Event Summary: PRISM Impact Lab Executive Roundtable at Zurich Climate Week

As part of Zurich Climate Week 2026, PRISM Impact Lab, a SIFI Ecosystem Window initiative, brought together institutional investors, fund managers, policymakers and researchers for an executive roundtable on one of the key barriers limiting institutional capital mobilisation for climate and impact investing in emerging markets: the lack of harmonised, decision-grade data.

Hosted at ETH Zürich under Chatham House Rule, the discussion explored how improved transparency, comparability and evidence-based risk analysis could support the scaling of blended finance structures and strengthen confidence among large allocators.

Key themes included tranche-level risk visibility, realised versus perceived risk, the role of audited financial statements, regional comparability across blended finance vehicles, and the importance of data quality, integrity and confidentiality in building institutional trust.

The discussion also reinforced the relevance of the PRISM research agenda, particularly around risk-return-impact dynamics, de-risking efficiency, fund structure optimisation and additionality measurement. Participants noted that the growing availability of audited fund and tranche-level data creates new opportunities to address these questions empirically and strengthen the evidence base underpinning blended finance markets.

Key insights from the roundtable have been captured in the full Event Report, available below.