Transparency in impact analyses through AI

leonardo. receives Distr@l innovation grant from Hessian Ministry for Digitalisation and Innovation

The Distr@l funding programme supports innovative projects that aim to drive forward digitalisation in Hesse. leonardo receives the innovation grant of about 156.000 EUR (1. Sep. 2024 - 31. Aug. 2026) to develop AI-based indicator recommendation and data validation tools for impact organisations and their investors.

Digital innovation and technology

Organisations that place positive social and ecological effects (‘impact’) at the centre of their activities have a great interest in measuring and communicating their impact, e.g. in order to acquire investor funds, differentiate themselves from other organisations and avoid greenwashing risks. At the same time, they are often overwhelmed by this task, as

1. there is a jungle of different standards and frameworks to navigate in order to select suitable indicators
2. there are different reporting requirements from different stakeholder groups and
3. the data quality is often low, thus limiting the credibility of the reporting.

The innovation we are developing as part of our Distral project, based on artificial intelligence, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), is an indicator recommender and automated data validation to check data quality and reporting credibility.

Scope of the innovation grant

The primary target group are impact organisations - i.e. those that place positive social and ecological effects at the centre of their activities - as well as their investors, e.g. impact funds or foundations. The innovation will enable users of the leonardo platform to measure their impact independently, digitally and reliable.
In particular, the technology to be developed will support our users in

1. selecting relevant indicators,
2. efficiently harmonising various reporting requirements and
3. evaluating data quality in order to improve it and communicate it more credibly.

The technology will also lead to a significant reduction in costs, enabling smaller impact-focused organisations, which previously could rarely afford expensive consultants and audits, to better understand, manage and report their impact.

Acknowledgements to the project partners