This guide aims to demystify the process of designing and structuring impact vehicles. It provides practical, replicable guidance for organisations seeking to catalyse capital flows into local impact economies. Drawing on lessons from across the GSG Impact Partnership and wider impact investing ecosystem, it presents a structured six-step roadmap to support practitioners throughout the vehicle design process, complemented by a library of case studies sharing practical lessons and real-world structuring experience.

Since the establishment of the Impact Taskforce (ITF) in 2021, under the auspices of the UK G7 Presidency, in our landmark Time to Deliver report we called for systemic change in investment decision-making to ensure that impact is taken into account in every business and investment decision as a “third lens” alongside risk and return, to accelerate 
the volume and effectiveness of private capital seeking to have a positive social and environmental impact.

Sustainability management and reporting, understood as the processes by which companies identify, measure, monitor, and disclose their material environmental, social, and governance risks, opportunities, and impacts, has become increasingly essential to how businesses build competitiveness, resilience, and trust in today’s economy. At the same time, sustainability management and reporting are a critical foundation for system-level impact transparency, particularly when adopted consistently across value chains. Yet for most small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—especially in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs)—the business case remains unclear, and the pathway to implementation often feels out of reach. Limited resources, capacity and technical know-how, combined with emerging sustainability-related reporting requirements designed primarily for large corporations, make it difficult for SMEs to engage meaningfully.