By AJ Horkan

This Week at OneNature: AJ Horkan’s Internship Reflections

This week, we’re delighted to share insights from A.J. Horkan, a 2025 summer intern and Master’s in Public Policy candidate at the University of Chicago. AJ joined us through the Jeff Metcalf Internship Program, bringing his expertise in environmental policy and data analysis to an exciting new project: adapting our Wild Happiness Index (WHI) for ESG impact reporting. In this guest blog, AJ reflects on his summer with OneNature, the opportunities and challenges of translating well-being science to new sectors, and what he’s taking forward from this experience.

Adapting the Wild Happiness Index for ESG Reporting

My name is A.J. Horkan. I’m a second-year student at the Harris School of Public Policy, working toward a Master’s in Public Policy with specializations in Energy & Environmental Policy and Data Analysis. This summer, I had the opportunity to work with OneNature to explore a compelling question: How can we adapt the Wild Happiness Index to better measure social impact within corporate and governmental ESG reporting?

The project is still underway, but it has already proven to be a deeply fulfilling experience – perfectly situated at the intersection of conservation, data analysis, and social sustainability. I’m excited to share an overview of my work and some key insights from the process.

Project Goals

The main objective of my internship was to adapt the Wild Happiness Index (WHI)—originally created to assess community well-being in conservation contexts—into a tool applicable to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) impact reporting.

Because the WHI focuses on community sustainability and wellbeing, our goal was to develop more robust, data-informed metrics that companies or governments could use to understand the real social impact of their projects—from the community’s perspective.

The project unfolded in three key phases:

Research
Modeling
Presentation & Reflection

Phase 1: Research

To create a meaningful, impact-oriented tool, I first analyzed existing ESG frameworks to understand their current approaches to social impact reporting. While these frameworks often acknowledge community benchmarks (e.g., job creation, diversity commitments), they tend to lack in-depth, data-driven analysis of how projects affect communities from the inside out.

Research and real-world outcomes suggest that this approach falls short. Acknowledging the presence of an initiative is not the same as measuring how it changes lives. So we asked: What would it look like to measure social impact from the community’s perspective?

To answer this, I reviewed:

WHI domains and methodology
The four pillars of community wellbeing proposed in Musikanski et al., 2023
Best practices for ethical, culturally responsive data collection

Together, these informed the structure of a new community wellbeing metric for ESG use.

Phase 2: Modeling

With a goal of measuring impact over time, I selected a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) model—commonly used in econometrics to assess changes across groups over time.

This design compares pre- and post-intervention trends between an affected community and a similar, unaffected one. Applied to ESG projects, it helps quantify how an intervention—like a government program or corporate sustainability initiative—impacts actual community wellbeing, rather than relying on assumptions or self-reporting from the implementing body.

Phase 3: Presentation & Reflections

Although the project is still in development, this summer has provided tremendous insight into:

The strengths and gaps in current ESG reporting
The flexibility and power of the WHI as a foundational framework
How to apply econometric tools to real-world sustainability challenges

I also improved my technical research skills and gained hands-on experience in methodology development, modeling design, and cross-sector adaptation. The next step will be to draft an academic article for peer-reviewed publication, which I hope will contribute to ongoing conversations in ESG strategy and policy.

Gratitude & Next Steps

I’m incredibly grateful to the entire OneNature team—especially my supervisor, John Waugh, for his guidance and encouragement. His insights helped shape this work into something truly meaningful.

This internship confirmed my passion for integrating policy, data, and environmental justice, and I’m excited to carry these lessons forward in my academic and professional journey.

🔗 Stay Connected

To learn more about the Wild Happiness Index or OneNature’s approach to impact measurement, visit onenatureinstitute.org

~ AJ Horkan