Nordic Impact Lab was founded to promote accountability in investment decision-making by developing ESG data that can be examined, questioned, and defended, rather than simplified away.
What we do
Nordic Impact Lab builds ESG data infrastructure for investment decision-making.
We generate structured ESG data directly from portfolio companies through MAST+ (Maturity Assessment Sustainability Tool) — a methodology designed to support accountability, governance, and defensible investment decisions.
Our work starts where most ESG systems struggle:
inside the company, at the level where responsibility, risk, and decision-making actually sit.
Rather than relying on externally inferred indicators or abstract scoring models, MAST+ builds ESG data through structured interviews and documentation review with portfolio companies. This creates a grounded, evidence-based view of how sustainability is governed and managed in practice.
The result is not solely a score, rating, or recommendation —
but a defensible ESG data baseline that investment teams can use with clarity and confidence.
introducing MAST+
MAST+ (Maturity Assessment Sustainability Tool) is a structured, qualitative ESG assessment methodology designed to generate high-integrity ESG data directly from companies.
It operates as a 360-degree deep-dive across environmental, social, and governance dimensions, focusing on how sustainability is embedded in governance, operations, and decision processes.
MAST+ enables:
Identification of material ESG risks before they surface in outcomes
Early visibility into governance gaps and accountability weaknesses
A clear view of where sustainability claims can — and cannot — be defended
Consistent ESG data generation across portfolios, with adjustable depth
The methodology is applied consistently, while allowing the scope and depth of inquiry to be tailored to the investment strategy, thematic focus, and level of active ownership.
Want to know more?
testimonials
“There was a pre-Nordic Impact Lab and a post-Nordic Impact Lab.
It was challenging before you guys came along.”
H2O: Sportswear
“Nordic Impact Lab helped us understand where we had challenges and gave us clear long-term recommendations that our board will work on in the coming years”
Lene Haaning, CEO
Toy producer
“I found that the tool and the assessment that came out after the conversations made the whole process of ESG reporting manageable for the company and gave them a clear indication of which parts of the goals they should look into more closely and which they had already achieved.
At the same time, the tool was not just suitable for assessing the company's level; it also - in a very short time - gave the company enormous inspiration and formed the basis for self-reflection, which they will be able to use to develop the company both internally and in relation to customers and business partners”
Betina Schiønning, Head of Secretariat in the Danish Association of Play
Our Methodology
The MAST+ methodology has been developed to address a recurring gap between sustainability ambition and the quality of decision-relevant data available to companies, investors, and partners.
It was built from the ground up, drawing on academic research across ESG, development economics, governance, and organisational behaviour. Rather than adopting a single framework, we deconstructed the academic framing and recombined a structure that is simple yet gives a deep dive analysis into companies and funds to identify what truly matters when assessing sustainability, risk, products, and long-term value creation across different contexts.
Significant time was spent curating and refining the questions not to maximize disclosure, but to surface the information that is genuinely decision-relevant from a holistic management perspective. The methodology looks beyond policies and metrics to understand how decisions are made, how incentives are structured, and how risks are recognized and managed in practice.
The approach was then tested on real portfolio companies across the EU and in emerging markets. These applications allowed the methodology to be refined iteratively and hereby removing noise, sharpening insight, and ensuring it works across sectors, geographies, and levels of maturity.
The result is a trusted ESG baseline methodology that is grounded in research, validated through practice, and designed to be repeated consistently over time and hereby enabling meaningful comparison and progress tracking, time and again.