Impact Management
Impact Management | October 20, 2021
Optimizing for Impact: Assign an ABC goal type to each investment (video)
Optimizing for Impact. Want to learn more about Optimizing Impact for the Sustainable Development Goals? Over the next few weeks, ImpactAlpha will offer a …
Impact Management | October 14, 2021
Optimizing for Impact: What are the five dimensions of impact? (video)
Optimizing for Impact. Want to learn more about Optimizing Impact for the Sustainable Development Goals? Over the next few weeks, ImpactAlpha will offer a …
Impact Management | October 7, 2021
Consortium launches Novata to drive ESG reporting in private markets
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 7 – Private companies and private markets represent the majority of the world’s economic activity, but their environmental, social and governance, or …
Impact Management | October 6, 2021
Optimizing for Impact: Where are you on your impact management journey? (video)
Optimizing for Impact. Want to learn more about Optimizing Impact for the Sustainable Development Goals? Over the next few weeks, ImpactAlpha will offer …
Call Recording | October 1, 2021
The Call No. 31: Making sense of the ABCs of measurement to optimize for impact (video)
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 1 – Metrics. Standards. Dimensions. Frameworks. SDGs. Cathy Clark of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua …
Impact Voices | September 29, 2021
Four steps investors can take to move beyond ESG greenwashing and drive real impact
ESG-focused assets — increasingly ubiquitous in the global investment landscape — have grown exponentially over the past 10 years. Currently in the United …
Policy Corner | September 27, 2021
Global standards for sustainability accounting must be holistic and inclusive
When global leaders converge on Glasgow in November for the COP26 climate summit, all eyes will be on the pledges that politicians make …
Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash
Impact Investing | September 27, 2021
Impact Investing 3.0: Measuring impact across all investment and business decisions
Impact is increasingly seen as not only crucial to a just recovery from effects of COVID-19, but also to the creation of stronger, …
Cathy Clark, Duke's Fuqua School of Business
Agents of Impact | September 24, 2021
Cathy Clark, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 24 – Before she herself began teaching 20 years ago, Cathy Clark helped her father run a summer program in Philadelphia that …
Photo credit: UNCF.
Dealflow | September 14, 2021
Black Venture Capital Consortium and Ford Foundation closes $7.5 million for student-led fund
ImpactAlpha, September 14 — The Student Venture Fund is part of BVCC’s two-year venture capital training for students from historically Black colleges and …
Impact Voices | September 13, 2021
Optimizing for Impact: Managing investments to meet goals for impact – and expectations of regulators
NEW: The United Nations Development Programme and CASE at Duke have released a free online training for global enterprises and investors on impact …
Capitalism Reimagined | August 26, 2021
UK’s Nick Hurd on the “window of opportunity” for a green and inclusive transition
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 26 – Nick Hurd, the former MP and government minister, is heading the Impact Taskforce, created under the U.K.’s presidency of the …
Impact Voices | August 23, 2021
It’s time to integrate children’s issues in ESG frameworks
Interest in ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing has exploded in recent years, as investors look to encourage positive change on the part …
Impact Voices | August 18, 2021
Modeling long-term emissions reductions to drive climate tech investments now
The increasing flow of capital into climate solutions offers a chance to avoid the most catastrophic climate scenarios. Increased investor focus on modeling …
Impact Management | August 16, 2021
You have an impact investing strategy. What to call it?
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 16 – An emerging markets public equities portfolio that actively engages with investees to improve ESG performance. A U.S. environmental commodities strategy …
International Finance Corp.
Signals | August 10, 2021
IFC puts a rosy spin on a tough year for impact fundraising
Investments intended to create, contributing toward and measured for impact reached $636 billion last year, up from $505 billion in 2019, reports the …
Signals | July 29, 2021
Green bonds or greenwashing? Growth of aquaculture poses risks for ocean health.
ImpactAlpha, July 29 – Mowi ASA, the Norwegian fish farming giant, raised €200 million from investors last year in what was the seafood industry’s …
Circular irrigation fields for growing crops | Photo credit: Trismegist San
Frontier and Growth Markets | July 27, 2021
Better economic data can drive inclusive growth in Africa
“In God we trust, everyone else must bring data,” said the statistician W. Edwards Deming. The debilitating effect of Covid19 on the economies …
Impact Management | July 27, 2021
Impact management gets a boost from the Tipping Point Fund on Impact Investing
ImpactAlpha, July 27 – As the market for impact investments grows, “so too must the metrics, tools, and platforms used to measure and disclose …
Impact Voices | July 22, 2021
Four ways investors can structure financing to incentivize positive impact
The Social Impact Bond made its debut in 2010 with the purpose of aligning initiatives and investors around social impact objectives. Since then, …
Impact Management | July 22, 2021
CFOs turn on sustainability reporting and ESG metrics in enterprise software suites
Ubi concordia, ibi victoria. Where there is harmony, there is victory. This Latin proverb is particularly relevant to my vision for holistic steering …
ESG | July 20, 2021
The numbers may be fuzzy, but the trends are clear when it comes to sustainable investment
ImpactAlpha, July 20 – The top line numbers from the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance’s biennial review back the now-conventional wisdom that interest is …
Impact Voices | July 15, 2021
Bringing transparency to the growing market for sustainability-linked debt
Sustainability-linked debt is gathering momentum globally. The umbrella term, which includes instruments such as sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs), is one …
Photo credit: Rawpixel.com
Frontier and Growth Markets | July 6, 2021
Scaling impact through nonprofit mergers and acquisitions
The ongoing pandemic and economic uncertainty have led non-profit leaders to contingency plan in creative and unprecedented ways, including strategic partnerships. The sector …
Impact Management | July 1, 2021
Big banks take on the challenge of accounting for their impact
ImpactAlpha, July 1 – By the end of the decade, financial accounting may seem quaint. In its place: a measure of value that …
ESG | June 21, 2021
Europe paves path to standardized ESG disclosure with Sustainability Reporting Directive
ImpactAlpha, June 21 – What a difference a year makes. U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement on the first day …
Corporate Impact | June 21, 2021
‘Buzzword bingo’ and other ways companies are gaming ESG
ImpactAlpha, June 21 – There’s a new game playing out between companies and investors in sustainable finance. Publicly-listed companies know that being seen to …
Capitalism Reimagined | June 9, 2021
Nine ways investors can confront income inequality
There’s as yet no equivalent to “net zero” for the reduction of income inequality, but the systemic risks posed by the income gap …
Impact Voices | June 8, 2021
The Hong Kong stock exchange is helping biotech companies raise billions
Editor’s note: Impaakt is a crowd-sourced platform that uses collective intelligence to produce impact analyses and scores. Each week, the Impaakt reviewing team …
Impact Management | June 8, 2021
Tallying the financial risks of biodiversity loss
ImpactAlpha, June 8 – Mandatory climate reporting is coming, as companies and governments coalesce around the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure. Just …
Stewardship | May 27, 2021
Victory for insurgents stuns Exxon as shareholders vote for a low-carbon future
ImpactAlpha, May 27 – In a single day, separate developments at ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell sent an unmistakable signal to oil companies and investors: …
Circular economy startup Mr. Green Africa received a $50,000 bridge loan from Open Road Impact Fund
Catalytic Capital | May 27, 2021
Tallying the enterprises – and impact – that survived COVID with loans from Open Road Alliance
ImpactAlpha, May 25 – During her fundraising, Maya Winkelstein knew there would be strong demand for Open Road’s emergency bridge loans because, well, …
Protect savings. Concept of insurance and money protection. 3D Rendering
Impact Voices | May 27, 2021
Everything is ‘market-rate,’ but not everything is ‘impact-first’
To successfully address the global crises we face, we must close the distance between investment and impact. As the need to deploy more …
Impact Management | May 24, 2021
Can better impact measurement and management pull trillions off the sidelines?
ImpactAlpha, May 24 – Impact-curious asset allocators and managers are eager for standards, performance assurance and benchmarks. Gaps in market infrastructure for impact management …
Climate and Clean Tech | May 17, 2021
Sylvera rakes in $5.8 million to strengthen ratings for carbon offset projects
ImpactAlpha, May 17 – Ambitious net-zero emissions targets by corporations are driving a boom in carbon offset projects, such as farming practices that …
SDGs | May 11, 2021
J.P. Morgan’s ‘development financial institution’ amps up transparency in emerging markets dealmaking
ImpactAlpha, May 11 – Development finance institutions are typically quasi-governmental agencies that invest in economic development (and soft power) in emerging and growth markets. …
Impact Management | May 11, 2021
ESG scorecards for countries
ImpactAlpha, May 11 – Impact investors dealing with countries flagged for social and governance concerns, such as Saudi Arabia or China, should proceed …
Impact Voices | April 29, 2021
What ESG funds can learn from the shortfalls of Opportunity Zone funds
The Biden administration’s attitude towards climate change and ESG regulation has, in the words of one commentator, made ESG investing “the ultimate megatrend.” …
Institutional Impact | April 26, 2021
Sustainability is at risk when asset managers are the judge, jury and executors of the ESG agenda
Editor’s note: ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith, a longtime senior writer for Institutional Investor, contributes a bi-weekly column on the policies, practices and …
Checkered sphere, chess board with chess pieces. 3D rendering
Impact Voices | April 13, 2021
21st Century Investing: Moving from tic-tac-toe to the 3D chess of systems-level change
In what feels like a lifetime ago, way back in 2015, I was working as a consultant to investors interested in sustainability and …
Impact Management | April 13, 2021
Next-gen talent is the winner at MIINT competition and Sustainable Investing Challenge
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 13 – Sustainable investing assets have boomed amid COVID-19, the climate emergency and a racial reckoning. Now comes the rush for sustainable …
Impact Management | April 6, 2021
How capital structures in high-risk asset classes can undermine positive impact
ImpactAlpha, April, 6 – In their search for yields and returns, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and endowments with massive amounts …
Long-termism | April 1, 2021
Overheard at Phenix Capital: Making the connections between social and environmental impact
ImpactAlpha, April 1 – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls the the E.U.’s ambitious plan to become carbon neutral by 2050, “our …
Impact Voices | March 30, 2021
Five ways that lenders can interrupt racism and provide restorative-justice capital in our communities
Can community development financial institutions be anti-racist? Don’t answer too quickly. For those familiar with the history of CDFIs, specifically created to align …
Impact Management | March 24, 2021
Despite climate pledges, Goldman Sachs continues fracking finance
Photo by Sobrevolando Patagonia