The Importance of Regeneration: a new scorecard for impact

  I think a hero is any person intent on making this a better place for all people – Maya Angelou Handprint helps companies to understand th...

 I think a hero is any person intent on making this a better place for all people – Maya Angelou

Handprint helps companies to understand the importance of regeneration so that they can make a positive impact on our planet.  For some companies, this means planting mangroves from the profit they make from bigger sales. While for others, it means cleaning plastic from the seas to celebrate corporate achievements. Today, we are seeing more companies use our platform to find impact partners and support good work all over the world.

An important aspect of the regeneration movement is helping companies make decisions that align impact partnerships with core values. That’s why we launched a new Regeneration Score this year.  

Importance of Regeneration Score in choosing impact partners

Regeneration Score is a metric that measures impact in the context of the development needs of the benefitting communities. Therefore, providing expert guidance about the potential of impact partners.

Regeneration Score also helps companies navigate choices among partners who differ not only in their missions but also in terms of the conditions in which they work. Regeneration Score contextualizes partners’ work with robust, expert metrics gathered from high-quality sources, including The World Bank, Forest Watch, and Yale University. These data describe the development needs of the country in which each Handprint partner regenerates natural and social ecosystems. 

Regenerative Impact of the Seven Clean Seas project

Why go beyond our old scoring system?

 

The goal of the old scoring system was to aid a sponsor in picking a project to support. But this system was based on a trial-and-error approach using a simple average. While this method worked for projects of the same impact category and country, it did not work for others. For example, when Handprint expanded to impact projects beyond reforestation, the score proved to be insufficient.

Also, many companies chose projects based on the following factors:

• how well-known is the impact partner;
• how popular is the project;
• unique conditions of their impact category;
• on instincts or guts.

 Moreover, some of the companies were unsure of which project would best fit their mission, purpose, and location.

Why our Regeneration Score is different?

In operation, Regeneration Score evaluates the work of impact teams by answering two questions:

1. What work is the partner doing within its mission?
2. How does this work align with the national development needs of the benefitting communities?

Regeneration Score answers these questions through expert assessments from Handprint’s Impact Advisory Board. These experts assess impact work in four impact domains:

• Social (The World Bank – Gini Index)
• Forest (Global Forest Watch – Tree Cover Loss)
• Biodiversity (Environmental Performance Index)
• Ocean (Environmental Performance Index)

The assessments from these advisors are weighed based on their expertise in each domain. This information in turn serves companies when they are deciding on a regeneration project. Or when selecting a long-term partner to help them realize their impact potential in the real world.

This scorecard helps Handprint to provide the world’s first Regeneration as a Service (RAAS) platform that is fully transparent, quantifiable, and science-based.

We hope our Regeneration Score will help leaders everywhere to identify and support causes that align with their values and ambitions. We know that becoming nature positive is just a small step towards creating a truly regenerative economy, and that true regeneration requires system-level change. So, as we help leaders craft connections between impact partners and their businesses, we will continue innovating tools like Regeneration Score to help changemakers take critical steps towards developing better companies and adopting sustainability into their business, culture, and mission.

Would you like to make your online store regenerative and support the cause that resonates the most with your brand’s values? Visit handprint. tech to learn more.