For these tech startups and investors, the next big thing is climate adaptation for smallholder farmers. In India, Mati Carbon is providing smallholder farmers with crop inputs that fertilize plants and sequester carbon. In Kenya, SunCulture is helping farmers access solar irrigation systems to mitigate unpredictable rain patterns. And in Myanmar, Proximity is working to give rice farmers an alternative to the toxic practice of field burning. Climate-smart innovations are helping some of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers adapt to climate changes and improve their livelihoods; they are needed by many more. "There is a wealth of ways that agrifood tech can assist with climate adaptation,” says Louisa Burwood-Taylor of AgFunder, author of a new report, “Financing adaptation pathways,” with ISF Advisors. "Even investors who haven’t typically engaged in agriculture and food can find opportunities that are a fit.”
New York Life acquires stake in minority-owned Fairview Capital. Fairview Capital, a minority-owned investment management firm that backs diverse and emerging fund managers, has invested over $10 billion on behalf of public and private pension plans, foundations, endowments and other institutional investors since 1994. The investment from New York Life Insurance Co. “will create even more opportunities for Fairview,” said Larry Morse, who co-founded Connecticut-based Fairview with JoAnn Price. “This includes accelerating our growth and expanding our investing with the industry’s foremost venture capital firms, along with the leading diverse and emerging fund managers,” Morse said. Price and Morse will retain majority ownership of Fairview, alongside partners Kola Olofinboba, Alan Mattamana, Aakar Vachhani and Kwesi Quaye.
Elevating impact reporting to raise the performance of impact fund managers. “One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Punchy headlines populate the impact reports that fund managers provide to their investors and capital allocators. How do the reports impact investment decisions? Impact Frontiers, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, consulted for a year with some 350 impact fund managers, capital providers and third-party groups. Key question: How could impact performance reports be more decision-useful? The synthesis, “Impact Reporting Norms,” offers guidance on what to include in an impact performance report, how and to whom to report it, and why. With impact investing now representing more than $1 trillion in assets, the effort aims to channel capital “more efficiently and effectively to achieve integrated financial, social and environmental goals,” Impact Frontiers’ Rathi Ramasamy, Nao Sudo and Mike McCreless write in a guest post on ImpactAlpha.
Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:
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 …
“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 …
Measure what matters. Disclosures are key. Transparency leads to accountability. Which investor, and in fact regulator, wouldn’t agree with these common-sense business mantras …
“We need to invest in life, rather than expensive infrastructure investments,” Anne van Leeuwen, a founding farmer from the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, pleaded …
Over the past 15 years, my personal journey has been dedicated to making the world a better place, navigating through various stages of …
(Editor’s note: The insights in this article reflect the work of a diverse array of Catalytic Capital Consortium partners. The outputs of this …
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 …
For these tech startups and investors, the next big thing is climate adaptation for smallholder farmers. In India, Mati Carbon is providing smallholder farmers with crop inputs that fertilize plants and sequester carbon. In Kenya, SunCulture is helping farmers access solar irrigation systems to mitigate unpredictable rain patterns. And in Myanmar, Proximity is working to give rice farmers an alternative to the toxic practice of field burning. Climate-smart innovations are helping some of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers adapt to climate changes and improve their livelihoods; they are needed by many more. "There is a wealth of ways that agrifood tech can assist with climate adaptation,” says Louisa Burwood-Taylor of AgFunder, author of a new report, “Financing adaptation pathways,” with ISF Advisors. "Even investors who haven’t typically engaged in agriculture and food can find opportunities that are a fit.”
New York Life acquires stake in minority-owned Fairview Capital. Fairview Capital, a minority-owned investment management firm that backs diverse and emerging fund managers, has invested over $10 billion on behalf of public and private pension plans, foundations, endowments and other institutional investors since 1994. The investment from New York Life Insurance Co. “will create even more opportunities for Fairview,” said Larry Morse, who co-founded Connecticut-based Fairview with JoAnn Price. “This includes accelerating our growth and expanding our investing with the industry’s foremost venture capital firms, along with the leading diverse and emerging fund managers,” Morse said. Price and Morse will retain majority ownership of Fairview, alongside partners Kola Olofinboba, Alan Mattamana, Aakar Vachhani and Kwesi Quaye.
Elevating impact reporting to raise the performance of impact fund managers. “One million lives touched.” “800 jobs created.” “50,000 acres of land restored.” Punchy headlines populate the impact reports that fund managers provide to their investors and capital allocators. How do the reports impact investment decisions? Impact Frontiers, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, consulted for a year with some 350 impact fund managers, capital providers and third-party groups. Key question: How could impact performance reports be more decision-useful? The synthesis, “Impact Reporting Norms,” offers guidance on what to include in an impact performance report, how and to whom to report it, and why. With impact investing now representing more than $1 trillion in assets, the effort aims to channel capital “more efficiently and effectively to achieve integrated financial, social and environmental goals,” Impact Frontiers’ Rathi Ramasamy, Nao Sudo and Mike McCreless write in a guest post on ImpactAlpha.
Don’t miss these upcoming ImpactAlpha partner events:
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 …
“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 …
Measure what matters. Disclosures are key. Transparency leads to accountability. Which investor, and in fact regulator, wouldn’t agree with these common-sense business mantras …
“We need to invest in life, rather than expensive infrastructure investments,” Anne van Leeuwen, a founding farmer from the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, pleaded …
Over the past 15 years, my personal journey has been dedicated to making the world a better place, navigating through various stages of …
(Editor’s note: The insights in this article reflect the work of a diverse array of Catalytic Capital Consortium partners. The outputs of this …
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 …
Welcome to #Shifts, ImpactAlpha’s monthly roundup of the ideas and trends driving impact investing. In this first edition of the series: investors are …