🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh and ImpactAlpha editor David Bank take up the good news on the good economy, Participant’s lasting legacy, and the signs of change at the World Bank. Plus: an early listen to the electrifying single, “I’m Your Heat Pump.”
Tracking the transition. Energy professionals and policy wonks piled into a midtown hotel in New York this week for BloombergNEF’s energy transition summit. The talk of the town was how the Inflation Reduction Act in the US has spurred private climate investments as much as public spending. By the end of last year, more than 100 new factories had been planned in response to the IRA for a total of $123 billion in new manufacturing investment. Most of that went to batteries and solar. The policy boost is showing up globally as well. Reshoring and "friendshoring" has led to a surge of factory investment in the US, Europe and elsewhere. That’s expected to cut China’s share of global clean tech manufacturing investment to 64% by next year, from around 90% today. Globally, investment in solar and battery factories are outpacing BNEF’s net-zero scenario. “The costs are going to keep coming down, and that will be another accelerator,” said BNEF’s Jon Moore. – Amy Cortese
🇪🇺 EU’s impact manifesto. Ahead of June’s European parliamentary elections, Impact Europe (formerly the European Venture Philanthropy Association) and impact investing networks in Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands launched a manifesto calling on European policymakers to unlock private capital for impact. Among the planks: enable retail investing for impact. (Impact Europe)
Deal spotlight: African banks help Acre Impact Capital bridge gaps in infrastructure finance. It’s taken three years for Mauritius-based Acre Impact Capital to reach a first close for its first infrastructure finance fund. The firm is filling a funding gap for African infrastructure projects that are heavily guaranteed by international export credit agencies but still need to prove they can be fully financed before banks will step in (see how it works). African banks, including South Africa’s Rand Merchant Bank, joined the European Investment Bank, FSDAi, Trimtab Impact and family office Ceniarth to enable Acre Impact Capital to fill that 15% commercial tranche of infrastructure project finance. “You want African investors investing in solutions that will improve the continent, and you want the returns of those investments to go to these investors so they will hopefully reinvest with impact and intentionality,” Acre’s Hussein Sefian told ImpactAlpha.
💼 See and share two dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese speaks with Full Cycle’s Stephan Nicoleau at the start of COP 28 to hear what he’s expecting – and hoping …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
Impact Frontier’s Impact Reporting Norms target a leverage point in the impact investing system: impact reporting. They promise to provide greater clarity and …
Ashish Kumar is a long-time climate investor and a market / ecosystem builder. He is a strategic advisor to Mati Carbon. This month, …
In one of Puerto Rico’s poorest neighborhoods, you can find what economists might call a “green shoot.” The plan for Oasis, a six-acre, …
Development finance institutions like to style themselves as the original impact investors. It was Lord Reith, the first chairman of the UK’s development …
To achieve stated climate goals, the U.S. government is embarking on what should be the largest coordination of private and public capital aimed …
In a world in which the UN SDG financing gap continues to grow, we face a double hurdle: blended finance is still struggling …
As more investment firms launch impact funds, it has become increasingly difficult for institutional allocators to identify the most qualified fund managers to …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – Nigeria-born climate entrepreneur and “professional nomad” Aina Abiodun is bullish on place-based climate innovation. “There is nothing more urgent than …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh and ImpactAlpha editor David Bank take up the good news on the good economy, Participant’s lasting legacy, and the signs of change at the World Bank. Plus: an early listen to the electrifying single, “I’m Your Heat Pump.”
Tracking the transition. Energy professionals and policy wonks piled into a midtown hotel in New York this week for BloombergNEF’s energy transition summit. The talk of the town was how the Inflation Reduction Act in the US has spurred private climate investments as much as public spending. By the end of last year, more than 100 new factories had been planned in response to the IRA for a total of $123 billion in new manufacturing investment. Most of that went to batteries and solar. The policy boost is showing up globally as well. Reshoring and "friendshoring" has led to a surge of factory investment in the US, Europe and elsewhere. That’s expected to cut China’s share of global clean tech manufacturing investment to 64% by next year, from around 90% today. Globally, investment in solar and battery factories are outpacing BNEF’s net-zero scenario. “The costs are going to keep coming down, and that will be another accelerator,” said BNEF’s Jon Moore. – Amy Cortese
🇪🇺 EU’s impact manifesto. Ahead of June’s European parliamentary elections, Impact Europe (formerly the European Venture Philanthropy Association) and impact investing networks in Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands launched a manifesto calling on European policymakers to unlock private capital for impact. Among the planks: enable retail investing for impact. (Impact Europe)
Deal spotlight: African banks help Acre Impact Capital bridge gaps in infrastructure finance. It’s taken three years for Mauritius-based Acre Impact Capital to reach a first close for its first infrastructure finance fund. The firm is filling a funding gap for African infrastructure projects that are heavily guaranteed by international export credit agencies but still need to prove they can be fully financed before banks will step in (see how it works). African banks, including South Africa’s Rand Merchant Bank, joined the European Investment Bank, FSDAi, Trimtab Impact and family office Ceniarth to enable Acre Impact Capital to fill that 15% commercial tranche of infrastructure project finance. “You want African investors investing in solutions that will improve the continent, and you want the returns of those investments to go to these investors so they will hopefully reinvest with impact and intentionality,” Acre’s Hussein Sefian told ImpactAlpha.
💼 See and share two dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.
In New Orleans, the city’s housing finance agency has become a “green bank” to underwrite community solar, water treatment projects, and resilience hubs. …
Private equity fund managers looking for value-creation opportunities are increasingly finding their way to impact themes like climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, employee engagement …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 – Impact investors have for years debated the need for embedded structures to incentivize impact outcomes for impact fund managers. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 15 – The $4 trillion muni market is so big that small movements in the pricing of bonds can mean shifts of …
ImpactAlpha, November 17 – That women are more adversely affected by climate change is well established (in impact and development circles at any …
This week’s Agents of Impact Call continued a tradition started nearly a decade ago by Fran Seegull of the US Impact Investing Alliance …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 29 – It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the …
ImpactAlpha, August 25 – A growing ecosystem of Native-led entrepreneurs, lenders, financial intermediaries and nonprofits are driving Indian Country’s emerging economy. “It’s kind …
ImpactAlpha, July 28 – Most historically Black colleges and universities were formed during the Reconstruction era. In the more than a century since, Spelman, …
ImpactAlpha, Jun. 22 – Even as some politicians ramp up anti-ESG rhetoric, asset owners and allocators are signaling an appetite for investment strategies …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 31 – The search for a universal metric to guide investments in racial justice and equitable wealth-building was…aspirational. “We are still a …
ImpactAlpha. Feb. 24 – “A labor market where workers have more opportunities and have more power and have more leverage is a good …
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: federal funds to …
The era of cake-ism (as in having it and eating it, too) has come to an inglorious end. “I think we’re in an …
Host Brian Walsh dives into ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. Up this week: Tracking the players building the US’s …
ImpactAlpha podcasts are back! We’re pleased to share our revamped interview show, Agents of Impact, hosted by David Bank and Sherrell Dorsey, founder …
Impact(ed) is part of the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network, a set of shows hosted and produced by leading voices in impact and sustainable investing, …
On This Week in Impact, Brian Walsh dives into some of ImpactAlpha’s top stories, with commentary from editor David Bank. This week: the …
Venture capital invested nearly $500 billion in 2022. By investing into startups seeking transformational scale, successful venture-backed companies have the potential to change …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 29 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors told David Bank of ImpactAlpha …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 22 – Diverse innovators building for all customers in large industries like digital health, fintech and the future of work have been …
The numbers tell the story: overall attendance at COP28 is up threefold from last year – and the number of fossil fuel lobbyists …
Private foundations collectively control more than a trillion dollars of capital invested across a variety of traditional asset classes. A small portion of …
ImpactAlpha’s Amy Cortese speaks with Full Cycle’s Stephan Nicoleau at the start of COP 28 to hear what he’s expecting – and hoping …
(Editor’s note: In this conclusion to ImpactAlpha’s four-part Macro Impact series, contributing editor Rob Brown parses the economic signals for public and private …
Editor’s note: This guest post is sponsored by Impact Ventures by J&J Foundation, which supports ImpactAlpha’s Investing in Health coverage. In partnership with …
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in …
The way housing is financed and constructed in the United States has experienced little change in decades, leading to skyrocketing costs, barriers to …
“One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Capital allocators often see these types of punchy headlines in the …
Impact Frontier’s Impact Reporting Norms target a leverage point in the impact investing system: impact reporting. They promise to provide greater clarity and …
Ashish Kumar is a long-time climate investor and a market / ecosystem builder. He is a strategic advisor to Mati Carbon. This month, …
In one of Puerto Rico’s poorest neighborhoods, you can find what economists might call a “green shoot.” The plan for Oasis, a six-acre, …
Development finance institutions like to style themselves as the original impact investors. It was Lord Reith, the first chairman of the UK’s development …
To achieve stated climate goals, the U.S. government is embarking on what should be the largest coordination of private and public capital aimed …
In a world in which the UN SDG financing gap continues to grow, we face a double hurdle: blended finance is still struggling …
As more investment firms launch impact funds, it has become increasingly difficult for institutional allocators to identify the most qualified fund managers to …
The winner of a contest to sharpen the impact lens of students through deal sourcing and diligence was a team from London Business …
ImpactAlpha, January 26 – Ines Schiller got the idea for seaweed tampons while training in South Africa to be a marine environment guide. …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 23 – Bold leaders. Taking action. Driving impact. That’s the tagline we’ve used for the dozens of Agents of Impact we profiled …
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished …
Sustainable development? “More of the same.” Forest carbon credits? “Outside-imposed extraction.” Impact investing? “Are we really going far enough? Or are we just …
ImpactAlpha, September 8 — In 15 years in impact investing, Christopher Bentley noticed “a lot of for-profit companies focused on the criminal justice …
ImpactAlpha, August 18 – Monica Brand Engel’s advice to impact investors is this: Imperfect execution is ok. “Authentic impact is about accepting imperfection …
ImpactAlpha, Aug. 11 – Samuel Yeboah isn’t discouraged by the economic storm battering his home country of Ghana and many other emerging economies. “As …
Many investors look at promising new climate solutions and say, ‘Great, come back to me when you have traction.’ Azolla Ventures is more …
ImpactAlpha, June 30 – The first thing that Katherine Stodulka does when you meet her is suggest you meet someone else. Then she’ll …
ImpactAlpha, May 26 – A decade ago, investors pushed back against the loan products Jessica Espinoza was designing for female business owners as …
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – Nigeria-born climate entrepreneur and “professional nomad” Aina Abiodun is bullish on place-based climate innovation. “There is nothing more urgent than …
ImpactAlpha, January 19 — Amazon is doing it. So are Meta, Microsoft and Google. The tech giants have begun capturing excess heat generated …
Funding Circle, which has facilitated $3 billion in loans for small-and medium-businesses, raised another $100 million to build out its own platform. The …