Returns On Investment

On the latest edition of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast, host Brian Walsh suggests that the ‘technology’ of ESG and impact investing has passed the early-adopter stage and entered the early majority, gaining momentum among companies, asset managers and banks. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

“The positive news is that more and more people know what we are talking about,” Bertrand Badré says on the most recent ImpactAlpha podcast. “The negative news is there is not enough action.” The former World Bank official and founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital (the name comes from a French surrealist poem) says needed changes in the financial system were not given enough thought when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted five years ago. He’s writing a book on the topic; as a down payment, Blue Orange is releasing at Davos its internal rating system, SDG Blue, which scores investments against the SDGs in much the same way Moody’s scores companies’ credit ratings. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The Decapitalization of the Fossil Fuel Industry by ImpactAlpha --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

“Global thematic impact didn’t exist, so we decided to build it ourselves," says Erika Karp in the latest ROI. Cornerstone’s Access Impact Fund is a Nasdaq-listed mutual fund that for a minimum $1,000 investment offers access to sub-advisors looking for thematic investments in small-, medium- and large-cap companies across geographies. Karp, formerly the head of global sector research at UBS Investment Bank, is taking a stand on hotly debated investment topics that go beyond impact investing. She says active management, which has fallen out of favor because of high fees and uneven performance, is key to intentional impact. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The popular protests that drove the GSG Impact Summit out of Santiago, Chile, added “a poignant urgency” to the first day of the global gathering of impact investors in Buenos Aires, Sir Ronald Cohen said in a podcast interview with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Dave Chen of Equilibrium Capital returns for another edition of Institutional Shift. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Now that big private equity players are spinning up impact funds left and right, the impact of the rest of their investments is getting a lot more scrutiny as well. ImpactAlpha’s roundtable regulars recorded a podcast episode keying on Blackstone’s investments in Brazilian agricultural processing plants linked to deforestation in the Amazon. But other private equity giants have stepped up with their own deals of questionable impact. As a source for stories, keeping watch on private equity impact is the gift that keeps on giving. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In a counter-intuitive shift, the estimated four million global youth climate strikers who took to the streets last week may be more pro-business than recalcitrant heads of state gathering at the United Nations intent on slow-walking climate action. The U.S., Brazil and Japan, for example, have not even asked to speak at today’s Climate Action Summit, where 60 or so countries are expected to present more ambitious carbon-reduction plans. By catalyzing a powerful political constituency for urgent climate action, protestors may accelerate the low-carbon transition and soften climate shock. By most expert analysis, keep global temperature rise with 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius produces better returns for almost all in --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Updated Corporate Purpose Signals Broader Definitions of Fiduciary Duty and Materiality by ImpactAlpha --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Overcoming Systemic Bias in Investing Means Challenging Power and Pattern Matching by ImpactAlpha --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The latest Returns on Investment podcast takes on the challenge of how investors can help make sure workers get a better shake. In a low-unemployment economy, it’s not only jobs, but quality jobs that are needed to drive broader prosperity that is inclusive of workers of all ages and skills. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

The roundtable regulars aim to trace the connections between the impact investing project writ large and the current political climate, without violating our pledge against armchair analysis of electability, swing-state appeal or fundraising prowess. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

On the latest episode of our special Institutional Shift series of conversations, Dave Chen and David Bank review their predictions from six months ago and look ahead to 2020. On the docket: climate-change investing, plastics, market segmentation, and product development. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

A changing climate is changing the climate inside one of the world’s largest asset managers. Clients of Goldman Sachs Assets Management, which manages assets on behalf of wealthy families, pensions and foundations, endowments and insurance companies. These parties have always expected the firm to recite key financial metrics about the companies they own. But increasingly, says Hugh Lawson, the head of ESG and impact investing at Goldman, clients are demanding the big Wall Street money manager know more about the qualitative aspects of what those businesses do and how they do it. In the latest episode of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast, David Bank dug in with Lawson about how greater investor urgency around climate, and confidence in low-carbon investment strategies, is changing investing (or isn’t). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

One perk of both owning and managing your own capital: you get to set the rules. Blue Haven Initiative, the $500 million family office of Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons, has for a decade committed to integrate impact across 100% of its investable portfolio. In episode 7 of Beyond Tradeoffs, David speaks with Liesel about Blue Haven's approach. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In episode 6 of Beyond Tradeoffs, David speaks with Sandeep Farias of Elevar Equity about their approach to early stage investing in developing markets. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

On episode 5 of our special series, Beyond Tradeoffs, produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network, David interviews Roy Swan and Christine Looney about Ford Foundations Mission Investment strategy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In Episode 4 of ROI's Beyond Trade-offs series, produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network, Vishal Mehta of Lok Capital recalls how the Delhi-based impact investor blended venture capital and grant funding to build markets for financial services, health care and education for low-income Indians. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

Today on ROI, we feature an interview with Ommeed Sathe of Prudential Financial in the third episode of Beyond Tradeoffs, produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network. Prudential, a serious institutional investor with nearly $1.4 trillion in assets, is demonstrating that is possible to incorporate impact strategies within the norms and constraints faced by institutional investors. Their $800 million impact portfolio is invested with a specific mandate to show measurable benefits in financial inclusion, affordable housing preservation, educational excellence, workforce development and sustainable agriculture and other areas. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message

In the second episode of ImpactAlpha’s “Beyond Trade-offs” podcast series, produced in collaboration with Omidyar Network, Goldman Sachs’ John Goldstein charts the development of “risk-return-impact” frameworks that meet the needs of institutional investors. One of his jobs, he says, “is to help Goldman’s investors do better at doing what they do by incorporating environmental, social and governance into how we invest for all our clients.” --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/impact-alpha/message