Asilia Grows its GIIRS

The first andonlyAfrican safari company to achieve a 5 star rating from the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS), Asilia has now also been graded at the Platinum level for its impact model. This is great news, news that we are justifiably proud of.

Some snippets from our 2016 assessment

“The company receives credit for hiring and training underemployed community members and creating sustainable eco-tourism and driving companies to establish a conservancy area with local communities.”

“Asilia Africa performs well both in Workers and community, for example by including all employees in the formal bonus plan, providing additional benefits such as health care and financial services, and having written purchasing policies in place.”

What is GIIRS?

These ratings are the gold standard for measuring impact investing. It’s a global method that is rigorous, comprehensive and comparable and is used by companies to measure their social and environmental impact. Assessments are done across 176 industries worldwide and in Asilia’s industry, eco-tourism, they’re proof that we’re at the top of the first league.

Adopted by 15,000 companies in 57 countries the GIIRS Rating uses a methodology developed by B Analytics, a project of the non-profit B Lab that serves a global movement of entrepreneurs who apply the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. Analogous to Morningstar’s investment rankings, GIIRS focuses on social and environmental impact rather than financial risk.

By annually completing a detailed questionnaire, the answers to which are then subject to a due diligence by Deloitte on a biannual basis, a company gets rated in two broad areas: impact model and impact operations.

The impact model recognizes business models that are specifically designed to solve social or environmental problems through company products or services.

The impact operations rating evaluates the impact of the business in how it operates. This is sometimes referred to ESG, or Environmental, Social and Governance, practices.

The questionnaire covers four categories: community, environment, workers and governance.

Community questions cover the company’s impact on external community stakeholders, including suppliers, distributors, the local economy and community, as well as the company’s diversity, job creation, civic engagement and charitable giving practices and performance.

Environment focuses on indirect and direct environmental impact of the company and its operations. It covers both practices employed to reduce environmental harm as well as to generate positive impact on ecosystems.

Workers looks at how the company treats its workers through its compensation practices, benefits, training, worker ownership and work environment.

Governance focusses on issues related to a company’s mission, stakeholder engagement, governance structure, controls and overall transparency.

So how did we score in 2016?

For impact model we scored Platinum for community and gold for environment.

For impact operations we scored 5 stars for community and governance and 4 stars for environment and workers.

With an overall score of 147 against a market benchmark (median) of 98 Asilia is proud of its achievements in the global impact investment arena, and will continue to work on this momentum, thereby improving its positive impact on the people and areas in which it operates.

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