ImpactAlpha Podcasts

Will it be risk – rather than returns – that drives impact investment? Major companies are starting to face the very practical implications of climate change, as indicated by responses to CDP, the U.K. organization formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. The latest episode of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast explores the connection between such risks and the mobilization of investment to address them.

The three-letter acronym for “environmental, social and governance” has broken out from the wonky world of finance and into subway ads and online pitches for a slew of new ESG mutual funds, ETFs and other financial services. How such “non-financial” factors affect financial performance has been a matter of hot debate for several years. As ESG breaks into the mainstream, the podcast’s roundtable regulars took on a tougher question is: Does it make a bit of difference in the real world?

Join us for half-dozen or so forecasts from Equilibrium Capital's Dave Chen, who returned to ImpactAlpha's Returns on Investment podcast for a New Year's check-in on the progress of the "institutional shift" in impact investing. As Dave says, "Everybody loves a list."

We ring a bell and joke about taking a drink every time we can work the phrase “impact alpha” into a Returns on Investment podcast. We had to suspend the stunt to discuss a new report,“The Alpha in Impact.” The report pulled back the curtain on 29 investments from 13 funds to demonstrate that impact be a driver of returns, not just a drag. Our roundtable regulars discuss.

As the climate hangs in the balance, policy momentum, investor sentiment and most of all global leadership will be crucial to sustain the global energy transition and, while we’re at it, economic transformation, that are both so urgently needed.

In late October 2018 US-SIF released their bi-annual report measuring the size of the impact market. By their calculations, responsible and impact investments now total 12 trillion dollars in the United States - representing a quarter of all US assets under professional management. Can this amount, a 38% increase since 2016, be seen as an unmitigated success? "Not so fast," cautions the ROI roundtable. Listen in to find out why we're not ready to declare impact victory quite yet.

When 2019 comes around congress will once again be divided. Could an impact oriented infrastructure bill make it to the president's desk? Our roundtable discusses.

ImpactAlpha’s editor and CEO David Bank and Paul van Zyl talk about impact investing and social entrepreneurship from the Conduit in London.

In its daily Brief and on its website, ImpactAlpha writes a lot about the challenges and triumphs of impact entrepreneurs. In this week’s Returns on Invesment podcast, host Brian Walsh put the questions to the company’s own mission-driven entrepreneurs: How’s the business going?

Join David Bank and Dave Chen as they continue our special series, Institutional Shift. The latest episode of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast takes stock of the state of impact investing at pension funds and other large institutional investors.