Originals
Community Finance | August 18, 2022
Community lenders look to carve out a role for themselves in new green bank fund
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 18 – The Inflation Reduction Act, sprung from the seeming dead just three weeks ago, sprinted into law almost as fast …
photo: Sam Bloxham
Impact Tech | July 21, 2022
Formula E: The hum of electric race cars signals the arrival of the EV era
ImpactAlpha, July 21 – There was no deafening roar of engines as 22 race cars careened along the Brooklyn waterfront last weekend. This …
Climate Finance | July 19, 2022
Early-stage climate tech offers a bright spot amid the gloom
ImpactAlpha, July 19 – U.S. climate policy is in disarray. Venture capital investments are plummeting. The IPO window is shut. And crypto is …
Mansoor Hamayun | Photo credit: Bboxx
Frontier and Growth Markets | July 11, 2022
Off-grid solar pioneer Bboxx is following the data to down-market growth
ImpactAlpha, July 11 – Mansoor Hamayun couldn’t have anticipated the data revolution when he launched Bboxx more than a decade ago. Back then, the …
Institutional Impact | July 7, 2022
The politics and power of asset management lead straight to the U.S. Supreme Court
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 …
Policy Corner | July 5, 2022
Supreme Court’s attack on regulatory policy threatens SEC climate-disclosure rules
ImpactAlpha, July 5 – Fighting climate change just got even harder. But impact investors vowed to redouble their efforts to stave off climate …
photo: Pixabay
Originals | June 27, 2022
Seven Calls: Agents of Impact on carbon pricing, political risk, climate adaptation, responsible fintech and more
ImpactAlpha, June 27 – ImpactAlpha’s spring season of Agents of Impact Calls spanned a period of tumult in the financial markets: instability in …
Frontier and Growth Markets | June 13, 2022
Nyala Venture aims to catalyze local fund managers to unlock capital for small businesses in Africa
ImpactAlpha, June 13 – Who knows best the needs of a community but members of the community itself? First-time fund managers who understand the …
Impact Investing | May 23, 2022
Global corporations commit to carbon removal tech buys in South Pole-led initiative
ImpactAlpha, May 23 – Corporations are teaming up to use their buying power to accelerate commercialization of carbon removal technology. The latest: Boston …
Catalytic Capital | May 10, 2022
Catalytic investors sharpen their tools to accelerate commercialization of climate solutions
ImpactAlpha, May 10 – The stubborn gap in financing for early-stage innovations for years was an obstacle to the development of breakthrough climate …
Inclusive Economy | May 5, 2022
Common Future and Uncharted merge to expand entrepreneurship and wealth-building in underserved communities
ImpactAlpha, May 5 – Call it the un-M&A deal. Common Future, the Oakland-based nonprofit focused on economic inequality, and Uncharted, the nonprofit social …
Stewardship | April 27, 2022
Gates Foundation’s Berkshire Hathaway dilemma shines a light on proxy voting role by charitable groups
ImpactAlpha, April, 28 – Shareholder activists are looking for record wins at this year’s annual general meeting season, which runs through the summer. …
Rook Soto | Photo by Pursuit.
Features | April 20, 2022
How Pursuit is upskilling low-income New Yorkers for high-paying coding jobs
ImpactAlpha, April 20 — Jukay Hsu’s mother worked multiple jobs after emigrating with him from Taiwan to Queens when he was three years …
An Acacia tree in Africa
Impact Investing | April 17, 2022
Social ‘co-benefits’ and ecosystem restoration begin to make climate adaptation investable
ImpactAlpha, April 14 – Climate-smart investments that restore ecosystems, improve women’s lives, reduce damage from storms and surges, avoid dislocation and migration and …
Climate Finance | April 5, 2022
How climate investors are getting ready for the carbon removal boom
ImpactAlpha, April 5 – The world is hurtling towards irreversible and catastrophic warming. The goals of the Paris climate accord are fast slipping …
Global OTEC's floating power plants (source: Global OTEC)
Climate Finance | April 4, 2022
Overlooked innovators with key climate solutions are a sweet spot for early-stage funds
ImpactAlpha, April 4 – Today’s stark new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls for both/and to avert a worst-case climate …
Photo credit: Apollo Agriculture
Smallholder Agriculture | March 31, 2022
Apollo Agriculture is out to show how financing smallholder farmers can boost production and profits
ImpactAlpha, March 31 – Smallholder farmers have long been the darling of development specialists, microfinance institutions and impact investors. Now, commercial investors are …
Climate Finance | March 29, 2022
Impact investing goes to the Oscars
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 29 – Forget yachts. Climate funds are the new Hollywood status symbols. King Richard, the biopic that won Will Smith his first …
Zurich, Switzerland
Europe | March 28, 2022
Acquisitions in Europe reflect investors’ appetite for private debt in emerging markets
ImpactAlpha, March 28 – A trio of Swiss impact investors launched two decades ago with similar missions of boosting financial inclusion in emerging …
Ukrainian families flee the war across the Hungarian border. Photo: Janossy Gergely
Catalytic Capital | March 24, 2022
How Open Road helps providers of essential services carry on in conflict zones
ImpactAlpha, March 24 – In Syria, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in a decade-long civil war, an advance warning …
Stewardship | March 16, 2022
Emboldened shareholders ready fights with management on human rights, climate and political spending
ImpactAlpha, March 16 – Grab some popcorn and pull up a chair. This year’s annual general meetings season, when corporations face off with …
Illustration by Vectorfarmer (via Shutterstock)
Impact Investing | February 22, 2022
From Elon Musk and crypto cashouts, more capital flows in than flows out of donor-advised funds
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 22 – One may have gotten Elon Musk’s $5.7 billion gift of Tesla stock. Others have received hundreds of millions in …
Call Recording | February 11, 2022
Call No. 37: Ramping up the supply of carbon reduction to meet the urgent demand (video)
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 11 – ”$100 a ton?” exclaimed CDP’s Paula DiPerna on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact Call this week. “I should be popping champagne.” …
From The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Climate Finance | February 8, 2022
Positive externalities: Carrots as well as sticks for the carbon era
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 8 – Putting a price on carbon is only the beginning. With prices on Europe’s emissions trading scheme topping $100 a ton …
The Swedish steel company SSAB last year said it delivered the first fossil-fuel free steel.
Corporate Impact | February 7, 2022
Simple economics driving carbon prices: Soaring demand, limited supply
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 7 – The crossover has arrived for carbon, the commodity that will increasingly drive the global economy. The rising prices around …
Climate Finance | February 3, 2022
Rising price of carbon starts to hit balance sheets – and corporate decision-making
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 3 – The carbon footprint of corporations, long regarded as a “nonfinancial” factor, is about to become very material indeed. The …
The Reconstruction | January 8, 2022
On anniversary of Capitol attack, stakeholders hold corporations accountable for democracy
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 6 – Add political stability to the list of systemic risks that keep investors up at night. ‘Political risk’ has historically …
Climate Finance | December 21, 2021
Climate finance in 2022: Mobilizing capital for exponential progress
‘Tis the season for our lookaheads to 2022 and, thanks to ImpactAlpha subscribers, we are able to make the roundups freely available. So …
Impact Investing | December 14, 2021
Eight ways investors are going beyond ESG risk-mitigation to drive real-world impact
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 14 – The recent takedown of MSCI by a team of Bloomberg Businessweek reporters was the latest knock on environmental, social …
The cover of Capricorn Investment Group's 2021 impact report
Impact Management | December 8, 2021
‘Tis the season… for impact reports from fund managers and wealth advisors
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 8 – For all the clamor for greater disclosure and transparency in impact investing, few investors are likely to digest all …
Catalytic Capital | October 29, 2021
Call No. 33: Using catalytic capital to fill climate finance gaps from the bottom up
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 29 – As the COP26 global climate summit kicks off this weekend, much of the focus will be on the massive …
Catalytic Capital | October 20, 2021
Deploying catalytic capital to bridge financing gaps for climate action
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 20 – Climate finance is on a roll. Climate finance is stuck. Both statements are true. Investors have poured record sums …
Troop cofounders Seb Jarquin, Felix Tabary and Zen Yui in Brooklyn
Stewardship | October 5, 2021
Retail investors get new tools to flex their collective power as engaged shareholders
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 5 – When online investors drove up the shares of GameStop in January, stock market watchers were captivated by the drama, …
Climate Finance | September 23, 2021
The sky-high value of cutting methane emissions is attracting policymakers – and investors
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 23 – Carbon dioxide has gotten most of the attention in the fight against climate change. But it is another compound, …
Photo credit: Boost
Frontier and Growth Markets | September 15, 2021
New channel of capital for small businesses worldwide: enterprise tech startups
ImpactAlpha, September 15 – There’s no shortage of capital for global small business lending. What have blocked small businesses from access to working capital, …
Conservation | September 14, 2021
Move over SPACs. Here come NACs to turn ecosystem services into tradable assets
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 14 – The New York Stock Exchange is seeking approval for a new kind of publicly traded asset based on the …
Inclusive Economy | 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 …
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 …
Photo credit: Ecobodaa
Originals | June 3, 2021
Shift to electric rickshaws and motorcycles is drawing investors to emerging markets’ e-mobility opportunity
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – The streets of Delhi, Kigali, Nairobi and other cities across the developing world are clogged with traffic, including “boda boda” …
Stewardship | May 18, 2021
Shareholders flex their muscles as the drama builds toward votes at ExxonMobil
ImpactAlpha, May 18 – Slowly and then all of a sudden, shareholders have management on the run in a series of proxy votes …
Photo credit: Invest2Innovate
Frontier and Growth Markets | April 21, 2021
In Pakistan, investing with a gender lens gives i2i Ventures an early-stage edge
ImpactAlpha, April 21 – If overlooked markets and underserved entrepreneurs represent untapped opportunities, Pakistan presents i2i Ventures with a rich bounty of possibilities. The …
Image: Dmitrijs Kaminskis
Corporate Impact | April 7, 2021
Africa’s business and investment leaders step up to meet demands for impact and ESG investing
ImpactAlpha, April 7 – Investors, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups are increasingly pressuring African businesses to shift to more responsible ways of doing …
Climate Finance | April 1, 2021
Stewardship challenge: How to press fundamental change at ExxonMobil?
ImpactAlpha, April 1 – Some climate-focused investors say they have dumped shares of ExxonMobil as they purge fossil fuel companies from their portfolios. …
Photo credit: ACRE Africa
Innovative Finance | March 22, 2021
Alt-credit and mobile-money apps give African fintechs a closeup view of climate risks – and opportunities
ImpactAlpha, March 22 – Financial technology firms have leveraged billions of data points across mobile phones and social media to transform loan underwriting across …
Climate Finance | February 17, 2021
Farmers harvest ‘soil carbon’ to meet rising corporate demand for emission offsets
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 17 – Candidates in last year’s U.S. Senate race in Iowa were asked in a televised debate to cite the clearing …