When Harpreet Ghai talks about impact, she does not begin with ESG frameworks or sustainability reports. She begins with a Hindi word that does not translate neatly into English: asar. It is the mark something leaves behind. The impression of change that stays long after an intervention is over.
For Harpreet, Chief Knowledge Officer at Aspire Impact, asar captures what impact measurement should really strive to understand. Numbers and Measurement matters. But what matters even more is understanding what those numbers represent. Not simply what organisations did, but what actually changed for people, for the planet, and for the future.
“I think we often spend too much time asking what we are doing,” Harpreet says. “The more important question is: what are we actually causing?”
That question has quietly shaped both her career and her philosophy.
Roots in the Everyday
Harpreet’s understanding of responsibility started more with the social than the environmental.
Growing up in a city, like Delhi, you interact far more with people than with nature. The earliest lessons of responsibility came from observing everyday life, how people treated the domestic workers in their homes, the security guards in their neighbourhoods, the shopkeepers they interacted with, and whether employers paid fairly or gave parents enough leave to actually be present with their children. Even in school and later in college, she began noticing that people of the same age often carried very different realities. Some had access to resources and support systems that others did not. Some carried responsibilities far beyond the classroom.
“Small things,” she says. “But they add up.”
Her mother, who worked in the Social Welfare Department of the Delhi Government, brought home stories of teaching orphaned children and women vocational skills such as sewing, knitting and embroidery, which are very simple crafts but could provide them some dignity and feel less dependent.
“I didn’t have a word for it then,” Harpreet recalls. “I just knew it mattered.”
Those early experiences were reinforced by the Sikh teachings she grew up with –Keerat Karo, Wand Ke Chhako: earn honestly and share what you have. “It sounds simple,” she says, “but it contains everything.”
The environmental dimension came much later. First through lived experience – the worsening air pollution that settles over Delhi every winter, increasingly intense summers, waste strewn across roads and public space, and finally her son’s recurring allergic coughs. Then through reading about climate change and recognising that environmental degradation is rarely just about the environment. It affects livelihoods, health, migration, inequality and opportunity, often hurting the most vulnerable communities first.
“That was when the social and environmental threads really began to come together.”
It Wasn’t By Design
Harpreet never planned to build a career in sustainability.
Before joining Aspire Impact, she worked in public ownership and private equity, a world largely focused on investments, mergers and acquisitions, financial performance and maximising shareholder wealth.
“It wasn’t by design,” she says simply.
The transition happened during maternity leave through what she describes as a short freelance ESG project. As she started reading sustainability reports, climate commitments and net-zero pathways, she found herself drawn into a field that brought together science, economics, policy, regulation, analytics and business strategy.
“It was sprawling and multidisciplinary,” she says. “But when you looked beyond the frameworks, at the centre of all of it was still the human being. And the planet.”
That curiosity eventually brought her to Aspire Impact.
Today, her work extends well beyond impact assessments. Through research, executive education, knowledge development and ecosystem-building initiatives, she spends much of her time helping organisations better understand what impact really means, how it can be measured, and why it matters.
Looking Beyond the Numbers
For many organisations, sustainability is still largely associated with disclosures, ratings and compliance.
Harpreet believes reporting is important, but it is only the beginning.
“What keeps me genuinely absorbed is looking beyond the numbers,” she says.
At Aspire, impact assessments often uncover stories that conventional reporting never captures. A woman whose improved income allows her to clear long-standing debt and move her children into a better school. A first-generation earner opening a savings account for the first time. A community becoming less dependent on a single water source. Soil health gradually recovering after years of degradation.
“These aren’t conventional KPIs,” she says. “But they are real. And they matter more than much of what eventually finds its way into a disclosure report.”
For Harpreet, impact measurement is not about collecting more data. It is about making visible the changes that would otherwise remain invisible.
Research Before Measurement
One of the biggest lessons Harpreet has learnt is that meaningful measurement begins much earlier than data collection.
It begins with asking the right questions.
Impact is still an evolving field. Different organisations define it differently. Different stakeholders value different outcomes. Building a common language is not easy.
That is why Harpreet believes research plays such an important role.
Through her work in knowledge development, she has spent much of the last several years working with researchers, practitioners, business leaders and institutions to explore emerging thinking around ESG, sustainability and impact. The objective is not simply to produce reports or frameworks, but to help organisations ask better questions, understand evidence more deeply and continuously improve the way impact is measured.
“We have come a long way globally,” she says, “but impact is still subjective. Building common approaches, stronger methodologies and better evidence is essential if organisations genuinely want to understand the difference they are making.”
Commitment Beyond Compliance
Harpreet is quick to point out that impact reporting itself is still largely voluntary in India.
“There is a difference between mandatory reporting and meaningful measurement.”
Many organisations understandably produce reports because regulations require them to. Others choose to go much further.
“The organisations that genuinely interested me were the ones where leadership wanted to understand impact—not because someone asked them to, but because they believed it mattered.”
Those organisations invest in collecting better data, conducting surveys, returning to communities year after year and learning from the findings.
“Impact wasn’t a compliance exercise. It was intentional.”
She believes that intent makes all the difference.
Understanding Asar
If there is one idea that best captures Harpreet’s philosophy, it is asar.
Impact, she says, is not the number of people trained, the workshops conducted or the tonnes of waste collected. Those are outputs.
Asar is what happened because of them.
And then what happened because of that.
And what continued to ripple outward.
She illustrates this through the example of a gig worker who gains fair pay and predictable income. Stable earnings are only the beginning. Household debt begins to reduce. Children remain in school. The family purchases its first vehicle. Customers begin seeing her differently. Society begins seeing her differently. Perhaps most importantly, she begins seeing herself differently.
“What started as a work arrangement became a restoration of dignity.”
For Harpreet, these layers of primary, secondary and tertiary change are where impact truly lives.
“In a Theory of Change, impact comes last,” she says. “But it should never be an afterthought. It should be the reason the entire chain exists.”
The Projects That Stayed With Her
There have been many projects, but two continue to stay with Harpreet.
One was Aspire’s ten-year impact assessment of Project Enlight for Capgemini and Aid-et-Action, supporting girls from some of India’s most vulnerable communities, including migrant families, children affected by HIV/AIDS and leprosy, families engaged in waste picking and manual scavenging, and children with disabilities.
Many of the young women whose stories had formed part of Aspire’s assessment attended the report launch and spoke about their journeys in their own words.
“Having interacted with them during surveys and interviews, seeing them confidently tell their stories of transformation was incredibly moving. It reinforced the importance of impact assessment in bringing these stories of change to light.”
The second was an assessment of the Garo Spine Conservation Project for HCL Foundation. The work combined biodiversity conservation, climate resilience and community development. Using satellite imagery and carbon sequestration analysis, Aspire’s assessment helped quantify ecological recovery while demonstrating how community-led conservation was improving biodiversity, strengthening livelihoods and protecting critical wildlife habitats.
“It was a powerful example of how science, traditional knowledge and local participation can come together to create measurable impact for both people and the planet.”
Together, the projects reinforced an important lesson.
“Sustainability cannot be viewed only through the lens of people or only through the lens of nature. Meaningful development must work for both.”
What Needs More Attention
Ask Harpreet what deserves greater attention, and her answer comes quickly.
“Impact assessment.”
Then she pauses.
“And before that, the intention behind it.”
She believes organisations should be willing to pause and ask a more fundamental question.
What are we actually causing?
Not simply what activities are being undertaken, but what is resulting from them—for people and for the planet.
“I believe impact measurement should become progressively more widespread,” she says. “Because when you make something measurable, you make it accountable. And when you make impact accountable, climate action and societal change become natural outcomes of a more honest way of operating.”
She also believes businesses are entering a new phase of evolution.
“For much of the twentieth century, business decisions were largely evaluated through risk and return. Increasingly, the twenty-first century will ask organisations to think about risk, return and impact.”
The Work Continues
When asked whether there was one defining moment that convinced her this would become her life’s work, Harpreet smiles.
“Honestly, that defining moment hasn’t arrived yet.”
Instead, what keeps her here is the sheer amount of work that still remains.
Impact measurement is still evolving. Organisations are trying to understand what impact means. Better methodologies are still being developed. Better standards are still emerging. Better research is still needed.
What also keeps her motivated is the community around her—her colleagues at Aspire, the Aspire Circle Fellows, and the researchers and practitioners who contribute to the Impact Future Project.
“It reminds me that meaningful change has never been the work of one individual or one organisation.”
At its heart, she says, impact is still about something much more fundamental than frameworks or reports.
“It is about dignity, opportunity, truth and justice.”
The Lesson That Endures
Looking back, Harpreet does not measure her journey through publications, reports or milestones.
Instead, she returns to a much simpler idea.
“Be aware. Be mindful of what you are doing and what it is causing.” “We are each a speck in this universe. The revenues, the profits, the numbers—you will forget them.”
“What you will remember is a child fed well. A woman saved from abuse. A man who could educate his children. A farmer with a good harvest. Clean drinking water. Healthy soil.”
“If a life improved because of your work, and someone thanked you for it,” she says, “that is enough.”
“That is the work.”
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Impact is not just about doing good—it’s about knowing what truly works. At The Logical Indian, we share stories like Harpreet Ghai’s to inspire conversations around purpose-driven action backed by evidence and measurable change.
If you’d like us to feature your story, please write to us at csr@5w1h.media
