NEW YORK — Project Heather, the firm creating a new Scottish Stock Exchange based in Edinburgh’s George Street, on Sunday announced the opening of its consultation process on what an ideal company on its exchange might look like.

The new Scottish stock exchange will be built specifically for “impact investments” defined by the Global Impact Investing Network as those “made into companies, organisations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return.” 

The consultation will feed into the “impact reporting requirements” for the proposed Scottish-based stock exchange.

Speaking ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit at the UNDP’s Climate Hub, Project Heather CEO and Founder Tomás Carruthers said: “It is an honour to launch this consultation at the United Nations Development Programme’s Climate Hub as the world’s nations come together for Climate Week.

“Our mission at Project Heather is to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and beyond, feasible and achievable.

“Project Heather integrates the routes most likely to move capital at the greatest speed and scale to the kinds of projects that most urgently address risks to stakeholders captured in the SDGs.

“As a Project we have spent considerable time working on what a potential issuer on our proposed new Scottish stock exchange might look like, but now it is time to call on the global impact community to help.

“We invite them to join our consultation and hold us to account. 

“This is a call to act now – we don’t have much time left to achieve the SDGs.” 

Jamison Ervin, Global Manager on Nature for Development, UNDP, said: “In seeking to change how capital markets value natural capital, we see Project Heather’s goals for an impact-focused stock exchange as a game-changer for our planet.” 

Project Heather said it “neither seeks to create a new impact tool or impact reporting framework, nor will it prefer any one existing impact measurement or management tool or framework.”

As part of the consultation process, Project Heather said it hopes to engage with the ecosystem of recognised and respected frameworks that exist for measuring, managing and reporting on social and environmental impact, both established and emerging.

In addition, Project Heather said it will seek to understand what the global impact community believes a business on the exchange should constitute and what segments should be avoided, if any. 

Those wishing to respond to the consultation should go to www.projectheather.scot and complete the form.

The consultation will be open until October 21, 2019.