Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Impact investing
Summary
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
Impact investors actively seek to place capital in businesses, nonprofits, and funds in industries such as renewable energy, housing, healthcare, education, microfinance, and sustainable agriculture. Institutional investors, notably North American and European development finance institutions, pension funds and endowments have played a leading role in the development of impact investing. Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has seen an increased interest in impact investing.
Impact investing occurs across asset classes; for example, private equity/venture capital, debt, and fixed income. Impact investments can be made in either emerging or developed markets, and depending on the goals of the investors, can "target a range of returns from below-market to above-market rates".
Historically, regulation—and to a lesser extent, philanthropy—was an attempt to minimize the negative social consequences (unintended consequences, externalities) of business activities. However, a history of individual investors using socially responsible investing to express their values exists, and such investing behavior is usually defined by the avoidance of investments in specific companies or activities with negative effects.
Simultaneously, approaches such as pollution prevention, corporate social responsibility, and triple bottom line began as measurements of non-financial effects, both inside and outside of corporations. In 2000, Baruch Lev of the NYU's Stern School of Business collated thinking about intangible assets in a book of the same name, which furthered thinking about the non-financial effects of corporate production.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (5)
MGT-650: Sciencepreneurship: Sustainability & Al
This summer school provides its students with the necessary tools and network to identify and develop the social impact of
research-grounded innovation. Throughout the course, they work in small teams
MGT-641: Technology and Public Policy - Technology and innovation policies for grand and global challenges
This course addresses the design of policies for Grand Challenges. It aims at providing a policy toolkit - about innovation, economic regulation and societal inclusion - while supporting students abou
FIN-429: Sustainable & entrepreneurial finance
This course deals with the role of finance in the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Students learn how to apply asset allocation techniques to build sustainable portfolios, understand t
Related lectures (26)
Spillovers: Benefits and Dilemmas
Explores spillovers in innovation, societal benefits, and private returns.
History of Technology and Development
Explores the history of technology innovation, social entrepreneurship, and the tension between profit and social impact.
The Impact Canvas: IntroductionMOOC: Technology Innovation for Sustainable Development
Emphasizes the evolving nature of business plans for ventures and the importance of integrating positive social impact alongside commercial success.
Related concepts (2)
Social enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises can be structured as a business, a partnership for profit or non-profit, and may take the form (depending on in which country the entity exists and the legal forms available) of a co-operative, mutual organisation, a disregarded entity, a social business, a benefit corporation, a community interest company, a company limited by guarantee or a charity organisation.
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social impact is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in, with, or supporting professional service volunteering through pro bono programs, community development, administering monetary grants to non-profit organizations for the public benefit, or to conduct ethically oriented business and investment practices.