The Brief

The Week in impact investing: Connectivity and collaboration

ImpactAlpha ¡ September 12, 2025

TGIF, Agents of Impact! 

  • Roundup: Decentralized personal impact networks
  • Podcasts from ImpactAlpha, Community Capital Live and Criterion Institute
  • Spotlight: Carbon Collective’s Zach Stein on the Trump-era oil stock side

🗣 Teamwork makes the dream work. Agents of Impact zig when others zag. In the US, at least, the national mood was colored by division and darkness. The digital pages of ImpactAlpha brimmed with connectivity and collaboration. As the federal government reverses course on climate action, Amy Cortese dug into the All Aboard Coalition’s efforts to bring together more than a dozen venture capital firms to raise a $300 million co-investment fund to finance commercial deployments of promising climate tech solutions. In our podcast conversation, Acumen’s Jacqueline Novogratz detailed how nearly two dozen investors – from philanthropic to catalytic to commercial – have come together to commit $250 million to bring clean energy to some of the hardest-to-reach people still without access to electricity. In at least a dozen US states, communities are assembling bits and pieces of networking equipment to bring affordable broadband access to places where commercial internet service providers fear to tread. Such decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or “DePINs,” represent a new model for community-based digital infrastructure, as Renee Pinto da Silva Barton of the Crypto Council for Innovation wrote in a guest post this week. 

DePIN could also stand for the decentralized personal impact networks that are meeting the fraught present moment. When USAID pulled out of a sustainable development project in the Amazon, the sportswear brand Lululemon stepped up for Cotton Nation, which works with more than 2,500 smallholder families to nurture regenerative cotton farming in 150 communities in Peru, as Erik Stein reported from Lima. Erik also reported on new models of ownership emerging in Latin America to anchor the social impact of mission-driven ventures. Stantec’s Prateek Srivastava invited investors to harvest some of the $1 trillion in valuable materials that are wasted every year in building demolitions. And Lucy Ngige reported on mental health startup Wysa’s efforts to reach young people in India without connectivity, using pen-and-paper versions of their practical guides. As Wysa’s Rhea Yadav told Lucy, “The ability to cultivate self-care and build that skill of resilience is something that needs to be democratized in the world.” Indeed. – David Bank

The Week’s Podcasts

🎧 This Week in Impact. Host Brian Walsh takes up ImpactAlpha’s top stories with editor David Bank. Up this week: The All Aboard Coalition’s effort to mobilize $300 million for venture capital co-investments in first of a kind climate-tech deployments; the fashion brands stepping up to finance sustainable supply chains; and how decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or DePINs, can support sustainable and affordable community services.

🦸 Agents of Impact: How Acumen’s Jacqueline Novogratz is blending capital to bring electricity to the hardest to reach. The nearly two dozen investors in Acumen’s $250 million Hardest-to-Reach Fund for the world’s 700 million people without electricity range from concessionary to commercial. “At the end of the day, there’s a blueprint for what the private sector can do with the right incentives,” Acumen’s Jacqueline Novogratz explains on ImpactAlpha’s latest Agents of Impact podcast. 

🏘️ Community Capital Live: Financing a fairer food system with Justin Abbiss. From regenerative farmers to local grocers and brewers, the Fair Finance Fund is closing capital gaps for small-scale food and farm businesses in Ontario. “Our favorite part of the work is understanding the real problems our clients face – cash flow, operations – and making sure they can thrive,” says Justin Abbiss on the latest Community Capital Live.

📯 The Criterion Institute Podcast: Host Joy Anderson is joined by co-workers Sanjana Chhantyal and Susie Pan to discuss Criterion’s report on the future of gender lens investing. They also preview Criterion’s upcoming Convergence conference and the collective opportunities to advance innovation, imagination and systemic change in gender-lens investing.

The Week’s Spotlight

Why are oil stocks down under Trump? In a private Mar-a-Lago dinner before last year’s election, Donald Trump told oil executives that donating $1 billion to his campaign would be a “deal” because they would more than recoup that in savings, reduced taxation and deregulation. One of his first executive orders declared a “national energy emergency” to push for more oil and gas drilling and boost fossil fuels. “Drill, baby, drill” has become the administration’s mantra. That makes the layoffs and sagging stock prices of oil and gas companies all the more perplexing. Or not. In his latest column, Carbon Collective’s Zach Stein breaks down the economics and structural shifts behind the sector’s woes. 

  • Plummeting demand. Trump himself has been driving down demand for oil. According to the International Energy Agency, “Heightened trade tensions and uncertainty have weighed on the world economy and, by extension, oil demand growth.” Weather-wise, it was a milder winter and summer in much of the world, further reducing demand. Stein says the structural changes in the global energy system include the growing adoption of EVs; the shift to renewable energy, particularly solar, in the interest of energy security; and Saudi Arabia’s strategy to flood the market with its lowest-cost oil and gas. “Oil executives may have thought they were buying a boom,” writes Stein. Demand headwinds and OPEC’s leverage have left the industry on shaky ground. “It is trends like these that make us stand behind our oil-free portfolios as fiduciaries.”
  • Read on. Catch up on all of this week’s dealflow reporting.

The Week’s Talent and Jobs

💼 See and share dozens of 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.

The University of Chicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth welcomed Kristina Costa, previously with Brookings Institution, as managing director of policy and strategic engagement… Zeal Capital Partners added AlignPact’s Tom Blaisdell as senior advisor… Quadria Capital tapped Alykhan Nathoo as operating advisor and member of its investment committee… 100x Impact welcomed Nelson Ng, previously an impact investing partner at New York-based family office Acuie, as its Southeast Asia lead.  

Sustainable Capital Advisors added Grace Coombs as a research and analyst fellow… KawiSafi promoted Angela Muraguri to associate director… Terra Alpha Investments tapped Jean Rogers, founder of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, as an advisory board member… Juan Diego “JD” Vargas, former partner with EQT Infrastructure, joined TPG as a partner and senior member of the TPG Rise Climate Transition Infrastructure team… Energy Impact Partners tapped Ben Feldman, previously with Jane Street, as an events and operations associate. 

Aqua-Spark welcomed Ben Gimson, former investment director with Gatsby Africa, as its Africa lead… Paul Ramsay Foundation added Carolyn Curtis, formerly with the Australian Center for Social Innovation, as chief impact officer… Black Farmer Fund welcomed Washington Cuzco, previously with the Andrew Goodman Foundation, as a finance associate… Dearfield Fund’s Aisha Weeks, New Rising Ventures’ Phill Sanders, and Impact Pollinator’s Arani Kajenthira are among the latest cohort of Justice Economy Institute Fellows.

The NYC Commission on Gender Equity welcomed Priya Nair, previously deputy chief diversity officer of the New York state government, as executive director… Finnfund tapped Otto Ahonen, previously with Deloitte, as an investment analyst… Neeraj Aggarwal, former director of Australian Impact Investments, was appointed director of Australia’s $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund Corp.

That’s a wrap. Have a wonderful weekend. 

– Sept. 12, 2025