USAID crisis forces a reckoning – and remaking – of international development
It’s 2050 and we are no longer worried about climate change. How did we get here? To paraphrase climate activist and marine biologist …
Credit: Danish Refugee Council
Tagged with: Long-termism
New global financial pact advances innovative financial solutions and commitments to system change
ImpactAlpha, June 26 – World leaders took steps to upgrade the global financial architecture that has saddled low- and middle-income countries with debt …
Amy Novogratz and Mike Velings | Photo by Aqua-Spark.
Aqua-Spark secures €15 million from Silverstrand Capital for sustainable aquaculture
ImpactAlpha, December 5 — Utrecht-based impact fund Aqua-Spark has secured a €15 million ($15.8 million) investment from Singapore-based family office Silverstrand Capital. The …
Is a green transition the cause – or the solution – in Sri Lanka’s crisis?
ImpactAlpha, July 14 – It was an irresistible meme: A crash transition to organic farming tanked Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector and sent the country …
Photo credit: ImpactAlpha
Investments in agtech, fintech and climate tech can speed Kenya’s COVID recovery
ImpactAlpha, November 3 – Daily life is gradually returning to normal in Kenya 19 months into the pandemic. But businesses and jobs have …
Photo credit: Great River Energy
Form Energy scores backing from TPG’s $5.4 billion climate fund
ImpactAlpha, August 24 – Form Energy recently declared a breakthrough for its iron and air-based battery that will enable renewable energy projects to …
Europe paves path to standardized ESG disclosure with Sustainability Reporting Directive
ImpactAlpha, June 21 – What a difference a year makes. U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement on the first day …
A resilient pandemic recovery requires faster, cheaper pay-for-success initiatives
ImpactAlpha, June 1 – Pay-for-success financing represents an opportunity to fund new social services and build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic. But deal …
Overheard at Phenix Capital: Making the connections between social and environmental impact
ImpactAlpha, April 1 – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls the the E.U.’s ambitious plan to become carbon neutral by 2050, “our …
There’s a new impact sheriff in town: activist hedge funds
ImpactAlpha, December 8 – Environmental and social laggards beware. A growing set of hedge funds are redefining “activist shareholder” to mean pressure for …
Investor protests fail to stop Trump administration rule squelching ESG investing
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 2 – It’s final – at least until it’s reversed. The U.S. Department of Labor finalized an unpopular rule aimed at …
Economics trump politics as the smart money bets big on clean electrification
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 27 – Joe Biden need not be defensive about his accidentally honest statement at last week’s debate, “I would transition from …
SOCAP takes stock of impact investing in a changed world
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 22 – The different mood at this week’s impact investing gathering reflected not just the contrast between an online event and …
Impact Engine steps into private equity with $31 million growth fund
ImpactAlpha, October 20 – Early-stage fundraising is difficult. Finding mission-aligned growth capital can be just as hard. Most of the few impact-oriented private …
Investors see a ‘blue wave’ of growth opportunities in sustainability and inclusion
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 15 – “Pro-business” really does have a new meaning. Just a few weeks ago, U.S. investors were said to be fretting about …
Four scenarios for the energy transition in the age of COVID
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 14 – The COVID pandemic “has caused more disruption to the energy sector than any other event in recent history,” opens …
Generate Capital forges $600 million partnership with sustainable energy financier Alturus
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 8 – Generate will take an undisclosed minority stake in Boston-based Alturus and provide up to $600 million in financing for …
Helping companies make good on their commitments to stakeholders
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 7 – When 181 members of the Business Roundtable signed on to a new statement of corporate purpose a year ago, …
Biodiversity summit aims to increase urgency and financing to avert ecosystem collapse
ImpactAlpha, Oct. 1 – If you think things already are bad, consider that we’re also hurtling towards what scientists are calling Earth’s sixth …
The new North Star for corporate sustainability: Net zero
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 23 – The race is on to get to zero emissions. Joining the list of corporations pledging to reach net-zero emissions …
Climate Week preview: Fusing climate action and the SDGs to the COVID recovery
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 14 – Wildfires raging across the U.S. west coast. Intentional burning ravaging tropical rainforests. Flooding in Bangladesh, India and West Africa. …
U.S. regulator urges a price on carbon to stem climate risks
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 10 – As wildfires tinged California skies an eerie orange, a key government regulator warned that climate change poses serious risks …
Visa and Alphabet issue more than $6 billion in green bonds
ImpactAlpha, August 11 – The proceeds from Visa’s $500 million green bond issuance are slated for investments in green buildings, renewable energy, water and …
Active fund managers fret as investors pour money into “passive” ESG funds
ImpactAlpha, July 29 – Net inflows to low-cost, passively managed environmental, social, and governance funds totaled $12.7 billion in 2019, compared to $8.7 billion …
Investors find common cause in pushing back against Trump’s anti-ESG rules
ImpactAlpha, July 23 –Investors may debate the merits of competing sustainability frameworks, or which environmental or social factors are truly material to corporate …
With all eyes on BlackRock, asset manager’s ‘stewardship’ falls short on climate action
ImpactAlpha, July 15 – Our house is on fire. Let’s keep an eye on it. That was the takeaway from BlackRock’s disclosure of …
Trump administration seeks to turn back the ESG tide
ImpactAlpha, July 14 – Investors are flocking to funds keyed to environmental, social and governance factors, or ESG. The Trump administration is trying …
How 10x tech can drive 10x impact in 10 years
ImpactAlpha, June 29 – The start of a global recession in the middle of a pandemic that has laid bare structural inequality and …
Bernard Looney
Write-downs of stranded fossil fuel assets are here – and getting bigger
ImpactAlpha, June 16 – Oil major BP lowered its long-term price assumptions for oil and gas by almost one-third, and hiked its estimate …
Realizing the risk of ignoring shareholder climate resolutions
ImpactAlpha, May 21 – Massive flooding in Midland, Michigan on Wednesday threatened to release chemicals from a Dow chemical complex, where products ranging …
Stakeholders stake new claims on corporate cash to finance an inclusive recovery
ImpactAlpha, May, 19 – Buy back this. That’s the increasingly loud message from employees, suppliers, communities and customers – all essential stakeholders in …
Beyond Buybacks: 10 ways to put corporate cash to work
ImpactAlpha, May 19 – Even in the new stakeholder economy, suppliers, communities, customers and employees largely still lack the clout to steer the …
Climate makes a comeback in coronavirus recovery plans (just don’t call it climate action)
ImpactAlpha, May 14 – The science was undermined. The economics were ignored. But the case for jobs and livelihoods in the wake of …
Oil industry reckoning puts focus on pay incentives
ImpactAlpha, May 12 – The COVID crisis cratered demand, and prices, for oil. Now it’s forcing oil and gas majors to reckon with …
‘Stewardship’ under scrutiny as shareholder season gets started
ImpactAlpha. April 28 – Even before the COVID crisis, this year’s annual general meeting season was shaping up as pivotal. The springtime ritual …
Green swans and the new economic order: an Earth Day conversation with John Elkington
ImpactAlpha, April 23 – Whether or not the COVID-19 crisis qualifies as a ‘black swan’ – global pandemics have been widely predicted for …
Seychelle’s successful ‘debt-for-conservation’ deal paves the way for more blue bonds
Four years ago, the Seychelles government signed a groundbreaking deal with The Nature Conservancy to refinance sovereign debt at a discount in return …
How impact investors can help their portfolio companies survive the COVID-19 crisis
ImpactAlpha, March, 18 – As impact specialists in the “everyday emergency room of impact” borrowers tend to come to our organization, Open Road …
Japanese pension fund pushes asset managers to get tougher on sustainability
Impactalpha, Nov. 25 – A shift of up to $50 billion by the world’s largest pension fund has sent a message to the world’s …
John McDonnell
Stock market climate mandates are on the ballot in U.K. election
ImpactAlpha, Nov. 21 – Companies that are not adequately addressing the “existential crisis” of climate change could be delisted from the London Stock …
UC to shed “risky” fossil fuels from $83 billion of funds
ImpactAlpha, Sept. 17 – University of California students have waged a long-running campaign to divest the school’s $13.4 billion endowment from fossil fuels. …
On guns, faith-based investors provide an object lesson in shareholder engagement
ImpactAlpha, September 11 – Just after the mass shooting at an El Paso in Walmart that killed 22 people, David Schilling sent his condolences …
Forest risk: Losses – and opportunities – mount in corporate supply chains
ImpactAlpha, July 16 – Global corporations including Walmart, Estee Lauder and IKEA are putting their brands and supply chains at risk by failing to …
Financing inclusive growth at Palladium’s Positive Impact Summit
New York, NY – Investors, executives and other industry experts gathered in New York this week at Palladium’s “impact at scale” summit. The …
How negative can carbontech entrepreneurs go?
ImpactAlpha, April 3 — The goal of carbon-neutrality is passé, if as yet unrealized. With climate change hard upon us, startups are aiming …