launch of BlueMark AccessPoint, a specialized service designed to be affordable for boutique and emerging impact investors (i.e., those with less than $100 million in assets under management for private equity managers and less than $250 million for private debt investors) seeking to attain alignment with OPIM. The goal of AccessPoint is to encourage greater industry-wide adoption of best practices by making verification services more easily accessible.
The Rockefeller Foundation and Radicle Impact intend to make catalytic investments into BlueMark to help seed the business and ensure the impact investing field has access to high-quality and independent verification services.
“Tideline has long been a pioneer in the impact investing space, and this new verification business represents the next frontier and a much-needed step in the evolution of this industry,” said Maria Kozloski, Senior Vice President of Innovative Finance at The Rockefeller Foundation. “We are proud to support the BlueMark team as they continue to advance best practices in impact investing.”
“Our goal at Radicle Impact is to provide investors with benchmark or better returns, deliver measurable social justice and environmental resilience impacts, and catalyze the migration of large amounts of mainstream capital to impact investing,” said Dan Skaff, Managing Partner at Radicle Impact. “In order to do so, we believe in the need for well-articulated impact goals, transparency and independent validation of results. The BlueMark team are proven leaders in data-based impact evaluation and measurement, and we’re excited to join their efforts to accelerate meaningful impact in the venture and private equity communities.”
As of this announcement, BlueMark has completed 20 impact verifications for clients including: BlueOrchard Finance, Calvert Impact Capital, CDC Group, European Bank for Reconstruction Development (EBRD), European Development Finance Institutions (EDFI), KKR, LeapFrog Investments, LGT Venture Philanthropy, Nuveen, PG Impact Investments, PG LIFE, Prudential Financial, the Osiris Group, and UBS.
To learn more about impact verification, BlueMark will be hosting a launch event on Thursday, October 1 at 9 AM ET featuring Christina Leijonhufvud (CEO of BlueMark), Nick O’Donohoe (CEO of the CDC Group), Dr. Andrew Kuper (Founder and CEO of LeapFrog Investments), Maria Kozloski (Senior Vice President of Innovative Finance at The Rockefeller Foundation), and Roy Swan (Director of Mission Investments at the Ford Foundation). Please RSVP for the event at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/strengthening-trust-in-impact-investing-tickets-122240242857.
About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation advances new frontiers of science, data, and innovation to solve global challenges related to health, food, power, and economic mobility. As a science-driven philanthropy focused on building collaborative relationships with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to inspire and foster large-scale human impact that promotes the well-being of humanity throughout the world by identifying and accelerating breakthrough solutions, ideas, and conversations. For more information, sign up for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org and follow us on Twitter @RockefellerFdn.
Media Contact
The Rockefeller Foundation
Nahal Mottaghian
+1 (332) 216-8771
nmottaghian@rockfound.org
About BlueMark
BlueMark provides independent impact verification services for investors and companies. The services are designed to strengthen confidence in the achievement of stated impact goals through the verification of impact mandates, impact management practices, and impact reporting against established industry standards.
About Tideline
Tideline is a specialist consultant for the impact investing industry providing expert, tailored and actionable advice to clients developing impact investment strategies, products and solutions. Learn more at www.Tideline.com.