Alphabit backs Sun Exchange’s crypto-enabled solar finance model

“This alternative finance mechanism will help cities, businesses and potentially private homes to meet their basic needs, knocking off several Global Goals targets at once,” UNDP’s Dumitru Vasilescu said.

EDP backs SolarWorks’ off-grid expansion in Southern Africa

ImpactAlpha, October 8 – The Madrid-based renewable energy company, EDP Renováveis, has invested €2 million ($2.3 million) for a minority stake in Dutch off-grid solar venture SolarWorks. SolarWorks provides pay as you go home solar systems in Mozambique, where only 24% of the population has access to electricity. The capital will be used to support SolarWorks’

First Circle raises $26 million for online small-business lending in Southeast Asia

The online lending firm maps "borrowers’ trading relationships for size and diversity. This enables us to understand the strength of their cash flows,” CEO Patrick Lynch told TechinAsia.

Investors make a pledge toward tobacco-free portfolios

Organizers say the pledge already has support from 130 institutions representing $6.82 trillion in assets.

Beyond Advisors’ Vegan ETF will screen out animal cruelty

ImpactAlpha, October 2 – Veganism was bound to hit the mainstream financial markets, given all the private capital investing in a meat-free future. (Or, at least, a reared-animal meat-free future. There’s that lab-grown trend, after all.) Investment firm Beyond Investing launched last year to build a pipeline of public and private investments that are vegan-friendly.

Blending finance and measuring impact for the UN Global Goals

As expected, news and announcements are streaming out of convenings in and around the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York.

Six steps for expanding impact investment products that advance the Sustainable Development Goals

Progress towards mobilizing investment towards the Sustainable Development Goals has been slow and thin, write Rockefeller Foundation’s Lorenzo Bernasconi and Carolien de Bruin and Josephine Damstra of C-Change, an Amsterdam-based impact strategy consultant.
They call for solutions “to achieving a step-change in the number and scale of ‘fit-for- purpose’ investment products that are SDG-aligned."