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The term impact investing first appeared in 2008. Today the most commonly used definition is investing made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. A wide range of individual and institutional investors that have already entered the impact investment marketplace and continued growing enthusiasm can be expected given that feedback from investors indicated that portfolio performance has generally met or exceed their expectations for both social and environmental impact and financial return. Established companies have been compelled to respond to calls by institutional investors to incorporate responsible environmental, social, and governance initiatives into their business models as a condition to continued support in public capital markets. Other companies seeking to demonstrate to impact investors their commitment to environmental and social responsibility have opted for emerging forms of legal entities, so-called social enterprises, which explicitly incorporate sustainability and multi-stakeholder interests into their governance and reporting frameworks. This book provides readers with a basic understanding of sustainable finance and impact investing including history, definitions of impact, current trends and drivers, future challenges, and an overview of the key players in the global impact ecosystem. The book also describes impact investment structures and instruments, social enterprises, and impact measurement and reporting.

Sustainable development. --- Impact investing. --- Financial engineering.

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Historically, investors focused only on making money. For some investors, this mindset still rings true. Yet, a growing number of investors want to "make money mean more" by making money and doing good. Sustainable investing consists of any investment approach that considers environmental, social, and governance-related criteria when selecting and managing investments. This book demystifies sustainable investing for average investors and examines whether such investments have a place in their portfolios.

Impact investing. --- Investments --- Moral and ethical aspects. --- Social aspects.

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Abstract: The rise of socially responsible and impact investing funds provides evidence for an increased interest private investors have in combining their financial and ethical concerns. At the same time, citizens increasingly engage in food networks and take on a vital role in the governance of agri-food systems. These developments might benefit farms and firms which are committed to sustainable food and seek funding. Through different community financing models, they can involve citizens who aim at supporting the development of a more sustainable food system. While still a niche market, an increasing number of firms in the German organic food sector uses community financing to substitute or complement traditional bank credit financing. There is a wide range of different models which can be classified as follows: 1. Pure financing instruments, e.g. crowdfunding, profit participation rights, direct loans. 2. Financing models which base on a particular legal form, e.g. cooperative, corporation. 3. Financing in cooperation with an intermediary organization which pools citizens’ capital, e.g. citizen shareholder corporation, land purchase cooperative. 4. Others (mostly related to primary production), e.g. community supported agriculture (CSA), leasing and sponsorship. Community financing can increase financial independence from credit intuitions and provides an opportunity to receive funding which otherwise might be difficult to obtain. Given the high capital intensity in agriculture and rising purchase prices of agricultural land, access to traditional bank credit financing is a particular challenge for new or less productive farms. Access to finance can also be a key obstacle for smaller companies involved in collaborative short food chains and green start-ups that offer innovative products or services and/or lack business education. Apart from financial considerations, particular community financing models can also serve as marketing tool in order to build or intensify relationships to customers. As the example of the German energy transition shows, financial citizen participation can be crucial for financing the transformation of the energy sector. However, little is known about community financing models in the agri-food sector. Accordingly, this paper presents empirical evidence on community financing in the German organic food sector and discusses the role it can play in food system transformation.

Community development --- Impact investing. --- Crowd funding --- Profit-sharing --- Agriculture --- Finance

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The aim of this Master thesis is to describe the ecosystem of Impact Investing ‘for development’ and to analyse the best practices of impact investing intermediaries to contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. According to the “The Impact Imperative for Sustainable Development” framework published in 2019 by the OECD, intermediaries need to attract investors and invest efficiently (‘financing imperative’), foster innovation (‘innovation imperative’) and measure impact on development (‘data imperative’). A qualitative research was conducted via semi-structured interviews with ten intermediaries located in Belgium and Luxembourg. The main finding is that the ecosystem is composed of four different models of intermediaries and that certain investment practices have merely been rebranded under the term Impact Investing. Regarding the financing of the SDGs, the intermediaries are attracting public and private investors, but overall the market remains small and the capability to attract ‘new’ capital continues to be debatable. In terms of the ‘innovation imperative’, the intermediaries are looking for innovation, but there are no specific methods or criteria except benchmarking. As to the ‘data imperative’, it was found that the intermediaries are gradually aligning their strategy to the SDGs. Since the goals are well-known, generally accepted and easy to understand, they are mainly used for external and investor communication. Eventually, the effort in recent years to navigate towards a more global approach for development materialised by the SDGs has led to a greater diversity of the ecosystem and its investment practices. Without a clear set of best practices, there is a potential risk of the complete appropriation of this term by commercial investors as a marketing tool. Future research should, inter alia, include a multi-stakeholder approach and consider field observations of the best practices.

Impact investing --- Impact investing for development --- Social finance --- Sustainable Development Goals --- SDG investing --- Development finance --- Financing for development --- Development cooperation --- OECD --- Impact investing intermediaries --- Belgium --- Luxembourg --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Economie sociale

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Ever since the term of impact investing was created, researchers and practitioners have been
trying to clarify its meaning as well as its practices. In line with these researchers, this thesis
aims at shedding some light on the practices of impact investing funds – more specifically on
their screening process. It relies on the well-known screening practices in venture capital
funds, as well as on some existing recent literature mentioning the screening process in impact
investing funds, to explore the field. This research is mostly based on recent scientific
publications, which also demonstrates the topicality of this study. To verify the relevance of
the information taken from the existing literature on that topic, practitioners’ testimonies
about the matter were harvested. Indeed, semi-structured interviews with some of the biggest
impact investing funds worldwide were conducted and provided insights into their practices
that could later be usefully turned into interesting conclusions. Thorough analysis of the
findings revealed that the two analyzed screening processes were mostly different in their
content but not in their underlying logic. Their common basis reveals that, with respect to the
screening process, impact investing funds rely on the venture capitals’ way of operating to
achieve their own objectives of generating a social/environmental impact, while also
achieving financial returns.

impact investing --- screening process --- venture capital --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance