TGIF, Agents of Impact!
- Roundup: Spotting openings
- Podcast: Emerging market mood
- Signal: Milestone for ‘de-extinction’
- Spotlight: Biodiversity finance in Europe
🗣 Openings and opportunities. “There’ll be a little disturbance,” US President Donald Trump acknowledged in this week’s address to Congress. As markets plunged and companies warned of price hikes, the blusterer-in-chief paused for at least a month most of his market-roiling tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods. Pushing back, it turns out, works. Federal courts and attorneys have been swatting down some of Trump’s more blatant overreaches. The Supreme Court this week upheld a lower court ruling to release $2 billion in foreign aid for already completed work, as Isaac Silk noted, while a federal judge barred the administration from “pausing, freezing, blocking, canceling, suspending, terminating or otherwise impeding the disbursement of appropriated federal funds.” That includes the Environmental Protection Agency’s “green bank” program, which was set up to facilitate low-cost loans for energy retrofits, solar panels and electric buses in low-income communities. One of the awardees of the program, Calvert Impact-led Climate United, fired off its own legal missive to the EPA, demanding answers and the release of $7 billion in appropriated funds frozen at Citibank, as Dennis Price and I reported. The group is preparing to file a lawsuit. On next Wednesday’s Plugged In call, Sherrell Dorsey will check in with another awardee, Amir Kirkwood of Justice Climate Fund, on continuing the work despite the uncertainty (RSVP now).
Amid the chaos, openings are emerging. Trump may try to beat back renewable energy and clean tech, but the economic case trumps (so to speak) short-term policy. That can be seen in the bipartisan support for technologies such as next-generation nuclear reactors, geothermal energy and sustainable aviation fuel, as Clint Wilder illuminated. Helping workers gain ownership stakes in their employers plays to both populist and impact crowds. The Predistribution Initiative’s Delilah Rothenberg and Juan Jardon-Pina spot an opportunity to lift up such strategies in Africa. In a world awash in disinformation and propaganda, stories and art can be a powerful way to cut through the noise. Dmitriy Ioselevich kicked off his Rotten Tomatoes-for-impact reviews – just in time for the Oscars. And as other advanced economies follow the lead of the US and slash aid and climate funding, climate diplomats gathered to chart a path forward for adaptation and resilience funding, Louie Woodall reported from Brazil. (Hint: it involves crowding in private capital).
In the yin-yang of LP-GP dynamics, investors in private impact funds, like Jessica Droste Yagan and Priya Parrish of Chicago-based Impact Engine, are differentiating themselves on how much they can improve the impact outcomes, and ultimately the financial returns, of the GPs they invest in. Capricorn, the asset management firm founded by former eBay president Jeff Skoll, is investing in innovative fund managers that are poised to scale impact financing. “We want to help capitalize and grow the asset management industry that is purpose-built to deploy this capital,” Capricorn’s Bill Orum told me. When federal funding and policies fail us, the actions of the private sector become even more critical. “This is the time for urgent, constructive conversation, minus the presumption of imperial fealty,” Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Times research fellow Stephen Henriques wrote in an op-ed urging CEOs to stand up. “When single voices are shouted down, a chorus breaks through.” – Amy Cortese
The Week’s Podcast
🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh chats with ImpactAlpha’s senior reporter Lucy Ngige. Up this week: Why the mood at two impact investing conferences in Nairobi was hopeful, despite the US foreign aid freeze. Plus, a roundup of some of the most interesting recent emerging markets deals.
- Listen to the new episode of This Week in Impact. Get the podcast in your feed by subscribing on Apple or Spotify.
The Week’s Signal
Colossal’s woolly mouse paves the way for woolly mammoth ‘de-extinction.’ Mammoth it is not. But Colossal Biosciences’ “woolly mouse” is an important step in the biotech startup’s plan to resurrect traits of the woolly mammoth, which last trod the earth some 4,000 years ago. “The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission,” said the company’s Ben Lamm. “By engineering multiple cold-tolerant traits from mammoth evolutionary pathways into a living model species, we’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create (for background, see “Colossal Biosciences raises $200 million to revive the mammoth and other lost species”).
- Of mice and mammoths. Colossal plans to edit DNA cells of an Asian elephant, the mammoth’s closest living relative, with traits assembled from preserved DNA to produce a mammoth-like elephant that can withstand the cold. The logic is that the stomping and grazing of the animals could help restore arctic tundra to nutrient-rich grasslands that support biodiversity, and compress carbon-laden permafrost to prevent melting (how the creatures will learn to graze and survive is a separate question). Colossal says its research and technology can also help preserve species that have not yet gone extinct. The woolly mice, alas, will not be released into the wild.
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The Week’s Deal Spotlight
Biodiversity funds gain momentum in Europe. Last month in Rome, leaders from more than 140 countries agreed to mobilize $200 billion per year to reverse losses from biological diversity, which the UN has called “our strongest natural defense against climate change.” The leaders deferred to 2028 a decision to establish a fund to finance biodiversity projects. More than $700 billion a year is needed to close the global biodiversity financing gap. Private fund managers are stepping up, as institutional investor demand grows – especially in Europe – for nature-based conservation and restoration projects. “There has been a growing focus among investors to consider not just pure climate targets but also maintaining and improving biodiversity,” said Bram Bos of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which is looking to raise up to $500 million for a fixed-income biodiversity impact fund.
- Sustainability bonds. The Goldman Sachs Biodiversity Bond fund will invest in bonds in which proceeds support biodiversity conservation and remediation projects. The fund will target corporate issuers of green, social and sustainability bonds as defined by the Green Bond Principles. It will also invest in alignment with the European Commission’s taxonomy for sustainable activities and Article 9 of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (for background see, “The European Union is poised to scale back its ambitious climate finance regulations, too”). New York-based Goldman Sachs says it will restrict investments from companies involved in “controversial activities,” including the extraction and production of fossil fuels.
- Nature-based finance. Also in Europe this week, French impact investor Eurazeo secured €300 million ($318.5 million) for the first close of its Planetary Boundaries Fund, based on the framework developed by Johan Rockström at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The impact buyout fund, which has a target of €750 million ($796 million), received commitments from European financial institutions, asset managers and family offices. “We are witnessing significant momentum as investors recognize the need and opportunity to scale businesses providing solutions toward the environment,” said Eurazeo’s Sophie Flak.
- Shades of green. Other biodiversity-focused vehicles in Europe include Rewilding Europe Capital, an impact debt fund backed by the European Investment Bank that finances nature-based businesses; Mirova’s Sustainable Land Use fund, a blended-finance fund with a €350 million target for investments that decarbonize forests and restore degraded land; and Greensphere Capital’s nature-based impact venture capital fund, which is seeking £150 million ($193.2 million) to commercialize solutions for climate change and biodiversity loss.
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The Week’s Talent and Jobs
💼 See and share more than a dozen new impact jobs posted this week on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub and view hundreds of more jobs in impact investing and sustainable finance. Have a job listing to post? Submit it here.
Mark Berryman and Nick Flores, formerly of Caprock, join Capricorn Investment Group as partners. Berryman will join Capricorn’s Investment Committee (see, “The ranks of ‘impact alpha’ fund managers expand, along with client demand and the talent pipeline”)… Eric Glass, previously with AllianceBernstein, stood up Clarion Call Capital to “direct fixed income investments toward what has been neglected for too long – municipal infrastructure that delivers real value, without extraction or exploitation” (for background, see “‘You can’t do impact on a passive basis”).
BlueMark added Nick O’Donohoe, ex-CEO of British International Investment, to its board of directors… Eli Kasargod-Staub, who stepped down recently as head of Majority Action, launched Capital Ideas, LLC, a strategy consultancy… Energy Impact Partners welcomed Lauryn Poyser, previously with Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund, as an investment associate… DC Advisory hired Jacque Noel, ex-of Scotia Bank, as a director in its Global Infrastructure Group.
Washington, DC-based impact fund manager Zeal Capital Partners promoted Stefanie Thomas from managing director to partner… Nonprofit Finance Fund brought on Kareem Thomas, formerly with Reinvestment Fund, as chief credit officer, and named Bhavani Daryanani, previously with Capital for Change, as chief financial officer… Rebecca Brown, former vice president of Global Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, joined the Center for International Environmental Law as president and CEO… Alex Struc, previously with Goalsfirst and PIMCO, joined Standard Chartered as managing director.
Robin Peterson Gibbs, previously with Brown University, joined Social Finance as its first chief philanthropy officer. Alexis Stoller also joins the team as vice president and head of communications… UBS Optimus Foundation promoted Gayatri Suri to director of social finance… Browning the Green Space added Tatiana Soto, previously with Teach For America, as program manager… Lightrock appointed Samir Abhyankar, previously with British International Investment, as partner and head of India to lead its expansion in the region.
That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend.
– March 7, 2025
