Key takeaways:
- Rivian and LevelTen are bringing Rivian’s 3C purpose-driven procurement toolkit – developed in partnership with The Nature Conservancy – into LevelTen’s existing Impact+ framework, turning Rivian’s tested approach into a standardized, scalable way for buyers and developers to evaluate and act on project impact.
- The two companies collaborated to sharpen the methodology behind Impact+, expanding its coverage of biodiversity, water use, community benefits, and labor practices.
- The update is a response to significant market changes since Impact+ first launched in 2021.
- The new Impact+ gives impact-oriented buyers a more comprehensive way to measure a project’s total impact, and turns developers’ responsible practices into a competitive edge beyond price.
Amplifying Impact: LevelTen and Rivian Team Up to Revitalize Impact+
LevelTen and Rivian have long believed that the massive scale of the clean energy transition is also an opportunity to advance a wide array of economic, community, and conservation objectives. LevelTen turned this conviction into action in 2021 with the launch of Impact+: a shared framework for buyers and sellers to communicate and prioritize the aspects of project build-out that impact the communities, ecosystems, and economies they touch. Also in 2021, Rivian began requiring impact metrics as part of its RFPs. Shortly thereafter, Rivian collaborated with The Nature Conservancy to release Power With Purpose: Driving Change Through Clean Energy Procurement, to show how the 3C (Climate, Conservation, and Community) methodology can be applied to any clean energy procurement process – an approach that has been market tested and refined ever since.
In the ensuing years, the clean energy market has evolved dramatically. Power demand has skyrocketed, and fossil-powered energy infrastructure has resurged amid the AI data center boom. Understandably, communities are asking tough questions about the energy infrastructure cropping up in their area, and who it’s meant to benefit. Many corporate community engagement and development teams are working harder than ever to ensure their clean energy projects are permitted and built in ways that respect and benefit the needs of their host communities. But the weight of that work doesn’t always rise to the top of how a project gets evaluated.
It’s become increasingly clear that an impact measurement tool is only as useful as its capacity to reflect the latest needs and concerns of communities, as well as the realities developers and buyers are navigating. In this spirit, today we're announcing a major evolution of Impact+, developed in partnership with Rivian. By combining Rivian’s energy-buying influence with LevelTen’s market platform, the new Impact+ will help make higher-impact projects easier to identify, evaluate, and scale.
How It Started
For most of the last decade, the renewable industry ran on a central currency of carbon-free megawatt-hours. If a project displaced fossil generation and could prove it was additional — meaning it wouldn't have been built without the buyer's contract — the conversation was finished. It was an important starting point, and helped a lot of clean power get built.
It was also never the whole picture. A project can be carbon-free and still strain the land, water, and communities around it. What's more, none of these impacts show up in a standard PPA contract or term sheet. As public scrutiny of how and where renewable energy gets sited intensifies, "carbon-free” is often no longer a sufficient selling point.
LevelTen built Impact+ to address these gaps. By turning dozens of qualitative signals about a project's siting, workforce, and environmental practices into a single, comparable score, Impact+ gives buyers a standardized way to compare project impact across the Marketplace without building a bespoke evaluation framework for every RFP. It was the industry’s first attempt at putting a number on the kind of project qualities that existed only in a developer's pitch deck, if they were mentioned at all.
In the years since, Impact+ has become a standard reference point on LevelTen’s Marketplace — cited in RFP evaluations, factored into sourcing decisions, and, for impact-driven buyers like Rivian, a required part of every developer response.
A Standard Buyers Can Stand Behind
Greater insight into a project’s critical development phases illuminates key differentiators beyond cost alone. In addition to dramatically de-risking sourcing, developers that participate in genuine community engagement and thoughtful siting practices tend to move projects through permitting and interconnection with less friction than those that treat those steps as a formality.
Few companies have prioritized impact measurement like Rivian. The company has made purpose-driven procurement central to how it sources power, requiring a completed Impact+ score from every developer that responds to its LevelTen RFPs. This data drives thoughtful consideration of how the projects powering Rivian’s products and operations can benefit the communities where its customers live and drive, beyond just a carbon-free label.
The changes we’re announcing today build on the original Impact+ model to better-reflect the realities facing the people and habitats in close proximity to today’s clean energy build-out. Rooted in a rigorous, Rivian-led evaluation process, the updates both sharpen and expand the survey’s core questions, improving coverage of biodiversity, water use, community benefits, and labor practices specifically. In a market where permitting obstacles and local opposition are already leading causes of delay, a strong Impact+ score is now an even more powerful indicator of the likelihood a project will be built on schedule. That combination also matters when a procurement decision has to hold up to scrutiny from boards, investors, and communities.
Doing Well by Doing Good
Since its inception, Impact+ has given developers who invest in intentional siting practices and stronger community-benefits planning a way to make those investments visible to buyers who might otherwise compare projects on commercial terms alone. That visibility matters more now than ever. As permitting journeys grow tougher and buyers face heightened pressure to justify sourcing decisions, developers who can prove they've thoughtfully engaged communities and protected habitats provide a premium offtake product. And because Impact+ scores live on in LevelTen’s Marketplace, a strong showing on one project becomes evidence for the next, turning investments developers are already making into a reusable, recognizable asset.
How It’s Going
The new Impact+ reflects an enduring fact of energy development: needs and priorities evolve constantly. But while circumstances change, transparency and visibility around impact will remain key to forging the path toward better clean energy development.
The updated Impact+ is live on the LevelTen Marketplace today. To learn more about how it works, or how to get started as a buyer or developer, fill out the form below.
