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Paragon +Impact is a global expert tech company specialising in digital impact analysis with a mission to reduce the complexity of ESG and sustainability reporting. We empower organisations to make more informed decisions in order to manage their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risks, achieve their impact goals and ultimately contribute to Agenda 2030, whilst communicating their performance in a sophisticated manner.
In order to achieve this, our team of sustainability experts combined with our tech partners have created a unique and powerful cloud-based impact assessment tool, namely the Paragon +Grading tool.
The Tool is built upon fundamental global frameworks and delivers a robust impact grading methodology that is powerfully aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other relevant ESG principles. Our vision is to catalyse a world that is guided by expert impact data and supported by frontier cloud-based intelligence to enable verifiable impact on people and planet, alongside financial returns.
Paragon Impact and our +Grading Tool align to international global standards and frameworks. The tool is updated regularly to reflect developments and updates implemented by the following institutional bodies where relevant:
The Paragon +Grading Tool is a novel approach to bridge the gap between the intentions and the impact of an organisation, thus helping to build their theory of change and navigate simply towards their ESG and sustainable impact goals. Our robust methodology carries out a detailed analysis of the impact (positive and negative) across an organisation’s sphere of influence by quantifying the Scale, Magnitude and Duration of the impact as well as the Probability and Risk associated with it. This process requires high quality & verifiable data in order to respond to 53 expertly curated impact statements, informing the performance against all 17 SDGs and the ESG sub-themes.
A measure of the extent of the impact – geographical and/or social.
The extent to which the impact is being experienced at the assigned Scale; taking direct vs indirect impacts into consideration.
A measure of the lifespan of the impact to be experienced at the assigned scale.
The likelihood of the impact occurring at the assigned Scale, Duration and Magnitude; taking volatility, risk and governance factors into consideration.
Each grading assessment first completes a strategic four-tier materiality weighting process across all SDGs, which identifies the relative importance of the SDGs from those that are Core to the organisation to those that are Negligible. The associated weighted algorithms allow personalised yet comparable performance results to be produced, as they deliver ‘Core SDG only’ results and gradings, as well as those integrated Comprehensively across all SDGs and ESG sub-themes. All of these findings are supported by an integrated dashboard and reporting outputs, summarising the Core and Comprehensive Gradings as well as critically highlighting potential risks factors and long-term monitoring needs.
The Paragon +Grading Tool has many applications that enable a variety of organisations to measure, manage and communicate their impact performance over time as well as radically improve stakeholder engagement and investor satisfaction within the universal contexts of the SDGs and ESG more effectively.
Paragon +Grading provides a Tool that aligns the processes of data capture, verification, analysis and reporting, thus enabling Corporates to more efficiently define and communicate their ESG performance and improve the quality of information being provided to rating agencies and stakeholders.
The Tool is designed to transition ESG reporting from a siloed approach that is predominantly based on retrospective performance results, to a model that not only complies with key reporting protocols, but also assesses impact across all ESG pillars and SDGs.
Furthermore, the Tool summarises key sustainability indicators and metrics to be integrated into business operations and monitored over time, which, alongside financial and operational performance, facilitate a proactive engagement with impact investors who are increasingly focused on this area.
Paragon +Grading provides ESG portfolio screenings for institutional equity and debt fund managers, which facilitates in-depth SDG impact investment focus. Paragon +Grading reports are designed to enhance the due diligence of underlying assets within funds and identify the key issues and business risks to address with corporate management and investor relations through the investment process.
This model equally applies to alternative asset managers of private wealth.
Paragon +Grading can be deployed by private equity and specialist impact investors to assess the impact and relative performance of portfolio investments based on the SDG criteria and ESG investment mandates. The Paragon +Grading process identifies operational issues and risks that need to be addressed, improved and/or mitigated, which enables quality reporting and engagement with limited partners and investors.
The Paragon +Grading methodology is able to assess and monitor the performance of assets associated with specialised bonds, which fund positive environmental and/or social impact projects. The Tool provides detailed results of these instruments and their compliance to repayment criteria and other defined impact outcomes over the investment period.
Paragon +Grading can be utilised by Financial Service Providers (FSPs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to assess, integrate and monitor ESG and SDG performance throughout the investment decision-making and credit review processes.
The Paragon +Grading Tool helps Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) and other similar entities to improve the measurement and management of their impact as well as reporting back to their donors and stakeholders.
Meet the core team of Paragon +Impact, who all benefit from each others diverse expertise, ranging from sustainability reporting, conservation and systems ecology to corporate finance and information technology.
Paul coined ESG in 2004 as head of the UNEP FI, after which he delivered the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006.
Paul continues to play advisory roles across various UN bodies and serves as a Board member of the Global Infrastructure Basel.
Currently completing her PhD in Sustainable Development and Social-ecological systems Caroline is a registered Professional Natural Scientist in Ecological Science.
She is passionate about social-ecological systems and managing human resilience in a changing environment.
More than 25 years of experience in designing, building and implementing distributed software solutions with a focus on fintech.
He has experience in software development, systems operations, network and cloud infrastructure, firewalling, security and automation.
Kieren has deep experience in impact assessments across diverse and challenging conditions in Africa.
She is passionate about shifting the market to focus on impact opportunities and the impact these will have on society, the environment and financial capital.
Christina is an American attorney and University Lecturer trained at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.
She also leads programmes with the UN Global Compact, Federal Bar Association, American Bar Association and University College London.
Aimée is an internationally experienced corporate lawyer with a Master’s degree in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge.
She has specialised in legal, policy and governance issues, and the effective communication, education and implementation of these.
Marli is a product designer (UX & UI). She is passionate about designing digital products and brands that are functionally beautiful and easy to use.
Her previous roles, as a product design lead for large financial services companies and now focuses her skills on building brands such as Paragon to achieve scalable impact.
Paragon Impact partners with approved consultancies and advisory firms to license the application of Paragon +Grading and facilitate an independent assurance of the input data, grading and impact assessment. Once approved, assigned team members must complete the onboarding programme and further training, as required, to ensure that our partners have the necessary skills and expertise to apply the methodology and comply with updated protocols.
GCX provides a reporting and analytics platform for managing ESG risk using GCX DASH- which provides companies with reporting functionality to map carbon footprint activities and other ESG indicators across multiple stakeholders, portfolios of assets.
Dedicated to the future of the 300 million young people who live in Africa: their economic prospects, and their health, education, psychological resilience and social cohesion.
Helping businesses unlock their full potential to grow and thrive in their response to change. In doing so, they bring their purpose to grow people, grow business, and grow Africa to life.
Catalysing profitable impact and ESG investments that deliver measurable returns on social and natural capital.
At Vunani Securities, our vision is to partner with our clients to translate the stock markets and trading in an inclusive and accessible way.
Securely capturing, managing, processing, and visualizing data with Amazon Web Services.
Paul coined ESG in 2004 as head of the UNEP FI, after which he delivered the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2006.
Paul continues to play advisory roles across various UN bodies and serves as a Board member of the Global Infrastructure Basel.
A technologist with over 30 years of experience in financial markets technology spanning roles from software developer to CTO.
Thrives in the process of building software to solve problems.
Philip has a wealth of experience of 25 years in financial services and is intrinsically motivated by purposeful work, driven to be a force for positive change with a mission to create value for society whilst ensuring the sustainability of our environment.
Currently completing her PhD in Sustainable Development and Social-ecological systems Caroline is a registered Professional Natural Scientist in Ecological Science.
She is passionate about social-ecological systems and managing human resilience in a changing environment.
More than 25 years of experience in designing, building and implementing distributed software solutions with a focus on fintech.
He has experience in software development, systems operations, network and cloud infrastructure, firewalling, security and automation.
Kieren has deep experience in impact assessments across diverse and challenging conditions in Africa. She is passionate about shifting the market to focus on impact opportunities and the impact these will have on society, the environment and financial capital.
Christina is an American attorney and University Lecturer trained at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership.
She also leads programmes with the UN Global Compact, Federal Bar Association, American Bar Association and University College London.
Aimée is an internationally experienced corporate lawyer with a Master’s degree in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge.
She has specialised in legal, policy and governance issues, and the effective communication, education and implementation of these.
Marli is a product designer (UX & UI). She is passionate about designing digital products and brands that are functionally beautiful and easy to use.
Her previous roles, as a product design lead for large financial services companies and now focuses her skills on building brands such as Paragon to achieve scalable impact.
