Impact Management | July 12, 2022

Five investors that are driving a “race to the top” in impact management

Dennis Price
ImpactAlpha Editor

Dennis Price

ImpactAlpha, Jul. 12 – Stockholm-based Trill Impact, an impact investment firm with more than $1 billion in assets under management, has set itself apart with impact incentives that align with the social and environmental targets of its investees. Such practices have landed Trill on BlueMark’s Practice Leaderboard, highlighting the company’s clients with high scores against the Impact Principles, an industry framework for integrating impact throughout the investment lifecycle.

The leaderboard, featured in BlueMark’s latest Making the Mark report, also includes Bain Capital Double Impact, Finance in Motion, LeapFrog Investments and Nuveen Private Equity Global Impact. The analysis is based on impact-management verifications BlueMark completed for 60 impact investors managing a combined $160 billion in impact assets.

At Trill, impact targets are linked to compensation at its portfolio companies; Trill’s own staff is evaluated on team members’ contributions to the investee’s impact. Trill provides a discount on its financing for companies that achieve their impact targets.

Raising the bar

With increased scrutiny of ESG- and impact oriented investments, “the urgency to effectively channel capital towards companies and projects capable of delivering tangible, measurable, and manageable impact is more acute than ever,” writes BlueMark’s Christina Leijonhufvud.

Only by raising the bar for what constitutes best practice impact performance, says Leijonhufvud, “will we drive a ‘race to the top’ that enables impact investors to deliver on their promise of making the global economy more sustainable.”

Stakeholder input

Roughly 40% of firms integrate impact considerations into staff performance management systems – down from 47% a year ago. And only one in five investors link bonuses or carried interest to impact. On the upside, 28% of investors in the sample now engage with key stakeholders to solicit their input, up from only 11% last year. (Disclosure: Tideline, BlueMark’s parent company, is an ImpactAlpha sponsor.