Family offices warm to investment opportunities in the climate transition. As much as $200 trillion in investment is needed by 2050 to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to BloombergNEF. That’s many multiples of today’s level of climate investments. The more than 4,500 family offices globally that manage $6 trillion in wealth are poised to play a critical role in getting philanthropic and investment dollars off the sidelines and into climate solutions. “These are trillion-dollar issues,” writes Bruce McNamer of Builders Initiative, the grant and catalytic investment arm of Walmart heir Lukas Walton's Builders Vision. “To move these transitions forward faster, we need to attract and unlock additional capital.” The family office makes R&D grants for promising innovations, investments to bring technologies down the cost curve, anchor investments in early stage companies and funds, and it engages with public companies and its family office peers. Says McNamer, “It is the ability to engage in these kinds of wide-ranging capital deployment and influencing activities that make family offices potentially important players.”
Franchising indoor farms to build a billion dollars in Black wealth (podcast). Two years ago, Loren Taylor missed out on becoming mayor of Oakland, Calif. by 677 votes. “But who’s counting?” jokes Taylor on this week’s Agents of Impact podcast. The biomedical engineer-turned-city council member has turned to business to tackle racial wealth gap. As CEO of Zarû Systems, he has the ambitious goal of growing Black wealth by a billion dollars through 1,000 businesses worth at least $1 million each. “We’re focused on bridging the racial wealth gap – unapologetically,” Taylor says. Zarû’s first business application: modular, turnkey indoor farms run by local owner-operators.
Next Billion raises capital to invest in digital infrastructure and services in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The investment firm Next Billion Capital Partners funds tech ventures supporting access to basic services in emerging markets. It reached a first close for its debut Digital Growth Fund with backing from Impact Engine, Capricorn Investment Group, responsAbility and other investors. The fund provides up to $15 million in growth equity to companies delivering financial services, insurance, healthcare and education to women, low-income households and small businesses in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Next Billion is looking to raise $250 million.
FreeCap’s ‘decarceration index’ highlights companies that are outcompeting with fair-chance hiring. The US economy is generating more jobs than there are workers to fill them. To address shortages and compete for talent, companies like Walmart, Apple, Alphabet and JPMorgan Chase are recruiting, training and hiring from a pool of more than 70 million formerly incarcerated workers, who have faced rampant discrimination in the job market. A new "decarceration index" from FreeCap Financial helps investors identify companies with leading fair-chance hiring practices. Companies “able to hire people with arrest records are going to be in a better position to compete in the labor market in the future,” says Tanay Tatum-Edwards of FreeCap. The data provider that helps quantify the prison industrial complex for investors.
Economist Lawrence Summers joins the advisory board of residential solar provider Palmetto… Runway is hiring a chief lending officer… Gavi is hiring a head of private sector partnerships and innovation in Geneva… Also in Switzerland, Impactful Business Networks is recruiting a global CEO.
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 …
When one door closes, another one opens. For Zarû Systems’ Loren Taylor, that second door may open onto a self-contained modular vertical farm …
🎧 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 …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
In the realm of AI discourse, much attention is directed towards fostering responsible development of the technology itself (e.g. Is it free from …
Developing an investment strategy that meets our fiduciary requirements as resource stewards, embodies our racial justice values, and prioritizes the communities we serve …
(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 …
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 …
Family offices warm to investment opportunities in the climate transition. As much as $200 trillion in investment is needed by 2050 to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to BloombergNEF. That’s many multiples of today’s level of climate investments. The more than 4,500 family offices globally that manage $6 trillion in wealth are poised to play a critical role in getting philanthropic and investment dollars off the sidelines and into climate solutions. “These are trillion-dollar issues,” writes Bruce McNamer of Builders Initiative, the grant and catalytic investment arm of Walmart heir Lukas Walton's Builders Vision. “To move these transitions forward faster, we need to attract and unlock additional capital.” The family office makes R&D grants for promising innovations, investments to bring technologies down the cost curve, anchor investments in early stage companies and funds, and it engages with public companies and its family office peers. Says McNamer, “It is the ability to engage in these kinds of wide-ranging capital deployment and influencing activities that make family offices potentially important players.”
Franchising indoor farms to build a billion dollars in Black wealth (podcast). Two years ago, Loren Taylor missed out on becoming mayor of Oakland, Calif. by 677 votes. “But who’s counting?” jokes Taylor on this week’s Agents of Impact podcast. The biomedical engineer-turned-city council member has turned to business to tackle racial wealth gap. As CEO of Zarû Systems, he has the ambitious goal of growing Black wealth by a billion dollars through 1,000 businesses worth at least $1 million each. “We’re focused on bridging the racial wealth gap – unapologetically,” Taylor says. Zarû’s first business application: modular, turnkey indoor farms run by local owner-operators.
Next Billion raises capital to invest in digital infrastructure and services in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The investment firm Next Billion Capital Partners funds tech ventures supporting access to basic services in emerging markets. It reached a first close for its debut Digital Growth Fund with backing from Impact Engine, Capricorn Investment Group, responsAbility and other investors. The fund provides up to $15 million in growth equity to companies delivering financial services, insurance, healthcare and education to women, low-income households and small businesses in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Next Billion is looking to raise $250 million.
FreeCap’s ‘decarceration index’ highlights companies that are outcompeting with fair-chance hiring. The US economy is generating more jobs than there are workers to fill them. To address shortages and compete for talent, companies like Walmart, Apple, Alphabet and JPMorgan Chase are recruiting, training and hiring from a pool of more than 70 million formerly incarcerated workers, who have faced rampant discrimination in the job market. A new "decarceration index" from FreeCap Financial helps investors identify companies with leading fair-chance hiring practices. Companies “able to hire people with arrest records are going to be in a better position to compete in the labor market in the future,” says Tanay Tatum-Edwards of FreeCap. The data provider that helps quantify the prison industrial complex for investors.
Economist Lawrence Summers joins the advisory board of residential solar provider Palmetto… Runway is hiring a chief lending officer… Gavi is hiring a head of private sector partnerships and innovation in Geneva… Also in Switzerland, Impactful Business Networks is recruiting a global CEO.
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 …
When one door closes, another one opens. For Zarû Systems’ Loren Taylor, that second door may open onto a self-contained modular vertical farm …
🎧 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 …
This article is part of a partnership between ImpactAlpha and Mission Investors Exchange (MIE) to present new ideas and perspectives in impact investing. …
In the realm of AI discourse, much attention is directed towards fostering responsible development of the technology itself (e.g. Is it free from …
Developing an investment strategy that meets our fiduciary requirements as resource stewards, embodies our racial justice values, and prioritizes the communities we serve …
(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 …
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 …
Virtual reality “for good” has been having its moment ever since several 360-degree films stirred empathy for Syrian refugees. The Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC launched a $10 million impact fund to invest in virtual reality startups with storytelling projects around the Global Goals for sustainable development.
Photo credit: Dan Mason / Flickr
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