Towards a Common Benchmark for the Evaluation of Impact Projects — The AGILE Hypothesis

In the dynamic landscape of sustainable finance — whether climate, green, blue, social, or taking more recent forms such as impact investing or ESG strategies — operational teams sometimes face a multitude of tools, frameworks, and analytical grids which, each in their own way, provide real value but also require time, training, and high technical expertise.

Project leaders, analysts, investors, public administrations, and field actors thus use different frameworks — sometimes complementary, sometimes redundant, often or very often complex. This diversity reflects the richness of approaches, but can also make the daily work of teams more laborious, especially when it comes to comparing, prioritizing, or supporting concrete projects.

It is in this context that a methodological proposal called AGILE Tool was formulated. Not as a new tool added to the existing ones, but as a common benchmark, simple, quick to use, and designed to integrate smoothly into current practices.

A starting hypothesis: what if a minimal common language were possible?

The idea was not to replace anything or to create yet another new standard.

The thinking began with a very simple question:

Would it be possible to extract, from the many existing frameworks, a common foundation lightweight enough to be used at first glance, without prior specialization, and robust enough to never contradict more elaborate methods?

This common foundation would be:

• non-technical,
• quick to complete,
• based on field perception,
• usable in both project preparation and analysis,
• and most importantly compatible with all major framework families (ESG, Impact Management, SDGs, EU Taxonomy, ICMA, etc.).

The AGILE tool was conceived as a bold proposal in this direction.

A deliberately simple structure

AGILE is based on five major families of questions, directly inspired by the common denominators found in sustainable finance practices as well as in development project approaches:

1. Alignment (with a mission, a need, an intention)
2. Governance (clarity and coherence of responsibilities and decisions)
3. Intention (raison d’être, level of impact ambition)
4. Leadership (human and collective capacity to drive action)
5. Efficiency (alignment between resources, activities, and expected outcomes)

Each family includes five simple questions, scored from 1 to 6, allowing for a first reading in about twenty minutes.

This initial reading is not meant to be exact: its purpose is to be structuring. It serves to provide an initial picture, a starting point — a sort of internal coherence seismograph.

Correspondence of the 5 A.G.I.L.E. families

An iterative approach rather than certification

The tool would be designed in three levels, not as an audit but as a learning journey:

• Level 1: the sketch — A spontaneous first reading.
• Level 2: the assessment — The same reading, but enriched with sources, data, and sectoral comparisons.
• Level 3: the action — A roadmap describing what could lead to progress.

This iterative system invites individuals or teams to learn about their own project, rather than striving for a “good grade.”

It seeks less to judge than to clarify.

Why this could work: a few underlying principles

1) A common benchmark replaces nothing, but prepares for everything
The AGILE tool does not provide a final diagnosis: it prepares the ground for more specialized diagnostics.
It acts as an entry point — a common core before branching into specialized areas.

2) Collective perception improves reliability
Because the questions are simple and open, multiple evaluators can respond.
The answers can be compared, combined, reinforced, and reveal convergence.
This facilitates capacity building within teams while respecting the necessary subjectivity in analyzing soft factors and enabling objective measurement at the same time.

3) A light tool accelerates heavy processes
Major frameworks (ESG, SDG, Taxonomy, IRIS+, etc.) require data, structure, sometimes hundreds of hours and often, training.
The AGILE tool is mainly used to assess the situation before engaging with technicality — to avoid mobilizing resources on a poorly targeted or misunderstood project.

4) Natural compatibility with all frameworks
The five criteria families neither contradict nor replace any existing framework:
intention, alignment, governance, efficiency, and leadership are present in all approaches, even when formulated differently.
This transversality allows the tool to serve as a bridge.

5) An explicitly educational function
The AGILE tool is above all a dialogue tool.
It helps teams ask the right questions in the right order, and identify what deserves special attention.

A method as an invitation

The AGILE tool was not designed as a truth, nor as an imposed standard, and certainly not as just another tool.
Aiming to simplify everyday life for each individual and the collective work of the community, it presents itself as an invitation: to open a clear, shared, accessible space — but above all quick and simple in daily use — where everyone — project, investor, company, territory, foundation — can begin to speak the same language.

It does not claim to simplify reality, but to ease the first mutual step — the one that then allows for the mobilization of frameworks, audits, analyses, and requirements specific to each sector.

In this sense, the AGILE tool aims as much to assess projects as to create the conditions for mutual understanding among all parties involved.

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