It's not about
us
We make impact assessments available for early-stage impact companies so organizations can allocate their resources to the most promising sustainable innovations.
Our story is not about us. It’s about making impact data accessible for companies and initiatives that change the world with their positive impact. Since 2016 we are working with impact innovators across Europe to build a solution to make climate impact visible in the early stage of a development process. The reason why is that we want precious resources to be spent on the most promising sustainable innovations.
There was a gap between people with potentially impactful ideas, and people able to assess the impact of these ideas. Impact assessment is a specialisation that is not commonly available or affordable early on in projects. Which is a shame because even a bit of impact data can improve the impact of an innovation significantly, especially early on. There is plenty of data for environmental impact generally and climate impact especially, not everyone knows how to find and use it, and that need not be so.
We realized that we could offer a lot of value by building an easy tool that anyone can use to calculate the impact of their ideas. This has three benefits;
Our main aim is to provide innovators with their own compass for positive impact. This way they can factor impact into decision making from very early on, and iteratively throughout the development process. Secondly, by showing impact data in a clear, comparable and transparent way, the tool is also useful for the investors, funds and pitch competition juries, who want to support the most impactful projects. Thirdly, standardized self assessment makes impact expert support easier, faster and more effective. As such, an impact expert can contribute their knowhow to many more projects in the same time.
The ambition to close the impact data gap, resulted in the Climate Impact Forecast. An easy online tool with scalable expert support services, making impact data accessible to over 1000 teams worldwide in a wide range of sectors, technology types and target markets.
The tool and its underlying method and data, are based on Life Cycle Assessment. Particularly on the quickscan variant developed at the Delft University of Technology, in the influential Design for Sustainability department of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. It is commonly used in the design of products and services. With UX design and a one day workshop, we made sure that you don’t have to be an engineer to benefit from impact insight. We started with a solid impact expertise network and over the years, impact experts, sustainable design specialists and climate scientists have joined us, to help more innovators make a difference. And to help us improve, start daring impact projects and develop more tools for our common future.
In recent years, impact investors, banks, funding bodies and philanthropic organisations started to approach us, to support them in selecting the most promising innovations for their innovation funnel, and providing lean and effective impact expert support to the subsidiaries. A clear and hopeful indication that impact science is desired for potentially impactful financial decisions. This led us to build the infrastructure that makes coaching, validations, and different forms of reporting useful to organisations, not only to the individual projects they support.
Bram van der Grinten
As a design engineer, I specialise in sustainable design, Life Cycle Assessment, Cradle to Cradle and Circular economy. I taught these courses at the Delft University of Technology where I have had the privilege of working with influential academics in these fields for the past six years. It is my goal to bring what we know about sustainable products and technologies to a wider audience: everyone who wants to make an impact.
Laurens van Dort
As an impact entrepreneur, my goal is to build scalable products that enable other impact entrepreneurs achieve a positive and sustainable world. My background is in Strategic Product Design, a Master program offered by the Delft University of Technology. After my graduation at Accenture I started the sustainable paint company fairf. Within Impact Forecast my focus is to build an scalable infrastructure, enabling positive change.