Key questions from decision-makers — and straight answers

The existing data landscape is rich in scientific state-of-nature indices — the IUCN Red List, WWF Living Planet Index, Planetary Boundaries — but these are top-down instruments produced on multi-year cycles. None aggregates what field practitioners observe in real time.

EVI is modelled on the WEF Global Risks Report, which transformed corporate risk perception into a globally cited annual signal. No equivalent exists for natural capital. EVI occupies this gap: the only annual index converting structured field perceptions of vetted environmental NGOs into a decision-grade signal that complements — not competes with — existing scientific indices.

Organisations such as UNEP, IUCN and WWF have not built this because it is not their mandate. They produce scientific assessments. EVI produces a civil society perception index — structurally different, and not overlapping.

Three barriers have historically made this hard. First, NGOs compete for funding and visibility — aggregating them into a shared platform requires a neutral, credible convening entity. Second, NGO perceptions carry inherent bias risk; without rigorous academic oversight, they would not be taken seriously by financial or policy audiences. Third, the regulatory pull — TNFD, CSRD, Kunming-Montreal GBF Target 14 — is only now creating a defined audience willing to use such a signal.

EVI's design addresses all three directly: independent governance, a competitive North–South academic consortium for bias certification, and a product timed to a regulatory window that is opening now.

The premise is well grounded. Illegal logging in the Amazon, coral bleaching in the Pacific, and mining incursions in Central African forests have all been documented first by field NGOs — sometimes years before appearing in scientific databases. These organisations operate on the ground, 365 days a year, in locations no monitoring satellite or academic team covers continuously.

Formal statistical validation — correlating historical NGO assessments with subsequent scientific indicators — is a methodological output of the MVP. The academic consortium will design a retrospective calibration exercise as part of its mandate.

This is the most important methodological question, and EVI's design takes it seriously. Several mechanisms work in combination.

• Scale. Aggregating a panel of this size — more than 200 organisations, targeting around 250 — from diverse geographies, ecosystems and organisational cultures means systematic overstatement by any sub-group is diluted and detectable.
• Structure. The questionnaire uses controlled taxonomies and calibrated scales, not open-ended responses. Respondents assess specific indicators, not general sentiment.
• Independent oversight. The North–South academic consortium is contractually responsible for bias detection and correction — reviewing response distributions, flagging outliers and certifying the final score.
• Anonymous aggregation. Individual responses are never published, preventing organisations from using the survey as a lobbying instrument.

The IPBES Values Assessment — approved by 139 governments — establishes this combination of geographic diversity, structured elicitation and independent oversight as the credible standard for multi-actor knowledge aggregation.

"Decision-grade" means the output is sufficiently rigorous, stable and transparent to be cited in investment, policy and regulatory contexts. EVI earns this through seven design principles.

• Annual comparability. Fixed methodology, published each year at the same date.
• Academic certification. An independent consortium reviews questionnaire design, scoring model and bias controls before publication.
• Governance independence. Methodology is governed by an independent scientific committee, not by sponsors or NGO respondents.
• Transparent confidence levels. Findings published with explicit uncertainty ranges and known limitations, mirroring IPBES practice.
• Reproducibility. The scoring model and weightings are published in a methodology handbook.
• Geographic representativeness. Mandatory regional balance prevents Northern-country overrepresentation.
• Auditability. Individual response data is available to the academic consortium for validation, subject to NGO confidentiality protocols.

This is one of the most frequent questions from early sponsors, and the answer is: all three levels, by design. EVI is structured as a multi-layer architecture in which each level is grounded in the one below it.

The foundational brick is the on-the-ground NGO. Each participating organisation provides field assessments anchored to specific landscapes and ecosystems — river basins, forest patches, coastal zones, dryland corridors. This local data is not a proxy or an estimate; it is primary observation from organisations with physical presence in the ecosystem.

These landscape-level assessments are then aggregated upward through the methodology developed by the academic consortium: first into sub-national clusters, then into national scores, and finally into a global index. Aggregation rules — weighting by ecosystem area, NGO density and regional representativeness — are part of the methodology handbook and subject to independent academic review.

This layered structure serves different use cases from a single, coherent data collection. Project-level due diligence (TNFD LEAP, EUDR) draws on landscape-specific data. Country risk and portfolio reporting (CSRD, UNEP FI PRB) uses national scores. Investment strategy and sovereign positioning draw on the global index.

The honest starting point is an acknowledgement: EVI captures structured civil-society perception, not direct measurement. This is its strength — field NGOs observe things no satellite or model captures in real time — but it also means the connection to quantitative frameworks must be deliberately engineered, not assumed.

• Indicator mapping. Every field-assessment question is mapped directly onto TNFD core disclosure metrics, Kunming-Montreal GBF indicators, and IPBES's recognised drivers of biodiversity loss — so an EVI score can be read alongside them without translation.
• Data structuring. Underlying data is structured using Essential Biodiversity Variables and SEEA Ecosystem Accounting standards, purpose-built to aggregate consistently from local observation to global level.
• Bias correction and calibration. The consortium applies bias-correction procedures calibrated against independent reference datasets including Global Forest Watch, WRI Aqueduct and the IUCN Red List.
• Flight-level flexibility. Financial institutions can integrate EVI at whatever level their use case requires — asset, portfolio, country or global — without loss of methodological coherence between levels.

These are design commitments, not completed deliverables. Until the academic consortium has validated and published the indicator crosswalk, EVI's alignment with quantitative frameworks should be treated as a structured intention — well grounded, but not yet independently certified.

Participation is driven by two distinct dynamics.

For recognised organisations, EVI offers a globally amplified platform. When hundreds of vetted field partners speak through a single academically validated annual index — launched in Geneva and cited at CBD COP, Davos and in TNFD reports — each contributing organisation gains institutional recognition that individual advocacy cannot replicate.

For smaller and Global South organisations in particular, this is access to international visibility they cannot otherwise obtain. EVI is deliberately designed to provide more equitable visibility to frontline stewards of nature who are systematically under-represented in global media and policy forums — amplifying precisely the organisations whose expertise is most operationally grounded.

Beyond visibility, a fear-of-missing-out dynamic is real: once EVI is credibly branded and backed by recognised foundations, absence from the panel becomes a reputational cost for any organisation claiming field relevance. Later phases introduce revenue sharing, peer benchmarking and the Expertise Marketplace as structural incentives.

This is a legitimate concern and deserves a direct answer. Two distinctions are essential.

First, EVI's panel focuses on on-the-ground conservation stewards — organisations managing protected areas, monitoring ecosystem health, restoring habitats — not advocacy organisations whose primary mandate is corporate accountability. Field NGOs have a fundamentally different profile from campaigning organisations. EVI amplifies operational expertise, not campaigns.

Second, greenwashing risk arises when corporate support distorts outcomes. EVI's governance structure explicitly prevents this: sponsors have no role in questionnaire design, scoring or publication decisions. The methodology is controlled by an independent academic consortium. A corporation cannot improve its EVI score by sponsoring EVI.

Supporting EVI is structurally comparable to supporting IPBES or the IUCN Red List: a contribution to an independent public-good instrument, not a purchase of influence over its outputs. This distinction must be communicated clearly in any partnership announcement.

EVI will generate controversy — a credible accountability signal should. Three governance safeguards address this.

• Published methodology. Full scoring methodology and weightings are public, enabling any actor to scrutinise the basis for scores.
• Formal appeals process. A defined procedure for challenging scores, managed by the independent scientific committee — not by EVI staff.
• Annual revision cycle. The methodology is reviewed annually, incorporating peer feedback and critique — demonstrating openness without compromising stability.

The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index — regularly disputed by governments — has become globally authoritative because its methodology is open, its governance independent, and it does not capitulate to political pressure. EVI adopts the same standard.

EVI requires a rare combination: deep ESG and impact investing expertise to design a decision-grade signal; technical and AI capability to build the scoring infrastructure; communications expertise to achieve the international media moment a first publication requires; and academic credibility to anchor the methodology.

The founding team assembles precisely this: a project director with over 15 years in ESG and sustainability across Clarity AI, STOXX and Beyond Ratings; a technology lead with AI and data infrastructure expertise; a communications lead with WEF Global Risks Report credentials from 2011 to 2018; a senior methodology analyst; and a legal and compliance expert for governance design. The North–South academic consortium — selected through competitive RFP — adds independent credibility that no in-house team could self-generate.

See the full team →

The apparent scope is large because the grant application describes the full EVI architecture. The MVP is a focused subset: 15–20 countries, more than 200 vetted NGOs against a panel target of around 250, one academic consortium, one annual publication, one Geneva launch event.

Three deliverables drive 80% of the value: a validated methodology handbook; a first EVI Global Score and Threat Ranking; and a documented respondent panel with a demonstrated 60%+ response rate — proof that the participation model works.

The CHF 700,000 budget is sized to deliver exactly this. A global roll-out, the full Expertise Marketplace and prediction-market features are Year 2 objectives contingent on MVP success.

See the full budget breakdown →

Demonstrating a credible path to financial independence — rather than perpetual grant dependency — is a strength for foundations evaluating multi-year impact.

The emphasis is appropriately sequenced: Phase 1 is entirely a public good, grant-funded. Data licensing and the Expertise Marketplace are Phase 2 objectives requiring a credible, established index as a prerequisite. No revenues are assumed within the MVP budget. The business model section exists to reassure sponsors that their investment creates a durable institution, not a one-time publication.

The EVI academic RFP is designed to be attractive for three reasons: access to a unique, annually renewed global dataset on civil society environmental perception; funding for methodology development at a scale most university budgets cannot self-generate; and authorship and citation opportunities on a high-visibility annual publication launched in Geneva.

The RFP structure mandates a Global South component — making it distinctive and attractive to universities in emerging regions seeking international research partnerships.