Signals
Climate Finance | November 29, 2023
From “carve-outs” to “aligners,” five archetypes for family office climate investing
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 29 – Wealthy families are feeling the pull of climate investing. CREO, a nonprofit that for more than a decade has …
India | November 15, 2023
Impact investors brave Delhi’s smog to champion climate finance in India
ImpactAlpha, November 15 – Impact investors in India gathered last week in Delhi’s hazardous smog to strategize ways to raise, and deploy, more …
Impact Tech | November 8, 2023
Private equity firms see robust demand for impact funds, despite headwinds
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 8 – Private equity firms may be battling a high interest rate environment and sluggish IPO market. But they’re still raising …
Deploy! | October 31, 2023
DOE awards $1.3 billion to ease transmission bottlenecks
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 31 – Electric vehicles factories and renewable energy plants are rapidly rising across the US, thanks to federal tax incentives. Not …
Corporate Impact | October 25, 2023
Investors push corporations to better manage increasingly scarce water resources
ImpactAlpha, October 25 – Corporations are the largest consumers of water globally, which sets them up for conflict and risk as water scarcity …
Chicago's Red Line. Photo: Cragin Spring, Wikipedia
Muni Impact | October 18, 2023
Chicago tries a twist on tax increment financing to extend transport to low-income neighborhoods
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 18 – A new approach to a well-worn financing mechanism is attracting attention to Chicago. The city is employing a new …
Photo by The Ownership Economy.
Ownership Economy | October 16, 2023
Multiplying transitions to employee ownership with private capital and public policy
ImpactAlpha, October 16 — Giving workers ownership stakes in the companies they work for improves employees’ motivation, productivity, retention and drives long-term business …
Photo: Complete Farmer
Smallholder Agriculture | October 5, 2023
Investors are bullish on digitizing Africa’s agricultural supply chain
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 5 – When Desmond Koney inherited his father’s farm, he discovered firsthand the challenges of smallholder farmers in Ghana and much …
Photo by ImpactAlpha.
Signals | September 28, 2023
Overheard at the Congressional Black Caucus: Boosting Black ownership
ImpactAlpha, September 28 — Black ownership was the theme that echoed through the Walter E. Washington Convention Center at last week’s annual legislative …
Impact Management | September 20, 2023
The $100 billion opportunity in climate-finance accountability
ImpactAlpha, September 20 – Developed nations have pledged (but not delivered) $100 billion annually to help low and middle-income countries adapt to climate …
Climate Finance | September 20, 2023
Climate Week NYC: Write it down
ImpactAlpha, September 20 – Oil may be nearing $100 a barrel again, but long term prospects for fossil fuels are less rosy. Coal …
Photo credit: Steve Shook
Policy Corner | September 18, 2023
With laws and lawsuits, California takes on Big Oil
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 18 – Will he or won’t he? Gavin Newsom put to rest questions about the fate of two landmark bills passed by …
Photo by Blk Grvty.
Return on Inclusion | September 14, 2023
Disruptive Discourse: Standing up to legal challenges to fund managers and business owners of color
ImpactAlpha, September 14 — Women leaders of color are stepping up ecosystem-building efforts to counter the recent legal attacks against minority-owned and led …
Photo: Eman Mohammed, Survival Media Agency
Impact Investing | September 10, 2023
Climate protestors step up their game as climate action falters
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 11 – Tomato soup on Van Gogh’s sunflowers. A blockade of Burning Man. This weekend, climate protestors staged their latest stunt …
Water | August 28, 2023
Water security climbs the climate agenda at World Water Week
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 28 – The fire that ravaged western Maui this month exposed simmering tensions over rights to dwindling water supplies. In fast-growing …
Photo credit: Oweesta
Catalytic Capital | August 22, 2023
To finance Indigenous communities, capitalize Native-led investment funds and nonprofits
ImpactAlpha, August 22 – A loan for sustainable eel farming in Maine. Small business financing for Indigenous women founders. Collateral-free kinship lending on …
Climate Finance | August 16, 2023
African leaders want a bigger slice of a bigger market for voluntary carbon credits
ImpactAlpha, August 16 – Africa needs $250 billion a year to finance climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Yet the vast continent of nearly …
Brazil
Conservation | August 10, 2023
Revived South American alliance takes steps to protect Amazon forests and communities
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 10 – There was no grand pledge to halt deforestation, as Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had urged. Nor …
Photo: Mark Blyth @MkBlyth
ESG | July 19, 2023
BlackRock’s latest move has climate advocates asking, ‘What’s up with Larry Fink?’
ImpactAlpha, July 19 – Larry Fink has jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Last month, the BlackRock CEO said he was …
Green Infrastructure | July 17, 2023
Managers vie for the mandate to stand up a national “green bank”
ImpactAlpha, July 17 — Green banks, credit unions, community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, and other nonprofit lenders are scrambling for the mandate …
Impact Investing | June 28, 2023
Institutional investors shrug off ESG backlash to move forward on impact investing
ImpactAlpha, June 28 – The backlash against ESG is not (yet) hampering impact investing. It may even be driving some institutional investors toward …
Source: BlueOval SK (Glendale, Kentucky)
Signals | June 23, 2023
An EV supply chain takes shape
ImpactAlpha, June 23 – A flood of funding and tax incentives championed by the Biden administration is remaking American manufacturing. The latest signal: …
Photo credit: Change Labs
Return on Inclusion | June 20, 2023
Change Labs’ entrepreneurship hub opens doors for Navajo businesses
ImpactAlpha, June 20 – Extreme resource constraints and bureaucratic obstacles on tribal lands have stifled entrepreneurship and economic development in Indigenous communities. A …
Photo by Common Future.
Return on Inclusion | June 20, 2023
Reflections on Common Future’s first racial equity accelerator cohort
ImpactAlpha, June 20 — The women of color in Common Future’s first racial equity accelerator are tapping into their lived experiences to help …
Source: National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration
Impact Investing | June 9, 2023
The Week’s Chart: Wildfires drive home costs of climate inaction
ImpactAlpha, June 9 – The past eight years have been the warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization has declared. It should not …
Policy Corner | May 25, 2023
US SIF’s Lisa Woll: Attacks on ESG demonstrate the growing importance of sustainable investing
The old adage still serves: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” For Lisa …
Catalytic Capital | May 23, 2023
Appalachia emerges as a climate refuge – and its community infrastructure feels the strain
ImpactAlpha, May 23 — With its mountainous terrain, water resources and ecological diversity, the Central Appalachia region across West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina …
Inclusive Economy | May 4, 2023
Overheard in Philadelphia: Bridging capital gaps to build wealth in underserved communities
ImpactAlpha, May 4 — ImpactPHL’s Total Impact Summit gathered Agents of Impact in Philadelphia for the second consecutive year, following a three-year pandemic …
Impact Investing | April 26, 2023
How Biden’s climate policies are driving a clean energy transformation
ImpactAlpha, April 26 – The trio of climate and economic legislation signed into law by Joe Biden in the first two years of …
Impact Investing | April 12, 2023
Four ways foundations and family offices can expand their mission-related investing
ImpactAlpha, April 12 — More foundations are stepping up to align their endowments with their philanthropic goals with “mission-related investments,” or MRIs. That’s …
S.O.S. Vanguard
Climate Finance | April 3, 2023
Move over, BlackRock. Vanguard is the new target for climate activists.
ImpactAlpha, April 3 – Tim Buckley is not a household name like Larry Fink. That may change, as shareholder activists take their climate …
Corporate Impact | March 23, 2023
This season’s shareholder resolutions are proxies in the ESG culture war
ImpactAlpha, March 23 – Votes on climate action, corporate political influence and reproductive rights will liven up this spring’s corporate annual general meetings. …
Image by Freepik
Impact Management | March 21, 2023
Ten outcomes and three levers for investors in racial and economic equity
ImpactAlpha, March 21 — Moral imperative? The threat of economic instability? Or the unrealized economic potential of our nation’s diversity? Whatever their motivations, …
Impact Investing | March 20, 2023
Global Innovation Lab develops new financial models to tackle climate challenges in emerging markets
ImpactAlpha, March 20 – Global finance is not keeping up with the urgent challenge of decarbonizing the economy and helping communities adapt to …
Impact Management | March 20, 2023
Just Capital and Ford Foundation set a research agenda for human capital management
ImpactAlpha, March 20 – As much as 90% of the value of S&P 500 companies comes from “intangible” assets, most importantly talent. Yet …
Impact Investing | March 16, 2023
At these companies, CEOs focus on stakeholders to drive growth
ImpactAlpha, March 16 – Steve McDougal of climate consultants 3Degrees, Scott Jacobs of green infrastructure owner/investor Generate Capital, and Russell Diez-Canseco of organic …
Impact Investing | March 14, 2023
The ImpactAssets 50 – er, 163 – is the biggest and most diverse ever
ImpactAlpha, March 14 – This year’s showcase of impact investment fund managers highlights bigger funds and increasing diversity as well as a focus …
Signals | March 2, 2023
Regeneration and Risk-Taking: Overheard at the Latin American Impact Investing Forum
ImpactAlpha, March 2 – Some 800 agentes de impacto turned out for the forum, known as the FLII, in Mérida, Mexico this week. …
Photo by 2Gether-International.
Signals | February 23, 2023
The impact case for bridging financing gaps for disabled founders
ImpactAlpha, February 23 — Mexican-American paralympic athlete Diego Mariscal, who was born three months premature with cerebral palsy, is out to prove the …
Impact Investing | February 16, 2023
TPG touts strong fundraising – and results – for its climate and impact strategies
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 16 – The $135 billion investment firm, based in San Francisco and Ft. Worth, is the latest publicly listed private-equity giant …
Inclusive Economy | February 9, 2023
Turning the boom in small-business starts into a long-term driver of economic mobility
ImpactAlpha, February 9 — A record 10 million Americans applied to start new businesses over the past two years, as President Biden highlighted …
Signals | February 6, 2023
Four ways impact investors are supporting economic mobility for Black Americans
ImpactAlpha, February 6 — The median Black household in the U.S. has one-tenth the wealth of the median white household. Over the next …
India | February 2, 2023
As India’s impact ventures grow, so does the need for growth-stage impact capital
ImpactAlpha, February 2 – India’s impact investing market has witnessed tremendous growth over the past few years, moving beyond financial inclusion into emerging …
Signals | February 1, 2023
S-curves and tipping points are accelerating the low-carbon future
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 1 – The future of energy is S-shaped. Adoption of technological innovations is typically slow until they hit a tipping point, …
Photo by Forum Mobility.
Climate and Clean Tech | January 18, 2023
Electrifying heavy-duty drayage trucks at California’s ports
ImpactAlpha, January 18 — The approximately 30,000 heavy-duty trucks that transport containers and bulk freight between ships and rail facilities at California’s 40 …