Impact is rarely created in isolation. Companies, other actors across their value chain and their capital providers each have a role, which makes attribution a central question for any investor using impact valuation.

This paper, developed with investors through an IV Hub working group, is designed to help investors understand the main approaches to horizontal attribution (how impact is shared across the value chain) and vertical attribution (how it is shared among capital providers), choose the approach that fits their context, and bring more rigour and comparability to impact valuation, from investment decisions to value creation for portfolio companies.

The paper also considers additionality as a further layer alongside attribution.