By Marta Maretich In the early days of the social investing movement, women and girls were arguably seen more as program beneficiaries than financial movers and shakers. Social lenders changed their view when they realized that focusing initiatives like microfinance lending on women turned out to be the most effective way to make whole communities […]
Impact Makers Gifts Company to the Community
RICHMOND, Va., Apr. 29 /CSRwire/ – Impact Makers has gifted the company’s equity ownership to two nonprofit organizations, The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia and Virginia Community Capital. The company took this action, a first amongst social enterprises, in order to preserve and grow its philanthropic mission. The gift also is helping enable […]
Investors Tackle the Impact of Water Scarcity on Their Portfolios
Originally posted on Institutional Investor. On a recent trip to New York, Piet Klop, senior adviser for responsible investment at Dutch pension fund manager and adviser PGGM, took in an encouraging sight. At the headquarters of financial data provider Bloomberg, Klop saw a giant map projected on the atrium wall that highlighted the world’s most […]
Culture vs. the Ethical Bank
By Vince Siciliano UBS. JPMorgan Chase. Wells Fargo. Barclays. And now, HSBC. Since the U.S. mortgage meltdown, “big banks,” titans of global business, have continually been caught in ethical failings. Tax avoidance, interest rate manipulation, commodity and currency speculation, and money laundering, among other charges, have all surfaced — calling into question banks’ ability to […]
Save Organic Citrus!
We are in the peak of citrus season here in California and while we’re all blissfully enjoying juicy doses of Vitamin C, you may not realize that the organic orange you’re biting into is on the verge of dying off from a disease called Citrus Greening. Jessica Shade, the Director of Science Programs at The […]
The state of impact investing, Day 2 of the COF conference: bubbles and unexplored frontiers
The diffuse state of impact investing in the foundation world was evident again in sessions at day two of the Council of Foundations’ annual conference in San Francisco (and outside of them). The main impact investing session of the day was a panel of foundations that began some form of impact investing more than ten […]
Two Years after Rana Plaza Tragedy, Investors Still Seek Corporate Assurances
April 28, 2015 Two Years after Rana Plaza Tragedy, Investors Still Seek Corporate Assurances by Robert Kropp A coalition of institutional investors asserts that the systemic changes needed to safeguard garment workers in Bangladesh remain insufficiently financed, even by signatories to the Fire and Safety Accord. SocialFunds.com — On April 24, 2013, a building […]
The state of impact investing: reflections from day one of the Council on Foundations’ conference
A few years ago I swore off attending philanthropy conferences for the simple reason that I felt like I was hearing the same things over and over again. I’m attending the Council of Foundations’ annual conference, held 26-28 April in San Francisco, for the first time since 2011 with a particular eye on what, if […]
USDA: Investments in Agriculture and Forestry Yield Climate Solutions
Farmland may be even more important than factories when it comes to finding solutions to climate change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, with public and private partners, last week announced actions to help the agriculture sector mitigate its carbon emissions and adapt to the long-term effects of climate change. The expected impact: a reduction of two […]
Moms Make a World of Difference: Mother’s Day Campaign Celebrates the Inspirational Women of Fair Trade
April 27, 2015 /3BL Media/ – Celebrating Mother’s Day this year can be made even more meaningful when shoppers honor mothers from around the world through their Fair Trade purchases. Promoting the many ways that Fair Trade benefits mothers, Fair Trade USA, a nonprofit and the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products, today launched a […]
Etsy and the B Corp IPO: Sustainability Meets Wall Street
By Peri Schweiger and Jackie Marcus Corporate responsibility professionals have had a not-so-secret crush on investors for years. However, the investment community has been playing hard-to-get. There have been glimmers of interest – socially responsible investment funds, a few bold shareholder resolutions – but little signal from the broader community that a real relationship was […]
Investing with the head and the heart: reflections from the AVPN conference
Reflecting on my three days at the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) conference, held 20-23 April in Singapore, I was struck by the number of conversations that wrestled with seemingly dichotomous concepts: head vs heart, disruption vs sustainability, local solutions vs scale, perseverance vs ‘fail fast’, and even as far as love vs hate. But […]
Is the Public Etsy Still Part of the Sharing Economy?
Etsy’s IPO took Wall Street by storm last week. The conversation was peppered with questions about whether or not a company that claims to be “a mindful, transparent and humane business” could succeed on Wall Street, a space where these adjectives are rarely used. Yet, this is not the question I’ll ask today. Instead, I’ll focus on is whether […]
RSF Social Finance Extends Additional Financing to GREEN CREATIVE
SAN FRANCISCO, April 24, 2015 /3BL Media/ – RSF Social Finance (RSF) is pleased to announce a new loan to GREEN CREATIVE, a San Francisco Bay Area-based developer and manufacturer of commercial and specification grade LED lighting solutions. RSF financing, in participation with New Resource Bank, will be used to fund working capital needs and build inventory […]
Wall Street and Bay Street & Sustainability: Does Your CSR Report Resonate with Investors (Toronto and Livestream)
Wall Street and Bay Street & Sustainability: Does Your CSR Report Resonate with Investors (Toronto and Livestream) BREAKING NEWS: Sustainable Business Practices Dramatically Boost Stock Valuations Did you read this title and think, “it’s about time?” Unfortunately, the title is more future prediction than current fact. Bay/Wall Street often fails to appreciate the proven bottom line […]
Think Tank Led By Former JPMorgan Managing Director Launches Regenerative Capitalism Framework at Yale University
GREENWICH, Conn., Apr. 22 /CSRwire/ – Capital Institute, a non-partisan think tank founded in 2010 by former JPMorgan Managing Director John Fullerton, launched an alternative framework for capitalism yesterday at an event hosted by Yale University’s Center for Business and the Environment. The collaboratively created framework and accompanying white paper calls on business leaders and […]
Kyle Zimmer: The Triumphs and Tribulations of Impact Investing
Both the triumphs and the growing pains of “impact investing” were on display in Oxford, England last week. Impact investing goes beyond the passive tactic of limiting investments to, say, companies that are green or that don’t produce guns. Rather this practice combines traditional and cutting edge investment strategies to provide financial return through active […]
Here’s How to Take the First Steps Toward Impact Investing
Written by Don Shaffer of RSF Social Finance for ImpactAlpha. The movement toward investing in what’s good instead of just screening out what’s bad is growing, spurred by a new generation of investors. Millennials are questioning conventional systems and approaches across the board, from food to education to finance. That’s leading many to start aligning […]
Introducing the Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (Video)
The Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative is a peer-to-peer learning platform for exploring how exchanges, in collaboration with investors, regulators, and companies, can enhance corporate transparency – and ultimately performance – on ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) issues and encourage sustainable investment. Since 2012, several other leading exchanges have joined the group of SSE […]
ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace tie the knot
Editorial leadership and open data around impact investing go together like, well, ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace. And, in fact, our teams have been working together for more than a year to build out our complementary offerings. The time has come to go legit. We are very pleased to announce that ImpactAlpha and ImpactSpace have officially merged as ImpactAlpha Inc., a for-profit […]
Forest Conservation Strategy Wins Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge
April 21, 2015 Forest Conservation Strategy Wins Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge by Robert Kropp Four students from the Haas School of Business are awarded the $10 thousand grand prize for developing an institutional investment vehicle that will help alleviate drought and reduce forest fire risk. SocialFunds.com — Blue Forest Conservation Notes, a prospectus […]
What’s Behind the Boom in Women Entrepreneurs?
Woman-owned nonprofit Untapped Shores provides an opportunity for travelers to make a difference by carrying and delivering a life-saving business-in-a-box to a woman or a family in need. There are now 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the United States. Together they employ more people than McDonald’s, IBM and Wal-Mart combined, and their revenue of $1.3 […]
Reflections from a Career Investor – Amy Domini
By Amy Domini, founder of Domini Social Investments and partner in The Sustainability Group Women and Investing. The feminist in me is struggling. The mere asking of the question implies a difference, and a difference, when it comes to women, tends to mean a weakness. Women and the sciences, women and sports, the debates about […]
Why Gender Matters to Investors
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2015 issue of Green Money Journal on “Women and Investing.” Read more excerpts here. By Joseph F. Keefe and Sallie L. Krawcheck The business case for gender diversity is now well documented. The research is compelling: When women are at the table – and better yet, in […]
Bamboo Finance Raises $31 Million for “Next Generation” Microfinance
Bamboo Finance is doubling down on microfinance. Backed by a decade of experience and an appetite from mainstream investors, the private equity firm specializing in business models that benefit low-income communities announced a first close of $31 million for its Bamboo Financial Inclusion Fund II. The close attracted institutional investors including Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA-CREF) and AXA-IM. […]
$120 Million Green Bond from Nordic Investment Bank
April 20, 2015 $120 Million Green Bond from Nordic Investment Bank by Robert Kropp The fixed income issuance, driven by investors incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance factors, will finance loans to environmental projects in Scandinavia. SocialFunds.com — At the United Nations headquarters in January of last year, Ceres unveiled the Green Bond Principles, […]
Investors Call on SEC to Require Effective Climate Risk Disclosure
April 18, 2015 Investors Call on SEC to Require Effective Climate Risk Disclosure by Robert Kropp In a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, a coalition of investors organized by Ceres offers specific criticisms of disclosures by major oil and gas companies, and argues that climate risk is changing the economics of the […]
Harvard Students Mount Blockade in Campaign for Divestment
April 17, 2015 Harvard Students Mount Blockade in Campaign for Divestment by Robert Kropp The Divest Harvard demonstrators block access to administrative offices during Harvard Heat Week as analyses of the university’s investments find significant levels of greenhouse gas emissions. SocialFunds.com — In 2014, after a year-long period in which student activists called on […]
Embracing a New Definition for Social Investing
By Marta Maretich Definitions — we are so over them in the social investing sector. I mean, we wrangled over those darn meanings for years: ethical investing, responsible investing, socially responsible investing, triple- and double-bottom-line investing, green investing, sustainable investing and finally — boom! — impact investing. We split hairs, we waved banners, we made […]
Tending the Ocean, Not Just the Seafood: Valuing Ecosystem Services in New Zealand
The Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, also known as New Zealand. The Māori also are the owners of Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd., one of the country’s largest seafood companies and a major supplier of pāua, or abalone. That makes Aotearoa Fisheries an excellent candidate for a new approach […]
Fish 2.0 is Searching the Seven Seas for Seafood Entrepreneurs
A Fish 2.0 workshop in Fiji last month to explore ways to develop the South Pacific’s fishing industry was interrupted by a staggering object lesson: the devastation of Vanuatu by Super Cyclone Pam. For workshop participants, who also came from Tuvalu, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the crushing impact of Pam underlined […]
The A-List of B Corps
Posted April 16, 2015 B Lab highlights the companies that score in the top 10 per cent of all Certified B Corps. Capitalism can do better. Business can be more responsible. Short-term profit doesn’t have to be the singular focus of private enterprise. This is what Corporate Knights believes. The long term matters, in our […]
UPDATED: Next Generation of Impact Finance Talent Converges on London
ARTICLE UPDATED ON 4/20/15 A proposal to address California’s historic drought and wildfire risk took first place in the fifth annual Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge. A team of business students from Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley won the competition’s $10,000 prize with its plan to fund strategic forest thinning in Northern California that distributes the […]
Trillium Honored as B Corp ‘Best for the World’ in 2015
APRIL 14, 2015: Today, Trillium Asset Management was among 120 companies worldwide that were recognized for creating the most positive overall social and environmental impact by the nonprofit B Lab with the release of the fourth annual ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list. The ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list honors businesses that […]
ImpactBase Snapshot: Funds Have Raised Less than Half Their Targets
Our friends over at ImpactBase have published the first analysis of the more than 300 impact funds in the database. Their conclusion: most impact investing funds remain young and hungry. The analysis, released by the Global Impact Investing Network, which operates ImpactBase, found that a whopping 70 percent have been launched since 2009. Only 13 percent were founded before 2006. Among […]
Electronics Trade Association Prohibits Payments to Labor Brokers
By Robert Kropp. The amendment to the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’s Code of Conduct follows engagement on the issue of payments to labor brokers by members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.
Sankalp Q&A: Unitus Seeks to Launch Seed Funds Around the World
Most of the thousands of investors and entrepreneurs descending on New Delhi this week for the Sankalp Global Summit are looking to beat out their competitors. Dave Richards and Will Poole, managing directors of Unitus Seed Fund, are looking to create more competition for themselves, by seeding additional funds like their own. Fresh off their success […]
Equilibrium Capital: Building Real Assets for Sustainable Returns
“Creativity is not the finding of a thing,” as the 19th-century New England poet James Russell Lowell noted, “but the making something out of it after it is found.” Dave Chen, CEO of Equilibrium Capital, has built a $1 billion asset management platform out of the finding that environmentally and socially beneficial practices can drive […]
Market for Conservation Investments Expected to Grow Dramatically
April 03, 2015 Market for Conservation Investments Expected to Grow Dramatically by Robert Kropp A first ever report on the practice of conservation investing, co-authored by The Nature Conservancy, anticipates that private investment will triple by 2018, from $2 billion to nearly $6 billion. SocialFunds.com — The concept of conservation investing is of fairly […]
No Financial Sacrifice in Sustainable Investing
March 30, 2015 No Financial Sacrifice in Sustainable Investing by Robert Kropp The Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing analyzes thousands of sustainable mutual funds and separately managed accounts, and finds that most meet or exceed the performance of traditional investments. SocialFunds.com — According to a recent survey by the Morgan Stanley Institute for […]
Frank Giustra: Dear Rich People: Learning to Give
In the beginning, my personal story was not unfamiliar. I came from humble beginnings, my parents were immigrant laborers, with four kids and we grew up with little money. Then, in my late teens, I was influenced and inspired by Napoleon Hill’s 1937 book Think and Grow Rich, and set out to become wealthy. I […]
Where Does Your Money Spend the Night? Rethinking Capitalism
The global nonprofit sector has played a crucial role in identifying solutions for the needs of the world’s most marginalized populations. As the severity and scale of the problems escalate, however, it has become clear that the 20th century paradigm of maximizing profits in the capitalist realm of the economy then donating a percentage of […]
Women & Investing
Welcome to the April issue on Women & Investing Abeer, Cliff, and Julie. Photo by Melanie West. It’s good to be back writing an introduction. First, I want to thank Mark Regier of Everence Financial, who served as Guest Editor of our February issue on “Faith & Investing.” The writers presented what proved to be […]
What Kind of Financing Do African Social Enterprises Need?
The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Capetown in South Africa is conducting a survey on the funding needs of social enterprises in Africa. Social enterprises in Africa can participate in the survey to generate a clearer picture of their financing needs. The results will be used to promote African social enterprises, […]
US Coal Crash Structural, not Cyclical, Report States
March 27, 2015 US Coal Crash Structural, not Cyclical, Report States by Robert Kropp The Carbon Tracker Initiative’s latest report reveals that bankruptcies are rampant in the US coal industry as cheap natural gas and a strengthening renewable market indicate that the decline of coal will be permanent. SocialFunds.com — The “war on coal” […]
Corporate Sustainability Measures Fail to Address Impacts
March 26, 2015 Corporate Sustainability Measures Fail to Address Impacts by Robert Kropp The 2015 State of Green Business report, published by GreenBiz with environmental data supplied by Trucost, confirms that corporate sustainability efforts and disclosures are insufficient. SocialFunds.com — The recently published 2015 State of Green Business report, authored by the staff of […]
Community Capital Management Outlines Plans for $100 Million in Rural Development Bonds
March 23, 2015 Community Capital Management Outlines Plans for $100 Million in Rural Development Bonds by Robert Kropp The Florida based fixed income investment adviser published a report in which it reveals that it plans to invest $100 million in bonds financing rural community development. SocialFunds.com — As the 2014 Trends Report of US […]
Record Breaking Number of Shareowner Resolutions in 2015
March 21, 2015 Record Breaking Number of Shareowner Resolutions in 2015 by Robert Kropp The eleventh edition of As You Sow’s Proxy Preview identifies 433 shareowner resolutions filed this year, with corporate political activity and the environment accounting for slightly more than half of them. SocialFunds.com — It’s not just sustainable investors who should […]
Corporations Improving on LGBT Rights
March 20, 2015 Corporations Improving on LGBT Rights by Robert Kropp Evolution in social acceptance of diversity, as well as years of shareowner engagement by Walden Asset Management, leads to many companies adopting sexual orientation and gender identity policies. SocialFunds.com — One of the first social issues my youngest child became passionate about was […]
Shareowners Continue Push for Fracking Disclosure
March 17, 2015 Shareowners Continue Push for Fracking Disclosure by Robert Kropp Six companies are recipients of resolutions this proxy season, calling for greater disclosure of environmental and community risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. SocialFunds.com — Thanks to the unrelenting efforts of sustainable shareowners and others to bring transparency and safety to the practice […]