🎧On this week’s podcast. Host Monique Aiken has the headlines and Atlas Impact Partners’ Robert Brown and ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith join David Bank to parse how bank failures and interest rate hikes have changed the dynamics of impact investing – perhaps forever. “There were a lot of great ideas that were lousy businesses, which got funded over the last 10 years in an exceptionally accommodative interest rate environment,” Brown says. “That’s over.”
Mindy Lubber, Ceres: Making the business case for responsible investing. Hundreds of companies and investors this week urged policymakers to protect their “freedom to invest responsibly,” marking a new level of mobilization to reclaim the narrative from an anti-ESG campaign that refuses to go away. A key orchestrator of the effort was Mindy Lubber, who has, for two decades at the helm of the nonprofit Ceres, worked the levers of power in corporate offices, investor boardrooms and on Capitol Hill in support of climate goals. She helped marshal business buy-in for the 2015 Paris climate accord and the more recent U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. This week, her organization is convening 500 business and government leaders in New York. “A freedom to invest,” she says, “is very definitely a core part of the American way.”
Dealflow spotlight: Catalyzing capital for Africa’s water and sanitation infrastructure. Providing access to clean water and sanitation has long been a public-sector responsibility. But lower-income countries struggle to fund and implement critical water and sanitation infrastructure. More than two billion people worldwide still lack access to sanitation services; nearly a billion lack clean drinking water. This week, Belgium-based Incofin rolled out its Water Access Acceleration Fund with €36 million ($38.4 million) in blended financing from development finance institutions, banks, nonprofits and other organizations “to prove that the drinking water sector is investment-ready, even when targeting low-income people,” said Incofin’s Dina Pons. The fund includes a first-loss layer staked by USAID.
James Andrus, ex- of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, joined Franklin Templeton in the new role of sustainability global markets vice president… Claudia Levan, former principal at General Atlantic, joined Lightspeed Venture Partners as fundraising vice president… Josepha Montana, ex- of Turenne Capital, joined Partech as chief sustainability officer, a new role.
💼 Share the week’s impact jobs. Want to post a job in The Brief? Drop us a note.
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – The fatal beating by police of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month exposed risks to the city’s finances that have …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 18 – Cities around the U.S. are raising low-cost capital in the municipal bond markets by highlighting intentional efforts to address long-standing …
ImpactAlpha, September 30 – Capital to support women’s economic growth and financial inclusion is flowing – finally! – in many advanced economies. In emerging …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 19 – Investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and world leaders have descended on New York for Climate Week, the annual gathering alongside the …
ImpactAlpha, June 27 – ImpactAlpha’s spring season of Agents of Impact Calls spanned a period of tumult in the financial markets: instability in …
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – Just as investment in financial inclusion in Africa was really ramping up, a market downturn threatens to slow progress. Or …
ImpactAlpha, May 13 – One defining outcome of the pandemic: a boom in entrepreneurship. A record five million businesses were started in the …
ImpactAlpha, April 22 – The Ukraine crisis risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 1 – High-impact investments in fragile countries invariably entail political risk. And impact investments in a free press, humanitarian tech, financial inclusion …
ImpactAlpha, Mar. 11 – It’s one thing for a corporation to set environmental or social goals. It’s another to shift executives, employees and supply …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 25 – Bottom-up policies for access to capital in divested communities. Top-down strategies to reshape capitalism to work for all stakeholders. “We …
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.” …
Host Monique Aiken has the headlines and Atlas Impact Partners’ Robert Brown and ImpactAlpha contributing editor Imogen Rose-Smith join David Bank to parse …
What is the net worth of Salt Lake City? It’s a relatively straightforward exercise to total up the balance sheet of a company …
Impact Engine’s Priya Parrish joins David Bank to explain why purpose built investment firms end up with better impact outcomes than purpose driven …
2x Global’s Sana Kapadia joins host Monique Aiken to ring in Women’s History Month and talk about the state of gender-lens investing. Plus, …
The roundtable – that’s Brian Walsh, Imogen Rose-Smith and David Bank – is back together to discuss private equity and, specifically, that $4.5 …
It’s called the Silver Tsunami. In the United States, baby boomers own half of the privately held businesses with employees. And those boomers …
Fran Seegull of the Impact Investing Alliance joins host David Bank (filling in for Brian Walsh) to talk about jobs, climate and communities …
ImpactAlpha’s David Bank joins Host Monique Aiken to to share some takeaways from this week’s Agents of Impact Call on the steps that …
Development finance institutions are essential to the mobilization of capital to slow climate change and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. So why …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 20 – Building wealth for women and people of color is about numbers as well as equity. By mid-century, there will be …
The historic buildout of low-carbon and sustainable infrastructure is on. Spurring this climate action is hundreds of billions in federal spending in the …
Host Brian Walsh is joined by Kristin Hull of Nia Impact Capital, a long-time Tesla investor who says Elon Musk’s Twitter escapades threaten …
Impact fund managers are increasingly expected to provide their investors (i.e., institutional investors and allocators) with reporting that offers visibility into their portfolio’s …
When Fred van Eck, a New York investment manager, purchased 9,400 acres of Northern California and Oregon forest for timber production in the …
What’s not to love about planting trees? Once considered a tried and true solution to the climate crisis, tree-growing has lately been given …
Editor’s note: This blog is part of ImpactAlpha’s series, “Sustaining Impact,” authored by participants in the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) Sustaining Learning Labs. Key insights …
For all the optimism contained in International Women’s Day, the reality is that in most places around the world, the gender gap isn’t …
If ESG is a foot in the door to an economy built around sustainability, inclusion and equity, then governance is the power that’s …
The pandemic heightened awareness of the foundational role that caregiving plays in the US economy. Yet care infrastructure for childcare, eldercare, and other …
Often within the impact investing landscape, “impact” is defined by who we invest in and what we invest in. To truly create systems …
One year ago, the unthinkable happened: history, whose end had been (perhaps academically) proclaimed after the fall of the Soviet Union, came roaring …
Over my 20-plus years as a professional working on economic development, development finance, and impact investing, as both an investor and an advisor, …
Editor’s note: This blog is part of ImpactAlpha’s series, “Sustaining Impact,” authored by participants in the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) Sustaining Learning Labs. Key insights …
More electric vehicles (EVs) were sold each week of 2022 than in all of 2011. Analysts expect this explosive growth to remain unabated …
ImpactAlpha, March 24 – Hundreds of companies and investors this week urged policymakers to protect their “freedom to invest responsibly,” marking a new …
What is the net worth of Salt Lake City? It’s a relatively straightforward exercise to total up the balance sheet of a company …
ImpactAlpha, March 10 – Laura Ortiz Montemayor is not on board with decarbonization or its advocates. “Carbon is key to life. It’s a …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 17 – Years before this week’s elegant and understated Super Bowl appearance, Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty turned down the NFL’s invitation to headline …
ImpactAlpha, February 3 — Andrew Crosson was a decade deep in the work of community economic development in central Appalachia when he got …
ImpactAlpha, January 27 – Gary Forster left his job in logistics at Procter & Gamble to volunteer in Zambia, inspired by the 2005 …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 20 – Building wealth for women and people of color is about numbers as well as equity. By mid-century, there will be …
ImpactAlpha, Jan. 13 – A small-business lender in the Mississippi delta. A microfinance bank in Uganda. A global development finance institution in London. Laurie …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 16 – Napoleon Wallace’s presence was all over the recent Mission Investors Exchange conference in Baltimore. …As the co-founder of Activest, which …
“I love complexity,” says Berlow, founder of Vibrant Data Labs, a “social impact data science” group. An ecologist and data nerd, Berlow spent …
ImpactAlpha, Dec. 2 – Back in 1931, Winston Churchill predicted we’d grow real meat without the animals. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 4 – Barbados is an island nation of just 166 square miles and less than 300,000 inhabitants. But its leader, Mia …
Smarter Money The online social network connects volunteers with more 700 organizations directly PC: GivingWay The notion of committing vacation time to boost …