The Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta), developed by Verra (formerly VCS), was launched in January 2019. SD VISta is an independent and credible means to demonstrate achievement of sustainable development-related business and corporate social responsibility objectives, such as contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals, achieving insetting and/or zero-net deforestation commitments, and improving livelihoods, health and access to water.
The Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) is a flexible framework for assessing and reporting on the sustainable development benefits of project-based activities, helping unlock new sources of finance to support and scale up high-impact efforts.
SD VISta can be applied to any project that can demonstrate benefits for people and their prosperity and/or the planet. It can be assessed in one of two ways: validation and verification or independent expert evaluation. The latter is a new innovative approach intended to streamline the cost of assessment and build local assessment capacity, both of which are issues that can be challenging to projects that would like to use third-party assessment.