Gold Standard is an ISEAL-code compliant standard setting organisation and thought leader that promotes the best that can be achieved in climate and development projects. Established in 2003 by WWF and other international NGOs as a best practice standard to ensure projects that reduced carbon emissions under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) also delivered additional sustainable development benefits, Gold Standard now has 2000+ projects underway in over 90 countries, creating billions of dollars of shared value from climate and development action worldwide.
Gold Standard’s legacy work focused on ensuring environmental integrity and sustainable development in carbon markets. We are expanding our focus to sustainable finance, providing tools to support impact investors (e.g., philanthropic foundations, corporates, development agencies, governments, or pension funds etc) to credibly manage, measure, and maximise impact toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In collaboration with an expert Working Group and built on approaches developed by OECD for Impact Fund Compliance, IFC Compliance, SDG Impact, and others, we have developed new Fund Requirements for Certification to Gold Standard for the Global Goals. These new process-centric Requirements guide Fund Managers and Investors in best practices for designing funds, implementing investment decisions, and measuring impact for credible, certified impact statements.
These Requirements for Fund Certification are intended to be integrated into our core standard "Gold Standard for The Global Goals".
We are seeking public input on these Requirements to ensure their integrity, quality, and practicality.