🗣 Split screen. Covering the climate beat means holding opposing storylines in your head (and occasionally curling up into a fetal position). On the one hand, seven years after the Paris climate agreement, “the path has narrowed” to meet the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 °C, a key tipping point, according to the latest Net Zero Roadmap from the International Energy Agency. Funding to help vulnerable countries green their economies and adapt to a changing climate remains woefully inadequate. On the other, there has never been more innovation, capital and policy focused on climate solutions. The deadline-driven exponential-breakthrough narrative was on full display at Climate Week NYC and this week’s Deploy23 conference, hosted by the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office. “We’re fired up and thinking about how we can move faster,” Tim Hade of Scale Microgrids told me. The loan office, flush with $400 billion to catalyze the deployment of climate solutions, made a $3 billion loan guarantee to Sunnova Energy to bring “virtual power plants” to disadvantaged communities.
🎙️ Call Recap: Labor and capital align in new movement for worker ownership. It’s the age-old struggle: labor vs capital, workers vs. owners. But what happens when employees get a stake in the companies they work for? The evidence suggests motivation, retention and productivity all improve. Now investors are getting on board, seeking the worker ownership edge in buyout funds that finance company conversions to employee ownership (for background, see, “Financing transitions to employee ownership delivers wins for workers – and investors”). This week’s Agents of Impact Call featured investors who are betting that worker ownership is not only good for labor, it’s good for capital, too. The highlights:
Agrifood investing. Complete Farmer scored $10 million to connect Ghana’s smallholder farmers to funders… Impact investment fund Cuna del Mar backed LocalCoho, an Auburn, NY-based indoor salmon farming venture that supplies fish to high-end restaurants… Kern Tec snagged $12.8 million to make dairy alternatives from upcycled produce… Scottish seaweed grower and processor Oceanium raised $2.6 million from Builders Vision, the World Wildlife Fund and other investors… StretchDollar secured $1.6 million in pre-seed funding to help small companies in the US set up healthcare plan stipends for their employees.
JUST Capitalpromoted chief strategy officer Alison Omens to president… Anne Cushing, ex- of ACMC, joined BlueHub Capital as senior vice president of marketing and engagement… Generation Investment Management’s Just Climate namedEduardo Mufarej, ex- of Good Karma Ventures, co-chief investment officer at and head of the firm’s newly launched natural climate solutions.
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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 …
ImpactAlpha, Feb. 9 – The fatal beating by police of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month exposed risks to the city’s finances that have …
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 18 – Cities around the U.S. are raising low-cost capital in the municipal bond markets by highlighting intentional efforts to address long-standing …
ImpactAlpha, September 30 – Capital to support women’s economic growth and financial inclusion is flowing – finally! – in many advanced economies. In emerging …
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 19 – Investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and world leaders have descended on New York for Climate Week, the annual gathering alongside the …
ImpactAlpha, June 27 – ImpactAlpha’s spring season of Agents of Impact Calls spanned a period of tumult in the financial markets: instability in …
ImpactAlpha, June 3 – Just as investment in financial inclusion in Africa was really ramping up, a market downturn threatens to slow progress. Or …
ImpactAlpha, May 13 – One defining outcome of the pandemic: a boom in entrepreneurship. A record five million businesses were started in the …
Host Brian Walsh shares highlights from this week’s agents of impact call, “The employee-ownership edge,” which explored the range of opportunities for investing …
David Bank is joined by Marjorie Kelly of The Democracy Collaborative to explore the ways that impact investors both help and hinder systemic …
🎧 Impact Briefing. Host Brian Walsh chats with Amy Cortese to set the stage for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC. …
David Bank catches up with Robert Munson, President of SOCAP and Managing director at the Sorenson Impact Center, who is putting together next …
Pro Mujer’s Carmen Correa joins host Monique Aiken to share how the pioneering Latin American microfinance institution’s bonds are democratizing gender lens investing …
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 …
Paris Prince of the Intentional Endowments Network joins host Monique Aiken to talk about how impact investors are responding to legal attacks on …
Quito, Ecuador, is more than 9,000 feet above sea level. But even higher than the city are Andean wetlands that filter, store and …
David Bank chats with Acre Africa’s Niza Banda in the next conversation from the recent “Connecting capital to communities” gathering at the Salzburg …
Drawing Africa’s pension funds deeper into impact investing is one of the goals of this week’s Africa Impact Summit in Cape Town, South …
David Bank chats with Empowa’s Glen Jordan in the next conversation from the recent “Connecting Capital to Communities” gathering at the Salzburg Global …
David Bank chats with FarMart’s Samridhi Singh in the next conversation in our series from the recent Salzburg Global Seminar on “Connecting Capital …
When I address you at the GIIN Impact Forum in Copenhagen next week, I’ll be focused on a critical element of our work: …
Heads of state from around the world gathered at the UN Headquarters in New York last week to review the implementation of the …
The impact investing industry is in a unique position in that its main objectives align with those of any (sensible) government. It wants …
Note: This is an abridged version for ImpactAlpha. For all 10 tips, please visit this article on Medium.com. At the end of 2022, …
As world leaders gather in New York City this week for the UN General Assembly and New York Climate Week, investors and funders …
African countries have huge infrastructure needs, and governments need private investment to help meet them, particularly considering increasing climate impacts and green development …
Renewable energy generation and storage opportunities were a key focus at last week’s Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, culminating in $26 billion in new …
Impact investing offers the promise of greater impact per dollar as funds are returned and recycled into new investments that generate new impact. …
This essay is adapted from Marjorie Kelly’s forthcoming book, “Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s …
The European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR, is making waves in the investment industry. The legislative measure, introduced in 2019, …
The temperature was over 110 degrees Fahrenheit the day I met Roopa, a widowed mother of three, on her tiny plot of land …
An increasingly important question for impact investors is how to validate that their investments are having the intended impact on people or the …
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 …
ImpactAlpha, May 5 – John Moore quit his corporate gig and moved to Philadelphia two decades ago. He found a city rich in …
ImpactAlpha, April 28 — A first generation Nigerian-American, Su Sanni grew up in East New York, Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens. The low-income neighborhoods, …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 21 – Attorney and academic Lourdes Germán recognized early the power of public finance. She has spent years working at firms including …
ImpactAlpha, Apr. 14 – “Net zero is not going to get us anywhere,” Ariane Mahler of Veridien Global Investors tells ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. “You …
ImpactAlpha, March 24 – Hundreds of companies and investors this week urged policymakers to protect their “freedom to invest responsibly,” marking a new …
ImpactAlpha, June 13 – Who knows best the needs of a community but members of the community itself? First-time fund managers who understand the …