The Next Phase of Impact Measurement and Management

Four years into building S2G’s Impact Measurement & Management (IMM) practice, we have established a strong foundation. Over that time, we’ve developed our Theory of Change, strengthened our annual Impact Survey, and improved data quality. The question we’re increasingly asking is not, ​“What else should we measure?” but ​“How can we better use what we already know?”

Our 2025 Annual Report reflects that shift. This year, 83 portfolio companies participated in our Impact Survey — a 97% response rate — and 63 of those were building on at least three consecutive years of data. That continuity increasingly allows us to move beyond single-year snapshots and better understand what the data is telling us about our portfolio, alongside broader trends we’re seeing across the impact investing field.

Our Opportunity Is Shifting from Measurement to Management

Across the portfolio, the numbers tell an important story. In 2025, our companies contributed to nearly 2.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided, reduced, or mitigated, brought 22.7 million acres under sustainable management practices, avoided or reduced more than 29,000 metric tons of food waste, and delivered 2.1 million food-as-health products. Our survey also helps us understand how companies are managing material sustainability considerations across energy, labor, supply chains, and data security.

With our measurement system in place and several years of portfolio data, we’re increasingly focused on putting this information to work — using these insights to inform investment decisions, strengthen portfolio engagement, and enable more meaningful benchmarking.

AI Is Expanding What’s Possible for Impact Management

We believe AI has the potential to significantly change how impact data is collected, synthesized, and used. By reducing reporting burden, surfacing portfolio insights more quickly, and making information more accessible, these tools can give investment and management teams a richer foundation for judgment and decision-making. We’re exploring where these applications can add value within our own practice.

Operational Resilience and Sustainability Are Increasingly Converging

We’re also seeing impact and sustainability considerations become more closely connected to the day-to-day priorities of building strong businesses. Energy efficiency can serve as a cost management lever; physical climate risk assessment can inform enterprise risk management; employee engagement is tied to retention and productivity; and cybersecurity is increasingly understood as a business continuity issue.

As these considerations become more integrated into core operations, the conversation increasingly extends beyond sustainability teams to operational and executive leadership. This is shaping how we think about where IMM can add value throughout the investment lifecycle.

Investor Alignment Is the Next Opportunity

During the 2025 reporting cycle, we coordinated with co-investors through survey mapping, direct sharing of company responses, and other collaborative efforts to help reduce reporting burden. Those efforts reinforced a broader opportunity: greater alignment around what success looks like.

Investors may share a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while measuring progress through avoided emissions, renewable electricity generated, or energy efficiency improvements. The measures differ, but each can indicate progress toward the same outcome. Greater alignment does not necessarily require identical metrics; it can begin with a shared understanding of the outcomes we’re collectively working toward. This thinking underpins our North Stars, which organize diverse portfolio metrics around shared long-term outcomes.

Altogether, these reflections point to where our attention is focused four years in: not simply measuring more, but making better use of what we know. For us, that is the next phase of impact measurement and management.