Aligned Indicators for Sustainable Infrastructure (AISI) against Established ESG Systems

Summary

The Aligned Indicators for Sustainable Infrastructure (AISI) is the product of a research project of ISCA, ISI Envision, GBI, and GRESB, under the leadership of GIB, sponsored by the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF). AISI harmonizes sustainability indicators and thereby “mobilizes greater levels of private capital into emerging markets sustainable infrastructure”. AISI intends to operate in a space currently occupied by three overlapping regimes: the SDGs, national laws and regulations, and the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) standards of various IFIs or other financiers.

This research presents the methodology and the findings of mapping the AISI against established ESG systems. The mapping tracks how AISI “echoes” those ESG initiatives as a starting point at the government/developer early-stage and AISI’s compatibility with other and more comprehensive standards downstream when private sector investors start considering a project.

The following ESG systems were used to map AISI:
● The European Union (EU) ESG Regulations.
● The ‘group of five’ Corporate Reporting System (5ISS).
● The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) and the International Business Council (IBC) ESG Reporting Metrics and Disclosure Standards.
● The International Organization for Standardization (ISO’s) TC322 Standards.
● The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation’s (IFRS) Standards.
● The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Framework.

It should be noted that AISI has been designed to be applicable at the project level, while the ESG systems that we compared to AISI have been designed to be applicable at an enterprise level. As a result, certain assumptions were necessary to converge the two.

The mapping highlights AISI’s set of topics and related indicators and their relations with the other systems when information is available. It also identifies important features of the ESG systems, which AISI does not address, as well as unique features of AISI. Some of the above ESG systems like ISO TC322 and IFRS, are still under development and the mapping was not possible.

After analyzing the above ESG systems, the mapping was carried at two levels: first, an overall high-level mapping of all systems. Then, the detailed mapping followed between AISI and each of the selected ESG systems. The findings of the high-level mapping led to the selection of ESG systems to be included in the detailed mapping to follow. Those systems are WEF-IBC, SASB, and GRI (both part of the systems that constitute 5ISS), TCFD Recommended Disclosures, EU NFRD, and EU SFDR (both included in the EU ESG Regulations).

All findings are based either on the indicators or metrics identified as omitted by AISI but present in other ESG systems. The findings are also based on the observed similarities or differences in the approach and methodology used by each ESG system regarding the selected sustainability topics.