Позитивные изменения. Том 2, №4 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 4 (2022)

Article, 2022, Public Anthropologist

This article examines the role played by philanthrocapitalist foundations in impact investing for international development, focusing on the covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Initiative (covax) as a response to the current pandemic. Philanthrocapitalists and development institutions are increasingly turning to “blended finance” and “social bonds” to address the gaps in funding required to meet global development agendas, particularly in the arena of global health. These impact investing mechanisms deploy public or philanthropic money to leverage for-profit investment in development, by “de-risking” (providing guarantees for) interventions that might otherwise put private capital at risk. Via covax, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has platformed a pandemic response centred on this approach, resisting alternative responses — such as the proposal for a temporary waiver to pharmaceutical patent rights — that seek to challenge the prevailing trade architecture. The global policy response to covid-19 thus accelerates the “financialization” of development and cements the role of philanthropy in “de-risking” for-profit impact investment.

https://goo.su/rIuiyB

9. FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING THE INTEGRATION OF ETHICS IN THE DESIGN OF IMPACT INVESTMENT VENTURES

A. Dedeke

Article, Summer 2022, Business and Professional Ethics Journal

Impact investment ventures are growing in the modern economy. However, the recent failures of some impact investment ventures are a cause for concern. Unfortunately, our concern about the ethicality of these kinds of social exchanges seem to emerge when it is too late. Namely, we become concerned about lack of ethics when a venture has failed or is collapsing. A better approach would be for us to have a means to proactively assess and improve the degree to which the arrangements and practices of a social exchange meet ethical standards. Whereas much work has been done to equip social ventures to evaluate their impacts, little work has been done to create frameworks that could be used to assess the degree to which social exchanges integrate ethical practices in their designs. This paper proposes such a framework. For illustration purposes, the proposed framework would also be used to evaluate the One Acre Farm, an impact investment venture in Africa.

https://clck.ru/32udAH

10. CLAIMING LEGITIMACY: IMPACT VS. ESG INVESTING

T. Cojoianu, A. Hoepner, Yanan Lin, F. Schneider

Research paper, 15 September 2022, SSRN Electronic Journal

Impact investment firms pursue both the achievement of positive impact and the delivery of financial returns. They are thus distinct from investment firms which only follow commercial objectives and consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors from the perspective of financial risks and opportunities. While ESG investing has become mainstream, impact investment and the underlying double materiality has yet to be institutionalised and legitimized. Using private market data from Preqin in combination with statements made by private market investment firms on their websites, we investigate how impact investment firms claim legitimacy compared to their ESG peers. Given that impact investment is still a nascent field it suffers from a heavier burden of proof and legitimacy has been recognised as a strategy to overcome the liability of newness. We find impact investment firms distinct themselves from philanthropy, which is more likely to be claimed to be undertaken by ESG investing firms, in addition to their core ESG risk management approach. Additionally, we find that impact investment firms are more likely to claim to be involved in partnerships, in particular with academia and corporations. We explain this as complimentary sources of legitimacy for both objectives in the dual goal of impact investment firms: Corporations can give legitimacy to the commercial angle while academia can aid legitimizing the measurement of positive impact. Relatedly, we find that impact investment firms lay more emphasis on expertise and being data driven on their websites than ESG firms. Lastly, we investigate whether impact investment firms seek legitimacy through claiming investment in certain fields and find significant results for investment themes such as Green Technology, Biodiversity, Education, Agriculture, and Water.

https://goo.su/ha2n

11. WHO HAS A SEAT AT THE TABLE IN IMPACT INVESTING? ADDRESSING INEQUALITY BY GIVING VOICE

Guillermo Casasnovas, J. Jones

Article, 11 June 2022, Journal of Business Ethics