What Is An Impact Investment Fund

Impact Investing Esg Socially Responsible Investing: What’s The Difference

Environmental, social, and governance , socially responsible investing , and impact investing are sometimes used interchangeably. All three do involve the strategy of considering ethical values alongside financial values when evaluating investments. The issues that concern them overlap too.

But there are also some key differences.

ESG standards help socially conscious investors gauge a company’s commitment to ethical business practices. While no single ESG rating system is used industry-wide, popular ESG data-providers include MSCI, Morningstar, Bloomberg, Sustainalytics, and more.

With SRI, investors purposefully avoid companies with products or business principles that don’t align with their values. For example, SRI investors may choose to eliminate all companies that produce tobacco products or use child labor from their portfolios.

The biggest difference between ESG and SRI is that ESG tends to be inclusive and SRI exclusive. An ESG-conscious investor may still invest in companies that aren’t ranked as highly as others, especially if they’ve expressed a commitment to improvement. But, with SRI, negative investments are typically screened out completely based on the investor’s filtering criteria.

Admittedly, it can seem a bit hair-splitting. One key point, though, is that impact investing, as the name implies, targets investments, initiatives, and companies that show measurable results not just good intentions.

Impact Made By Shareholder Advocacy:

• Morningstar reported that the average support for environmental and social shareholder resolutions hit a record 34% from July 2020 to June 2021. Support for the 26 climate-related resolutions rose to 51%.

• Domini Investments, a sustainable investment firm, releases quarterly impact reports. According to its Q3 2020 report, Domini Investments sent letters to 161 CEOs and board chairs calling for firms to develop net-zero business strategies and announced that the fund will not invest in any company without representation of women on either its executive management team or board of directors.

While lots of companies claim to be making an impact, their claims can sometimes be exaggerated or simply untrue. This is called greenwashing, and it threatens the legitimacy of well-meaning companies and investments.

Types Of Impact Investments

Impact investments come in many different forms of capital and investment vehicles. Like any other type of investment class, impact investments provide investors with a range of possibilities when it comes to returns. But the most important thing is that these investments offer both a financial return and are in line with the investor’s conscience.

According to a survey by the Global Impact Investing Network , the majority of investors who choose impact investing look for market-rate returns.

The opportunity for impact investments varies and investors may choose to put their money into emerging markets or developed economies. Impact investments span a number of industries including:

• Healthcare
• Energy, especially clean and renewable energy
• Agriculture

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Find A Financial Advisor

Okay, we cant begin to stress how important it is to work with a financial advisor. It doesnt matter if youre just starting out or if youve been investing for years. Having a pro on your side to help you make confident decisions about your investments is always a good idea!

Need help finding a qualified investing pro? Try our SmartVestor program. With SmartVestor, you can find financial advisors who understand your goals and help you make sense of all your investing options.

About the author

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Environmental Social And Governance Investing

Impact investors often use environmental, social and governance, or ESG factors, which are a set of guiding principles that focus on environmental, social and corporate governance concerns, when choosing investments.

Many independent research firms use ESG scores to help grade investments along an ethical curve. For example, if youre creating an impact portfolio focused on the environment, you may look for investments that receive a high ESG score in the environmental category.

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Harnessing Markets To Scale Change

Omidyar Network

Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and his wife Pam believe that the power of markets can create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Thats why they started a philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network , in 2004.

Every year, they forego millions of dollars in potential tax deductions to be able to combine grantmaking and investment outside the normal umbrella of a foundation.

Why?

Through the experience of building eBay, they discovered the potential of unleashing market forces for good. They believe that scaling innovative organizations can be the best way to achieve impact and that scale can and should be attained through multiple pathways. This means that their social impact activities operate through both nonprofit and for-profit means. ONs organizational structure allows it to practice traditional philanthropy, make investments in worthy companies for a return, and influence policies that affect the enabling conditions for its grantees and investees to thrive for example, encouraging laws allowing charitable tax deductions, or engaging in policy discussions about interest rates for microfinance institutions. These interrelated goals reflect ONs strategic intent: to create systemic change.

To support that process, the Omidyar Network provided bridge funding a low-interest loan that offered MicroEnsure flexibility and time to put all the pieces together to make the transition into a commercial venture.

Resources & Glossary

Social Impact Investment Fund

The Social Impact Investment Fund is a student run Melbourne University society with an empirical focus of uniting stock portfolio management and charitable endeavours. Utilising our live student managed fund, we strive for high market returns, distributing 100% of capital gains and dividends to several socially impactful organisations, elected by our members. In addition, we seek to educate and provide real exposure to the world of equities trading, spawning a gateway for all our members to explore a large sector of the financial industry and to provide professional networking opportunities to advance our members commercial employability.

Club Aims:

Social Impact Investment FundMailbox 23, Level 1 Union HouseThe University of Melbourne, Vic, 3010

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What Will Your Impact Be

In all of this, the perfect need not be the enemy of the good. We may decide not to weigh in on certain issues and to allow pluralism in beliefs on certain subjects in our portfolios. No company or investment firm will hold exactly our values, nor should they. But we can at least be conscious of the most important values our portfolios proactively represent.

Almost all of us have a stake in global markets, and those stakes can have purpose. They can also be used to forward agendas and causes misaligned with your most fundamental beliefs. If all investing is impact investing, what impact will you have?

This article was originally published in On Purpose, John Colemans newsletter.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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A Dedicated Governance Structure

To ensure that UBPs approach meets the most stringent impact criteria, the Bank has formalised its governance arrangements in this area by setting up two dedicated entities, the Impact Advisory Board and the Impact Investment Committee.

The Impact Advisory Board

The Impact Advisory Board is chaired by Anne Rotman de Picciotto, a member of UBPs Board of Directors. Its role is to take thought leadership drawn from external experts in fields outside of investment management and embed it into the Banks impact platform. The Board meets every six months to review the impact case behind companies held in UBPs impact investment solutions. The Impact Advisory Boards external sustainability experts are:

• Jake Reynolds, Executive Director, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
• Kanini Mutooni, Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Toniic, the global action network for impact investors
• Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, the UK governments official nature conservation agency, and a campaigner, writer and sustainability adviser as well as Executive Director for Advocacy and Campaigns for WWF-UK.

Please find the latest Impact Advisory Board Minutes here.

The Impact Investment Committee

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What You Need To Know About Impact Investing

Investors around the world are making impact investments to unleash the power of capital for good. Continue reading to learn about the core characteristics of impact investing, who is making impact investments, the results these investments can achieve, and more. A version of this primer, answering many of the most frequently asked questions about impact investing, is available for download as well. Share it with a friend or on social media.

Impact Investing: An Introduction

This guide is part of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Philanthropy Roadmap series, and acts as an introduction to impact investing. To begin developing and implementing your impact investing strategy, we encourage you to read our accompanying guide Impact Investing: Strategy and Action.

What is Impact Investing?

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Elements Of Impact Investing

The practice of impact investing is further defined by the following elements.

Note: On April 3, 2019, the GIIN published the Core Characteristics of Impact Investing, which complement this definition and aim to provide even further clarity about how to approach impact investing. View these four tenets that establish baseline expectations for impact investing, here >

INTENTIONALITY An investors intention to have a positive social or environmental impact through investments is essential to impact investing.

INVESTMENT WITH RETURN EXPECTATIONS Impact investments are expected to generate a financial return on capital or, at minimum, a return of capital.

RANGE OF RETURN EXPECTATIONS AND ASSET CLASSES Impact investments target financial returns that range from below market to risk-adjusted market rate, and can be made across asset classes, including but not limited to cash equivalents, fixed income, venture capital, and private equity.

IMPACT MEASUREMENT A hallmark of impact investing is the commitment of the investor to measure and report the social and environmental performance and progress of underlying investments, ensuring transparency and accountability while informing the practice of impact investing and building the field.

How Impactful Is Impact Investing

There is considerable debate regarding how successful impact investing is in achieving its desired goals. Additionally, there is also debate on how well impact investments perform. Some reports show impact investments perform better than traditional investment strategies, while other studies indicate that impact investments usually only provide below-average returns.

The success of impact investing is a complicated issue. For example, consider an impact investor who, to promote environmental benefits, invests in a companys stock in the solar power industry. But what if the company they choose to invest in is, in fact, a company that performs relatively poorly compared to its competitors in the industry however, the money it receives from the impact investor enables it to overpower its competitors. You may see a situation where a company that does a poor job of providing solar energy becomes the dominant company in the industry.

Additional problems in assessing impact investing results stem from the fact that impact investments often lack methods or processes for measuring the tangible effects that corporate social or environmental policies actually provide. Many companies commitment to socially or environmentally responsible practices is little more than just a commitment with little or no action.

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Does Impact Investing Really Work

Just because a bunch of your well-meaning friends are diving into the world of socially responsible investing doesnt mean its the right choice for you. Lets dig a little deeper.

Like we mentioned earlier, socially responsible investing has two goals: to make a difference in the world and to make the investor money. So how does impact investing work for both sides? Lets take a look.

Targeting Healthy Financial Returns

We invest with the intention to realise positive change, combined with a long-term healthy financial return. This intention is our starting point and driven by the notion that money is a means and not an end in itself. Focusing on both social and financial return will result in an optimal allocation of capital, equally for both our investors and investees.

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Some Examples Of Impact Investing

Let’s say that you’re passionate about environmental issues like reducing carbon emissions and the use of non-recyclable materials. To find an impact fund that suits you, you may start by checking out the “Best for the Environment Funds” on BTheChange.com.

After perusing the list, you visit the website for Arborview Capital, a firm that invests in businesses that support each of the environmental goals listed above and more. Feeling strongly that your values align, you make the decision to invest in the Arborview Capital Partners II LP fund.

In another example, imagine that you feel strongly about investing in local businesses that serve low-income communities. In that case, you may be drawn towards investing with the Reinvestment Fund.

Reinvestment Fund’s promissory note program supports the “triple bottom line” of People, Planet, and Profit. After reviewing your note options, you decide to invest in a 7-to-9-year promissory note that will pay you back at an interest rate of 2.25%.

Impact Investing V Esg V Sri V Active Ownership

While Impact investing, ESG , SRI and active ownership are different approaches, there is often overlap in the way that they assess the ethical credentials of investments.

ESG investing uses environmental, social, and governance criteria to screen potential investments alongside traditional financial measures .

Socially responsible investing sets certain conditions for social responsibility using ESG considerations and then invests in businesses that meet those standards. This could be using positive or negative screening.

Active ownership involves engaging with companies on ethical concerns that affect their long-term growth or pose a reputational, social or environmental risk. Using your power as a shareholder can positively influence corporate behaviour. For more on this visit the ShareAction website. This campaign organisation helps consumers and larger investors engage with companies.

Impact investments focus on helping businesses that are doing something positive and are specifically designed to meet particular goals as discussed above. Impact investments also tend to take a much longer term view of the investment rather than looking for quick returns.

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Why Is Social Investment Used In Contracts For The Delivery Of Public Services Or Social Interventions

The main mechanism linking public service delivery or social interventions to social investment is the impact bond. As we explain in our introduction to impact bonds these are not really bonds. They are an evolution of a form of public contract that has been around a long time, often called payment by results , pay for success , or outcome-based contracting . Instead of paying outside parties for a service upfront to deliver a specific set of activities, the government or outcome payer specifies the results it wants, and if it gets it, pays for that after the service delivery has started. Because the payment is made in arrears, the service provider has to find a way to fund the service upfront. Some do this using cash reserves . Others will borrow from the bank, but this is risky – they will have to pay the money back even if they dont get the results and the government doesnt pay them. A third category will seek a financier willing to share that risk with them. When this happens, it is known as an impact bond, and social investors, often through social investment fund managers, tend to provide the capital.

Because of this risk-sharing element in impact bonds, the rate of return could appear higher than you might expect from a bank loan, or similar. Some of the return might be kept by the fund manager to compensate them for managing the investment. The rest will go back to the asset owners.

Impact Investing At Ifc

For six decades, IFC has been at the forefront of impact investing in emerging markets. Over the years, others joined us in the search for impact and returns. We work with a wide range of private investors and development finance institutions to mobilize the trillions of dollars in financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals , including from investors motivated by impact as well as financial returns. And we collaborate with other institutions and investors to help the impact investing market scale with integrity and discipline.

What is Impact Investing?

Impact investing is an approach that aims to contribute to the achievement of measured positive social and environmental impacts. It has emerged as a significant opportunity to mobilize capital into investments that target measurable positive social, economic, or environmental impact alongside financial returns. A growing number of investors are incorporating impact investments into their portfolios. Many are adopting the SDGs and other goals as a reference point to illustrate the relationship between their investments and impact.

What are the Impact Principles?

What are the Joint Impact Indicators?

The Joint Impact Indicators are a harmonized set of indicators for key impact themes climate, gender and job creation used by a wide range of impact investors. They are aligned with the leading impact indicator sets: IRIS+ and HIPSO.

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