Calculate Your Impact

E+CO'S MONITORING & EVALUATION PROGRAM

E+Co has created a detailed methodology to determine and evidence its impact.

To calculate the return on investment, E+Co measures its enterprises across a menu of 34 social, environmental and financial indicators.  The goal is to present a multi-level view of the impacts of alternative energy enterprises.  E+Co collects data from each investee enterprise biannually and then compiles the results into an organizational summary - the Impacts Table.  Capturing the impact of the clean energy investments is critical to demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach.

With an Impacts Coordinator and five Monitoring & Evaluations Officers located in Africa, Asia and Latin America, E+Co collects quantitative and qualitative data on each clean energy investment for the duration of the loan. 

Quantitative Data Collection

E+Co uses several data collection methods to gather quantitative information regarding the social, environmental and financial impacts of its investments.  These methods include data extraction from the business records of our entrepreneurs, public statistics, interviews, physical measurements and public records. 

Shortly after an initial investment is made, E+Co uses the information gathered from the above resources to complete a baseline report on the investee enterprise.  Every six months thereafter, Monitoring & Evaluation Officers complete a progress report, which is then compared against the baseline to calculate the change in impact since investment.  Total impact is represented in the Impacts Table, which is updated biannually.

E+Co's quantitative data collection program measures the following indicators:

Social and Economic Indicators

• People with access to energy services
• Households served with access to energy
• Clean energy generated
• Energy saved through efficiency measures
• Jobs Sustained
• Income Improved
• Number of Investee Enterprises
• Women ownership
• Entrepreneurs trained
• Customers and employees trained

Environmental Indicators

• Carbon Dioxide Offsets
• Value of Carbon Dioxide Offsets
• Reforested land
• Clean water provided
• People with clean water
• Charcoal displaced
• Firewood displaced
• Liquefied Petroleum Gas displaced
• Kerosene Displaced
• Oils displaced
• Dollar Value of Oil displaced

Financial Indicators

• Investment Funds disbursed by E+Co
• Amount invested by entrepreneurs
• Amount leveraged from third parties
• Potential Growth Capital
• Portfolio Return after write-offs
• Amount repaid to investors

Qualitative Data Collection

As important as quantitative data collection is, numbers do not always demonstrate the true value of an organization's activities.  For this reason, E+Co also collects qualitative data through interviews, observations, focus groups and surveys to tell the individual stories of those men and women who benefit from our services. 

Qualitative data describes, characterizes and explains a situation using words instead of numbers.  Participants in qualitative research raise issues and topics not previously anticipated which can be critical to the evaluation of an enterprise's impact.  This type of data collection allows participants to express their feelings using their own words and to provide examples or anecdotes that can be very powerful and persuasive when evaluators are reporting findings. Exploratory and descriptive analyses that stress the importance of context, setting, and subjects' frames of reference and is a valuable tool in assessing the impact of E+Co's work. 

 As part of its continuing committment to positive social and environmental impacts, E+Co formally adopted the Equator Principles in 2006.  Learn more about this international effort.