The Impact Alpha
The Impact Alpha | December 24, 2020
Last words of the year from ImpactAlpha
Season’s greetings, Agents of Impact! Each week this year, the ImpactAlpha team has chosen a word with which to wrap a bit of zeitgeist around our Friday …
The Impact Alpha | November 18, 2020
When investors go ‘impact on,’ they go to ImpactAlpha
When investors go risk off, they reduce their exposure and protect their capital. When they go impact on, they sharpen their focus, deliver …
The Impact Alpha | July 30, 2020
Raising the voices of impact investors in the November election
ImpactAlpha, July 30 –– The daily outrages consume Twitter. Within the impact investing bubble, you might not even know there is an election coming …
The Impact Alpha | April 27, 2020
The 10x challenge: Pandemic is a chance for impact investors to step up by an order of magnitude – or more
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 27 – The impact-tech crowd will stir up some innovation. The network for local loans will rally small businesses. The popular mobilization …
Beats | April 16, 2020
Four ways for universal owners to live up to their name in the COVID recovery
Stewards of capital must become the stewards of a new form of capitalism. The simulations and scenarios of central bankers and government regulators, …
The Impact Alpha | March 24, 2020
The Impact Alpha: Let’s make this s***storm matter
ImpactAlpha, March 24 – For the sake of all those who are suffering and will suffer, the pandemic disruption must become the sustainability …
The Impact Alpha | August 27, 2019
The Impact Alpha: Amid chaos, global leaders face deadlines for sustainable, inclusive prosperity
(Note: This is the latest installment in editor David Bank’s occasional column, The Impact Alpha.) ImpactAlpha, Aug. 27 – Ah, now I get it. …
Agents of Impact | July 31, 2019
‘Reverse the polarity’ tops ImpactAlpha’s charts for the transformation of finance
Extraction gives way to regeneration. Inequality is trumped by inclusion. The poles of the global financial order are reversed. Human, social and financial …
The Impact Alpha | September 20, 2018
Young people aren’t waiting for permission to lead the reGeneration
Sustainability is for millennials. Regeneration is for… the ReGeneration. The term is trending. “Regeneration” is to “responsible,” “sustainable” or even “impact” as biodynamic …
The Impact Alpha | September 13, 2018
Running to stay ahead of the storm…and the climate catastrophe
In the Carolinas, residents scramble to get out of the way of Hurricane Florence. In San Francisco, advocates scramble to get to dozens …
Stylized Superhero Businessman
The Impact Alpha | August 30, 2018
Big winners want to be changemakers? Hold them to it.
Share the wealth. Save the world. The first is a bus-poster tagline for the 20-pack of Chicken McNuggets. The second is the message on movie-theater recycling …
The Impact Alpha | August 23, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Strategic lenses give impact investors an edge on the future
At a recent summer gathering, I caught up with an old family friend, a lawyer and leader in a mid-sized New England city. …
Opportunity Zones | August 9, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Getting into the zone of inclusive opportunity
Maximum opportunity, maximum danger. That about sums up ImpactAlpha’s early coverage of “opportunity zones,” the impact investing story of the summer that is …
Gender Smart | July 26, 2018
The ImpactAlpha: After #MeToo and #TimesUp, #GenderLens investing has its moment
A few years ago, I was one of only a small handful of men at an early gathering exploring the contours of “gender …
Features | July 19, 2018
The Impact Alpha: A minister’s call for moral, as well as economic, revival
Fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, another black southern minister is paying homage by organizing a new popular movement for …
The Impact Alpha | July 12, 2018
The Impact Alpha: 2030 goals light a path to the post-Trump era
ImpactAlpha, July 12 –– In some alternative universe, the U.S. president is right now hectoring our allies to accelerate and increase their commitments …
The Impact Alpha | July 5, 2018
Can $30 trillion in global assets drive companies to climate disclosure – and climate action?
ImpactAlpha, July 5 – Here’s the thing about tipping points: things move very slowly until they move very fast. The current case in …
Impact Investing | June 27, 2018
Global agents of impact bet on 21st-century regeneration, with or without Washington
In a long interview with an international banker several months ago, there was only one answer he insisted on putting “off the record.” …
Impact Investing | June 20, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Connecting the dots and charting the narrative, every week
ImpactAlpha, June 20 – I helped kick off the “new” ImpactAlpha back in April with a column that promised we would cover impact investing …
Impact Investing | June 14, 2018
How to keep Abraaj Group’s meltdown from dragging down ‘SDG investing’ as well
ImpactAlpha, June 13 – Failure is good. That’s the party line – of successful people, at least – in Silicon Valley. Mathematically, it’s …
The Impact Alpha | June 7, 2018
The Impact Alpha: ‘Hybrid’ investors seek the alpha in impact
ImpactAlpha, June 6 – I’m that guy with a Prius who wants a Bolt, if not a Tesla. I may be too late …
The Impact Alpha | May 30, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Agents of impact start to infect their hosts
ImpactAlpha, May 30 – Impact investing is a wedge issue. That’s not to say it’s a hot-button – yet! – that pols will …
Features | May 24, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Pushing impact investing ‘beyond neoliberalism’
ImpactAlpha, May 24 – Several years ago, when I was just starting ImpactAlpha, I was summoned to a meeting with the éminence grise of …
Impact Investing | May 18, 2018
The Impact Alpha: The climate-finance tipping point is here, and other blue-sky thinking
ImpactAlpha, May 17 – National and international news got you down? Take a break from You-Know-Who and consider that growth in clean-energy generating capacity …
The Impact Alpha | May 10, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Finding the right tools for the job — of bridging capital gaps
ImpactAlpha, May 10 – Not long ago, I decided to change my leaky kitchen faucet myself. How hard could it be? I turned the …
The Impact Alpha | May 3, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Big new private-equity funds are on the hook to deliver impact outperformance
ImpactAlpha, May 3 – The era of impact-washing is over. That statement may seem premature, given the daily announcements from big banks and investment …
The Impact Alpha | April 26, 2018
The Impact Alpha: Prudence, materiality and impact in the Trump era
ImpactAlpha, April 26 – It would be easy to see the guidance provided to pension fund investment managers this week by the U.S. …
Photo credit: Riccardo Oliva
The Impact Alpha | April 19, 2018
The Impact Delta: Change is good for investors focused on environmental and social performance
One of the articles of faith among impact investors is that companies that effectively manage their environmental, social and especially governance factors are …
Photo by Peter Hershey
The Impact Alpha | April 12, 2018
The impact opportunity in the mispriced risk of lending to the underserved
ImpactAlpha, April 12 – Techies are used to making the impossible possible. Bankers, not so much. But I’ve been struck by a common …
Beats | April 5, 2018
Talking and walking the impact investment beat
Let’s cover impact investing like a real beat, on the hunch that it will become one. That was my standard line of a …
Gender Smart | December 5, 2017
Complicit: Where are impact investors as the tax bill redistributes wealth upward?
Talk about a meme whose time has come. “Complicit” is the word of the year, according to Dictionary.com, which made the selection even …
Climate Finance | August 31, 2017
From ‘Condemn and Disband’ to ‘Invest and Transform’
Was the mass resignation of the country’s top CEOs from the Trump Administration a momentary reflex? Or the catalyst for collective and purposeful …
SONY DSC
Features | February 7, 2017
Renewables are no longer ‘alternative.’ Fossil fuels are ‘legacy.’
The decision facing investors, from American families with 401(k)s to managers of the world’s largest pension and sovereign wealth funds, is whether to …