The Impact Investing Podcast

Modern media is both wonderful and scary. It represents both the best of what people have to offer and the worst. It can include beautiful works of art by independent artists that tell stories to lift the human spirit and pass along cultural lessons and values or, as is so often the case today, is a mindless clickbait article or listicle about “10 celebrities who don’t wash their hair every day.“ That’s because modern media content is increasingly being determined by finely-tuned algorithms optimizing for clicks, engagement, and ultimately profitability, rather than any higher purpose.Meanwhile, an increasing number of studies are demonstrating strong links between our consumption of digital and social media with an increased risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts. Continuing to allow companies to A/B test on us at scale for the sole purpose of optimizing their profitability, without regard for the toll it takes on our physical and emotional well-being, is a recipe for disaster.Enter today’s guest Charlene SanJenko, founder of reGEN Media. This 100% Indigenous-owned and female-led media partnerships organization matches progressive impact investors with purpose-driven brand advertising dollars to fund transformative media projects that deliver both social and financial returns. Charlene is a national marketing manager, competitive athlete, digital media arts professional, and Indigenous storyteller.In this episode, we discuss Charlene’s journey to launching reGEN Media, the problems she sees with modern media, her vision for the field of impact media and reGEN in particular, and examples of indigenous-led media projects she has begun supporting, including her own documentary about her journey to reconnect with her Indigenous roots as an adult adoptee. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Charlene shares more about the opportunities for how Brands and impact investors can support these amazing media projects.Resources from this episode:reGEN Media’s website and LinkedIn page.Charlene’s LinkedIn Profile and Twitter page.

Real estate as an asset class has had an absolutely remarkably run since the 1980’s when we entered a several-decade period of economic prosperity, stable inflation, and declining interest rates. Add to that, more than a decade of quantitative easing that continued to ensure cheap financing was available for consumers and homebuyers alike.But as with every good story, it eventually must come to an end, as it has for real estate and the economy more generally in 2022. As inflation has reared its head, we’ve been left rising interest rates on top of high prices for goods and real estate, thereby dramatically straining housing affordability.Enter today’s guest, Mazyar Mortavazi, President & CEO of TAS Impact, an unconventional impact company that uses real estate as a tool to tackle climate change, broaden affordability and equity, and build social capital to create neighbourhoods– and ultimately cities – where people thrive and belong. TAS Impact is a Certified B Corporation, a signatory to PRI and a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), TAS pursues opportunities that create value for investors and generate measurable social and environmental impact.During this episode, Mazyar and I discuss the current state of the real estate market and how we got into the affordability predicament we’re in, the institutionalization of residential real estate investing, the ESG and impact issues with conventional real estate development, new investment models addressing housing affordability, TAS Impact’s impact measurement framework, and the importance of inviting communities into the property development process. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Mazyar discusses where he sees the real estate industry headed in the next decade.Resources from this episode:Tas Impact FrameworkInaugural Annual Tas Impact Report 2022Mazyar’s TwitterResources from the episode announcements:Check out Criterion Institute’s new podcastDiscussion of Employee Ownership Trusts

Climate change is widely recognized as an existential threat to humanity. Chief among the contributors to climate change is our food systems. The advent of modern industrial farming brought with it a sharp increase in our ability to feed the planet. Yet this industrialization has been so rapid and so extreme that we’re now recognizing how unhealthy and unsustainable our practices have become.Despite these advances, the system will crack under the pressure of our expected population growth (the UN predicts the global population to hit 10 billion by 2050). This is because animal agriculture is a wildly inefficient food source. The time and resources it takes to provide land, food, and water produces far fewer calories for consumption than the investment required to simply grow plants for us to eat.Recently though we’ve seen an explosion of demand for healthier and more sustainable food choices along with a flourishing of innovation. Enter today’s guest, Elysabeth Alfano, Founder & CEO of VegTech Invest; provider of the world’s first pure-play ETF investing in plant-based innovation. Launched in Dec 2021, the VegTech Plant-Based Innovation & Climate ETF (ticker: EATV) invests in “a portfolio of high growth global equities in a pure-play plant-based innovation and technology category. VegTech™ companies are those that are innovating with plants and plant-derived ingredients to create animal-free products for sustainable consumption.”During this episode, Elysabeth and I have a wide-ranging conversation on all things related to our food systems and the innovation we’re seeing in plant-based foods. Our conversation runs the gamut from discussing the size and scope of the problem with industrialized factory farming to more sustainable alternatives such as plant-based burgers like Beyond Meat, popular non-dairy alternatives like Oatmilk, advances in cultured (aka lab-grown) meat and cheese, and all sorts of other fascinating innovations. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when we talk about how the VegTech ETF works and what companies the fund is investing in now.Resources from this episode:Elysabeth’s Twitter and LinkedInVegTech Invest’s ETF websiteViolife Parmesan Style plant-based cheeseThe Oatmilk and Oatbutter Dave loves.

Gender lens investing is a field that is far more robust and complex than most people realize. Often gender considerations are reduced to a check-box exercise where investors count the number of women being served, women-led businesses being financed, or women sitting on boards. More ambitious gender lens investors may expand the scope of their analysis to consider issues such as pay equity, parental leave policy for workers, and forced arbitration. Yet even the most ambitious gender-lens investors do not think much about the diverse range of factors that can affect gender equality and social inclusion across the globe, not just a given company, project, or industry. Most often this analysis is considered too complex and the gathering of high-quality, standardized data, far too onerous. That’s because the range of issues on a global scale is mind-bending and covers disparate areas such as financial inclusion, unpaid care work, land & property ownership rights, education & literacy rates, nutrition & food security, sexual & reproductive health rights, and the list goes on. In short, there isn’t an area of our global social fabric that gender equality doesn’t touch. Enter today’s guest, Jessica Menon, who is solving this challenge as Founder & CEO of Equilo. Jessica is a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) specialist with 20 years of experience conducting gender analyses, crafting gender action plans, managing organizational change management with a gender lens, and implementing systems-level change to advance GESI globally. She has experience working across development, humanitarian, finance, and private sectors in a wide range of industries. She also holds a Master of Public Policy from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. During this episode Jessica and I discuss Equilo’s work bringing together data, analytics, and tools to inform better gender-transformative decision-making across government, non-profits, and for-profit businesses. We discuss in detail two of Equilo’s tools, the GESI Contextual Analysis, and the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Risk Score, the methodology underpinning them, the challenges around data collection and comparability, and some of the surprising results of how various countries score on GBV Risk, and how investors should interpret and integrate this data. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Jessica discusses the exciting new predictive modelling work they are doing now. Resources mentioned during the episode: Equilo website (where you can sign up for the GBV Risk Score and GESI analysis for free)GESI Contextual AnalysisGBV Risk ScoreJessica’s LinkedIn ProfileUNICEF and Criterion InstituteEpisode 30 of the Impact Investing Podcast, A deep dive into gender lens investing with a true OG of the movement, with Joy AndersonEpisode 33 of the Impact Investing Podcast, Challenging the Nobel-prize-winning theory that stands in the way of impact investing with Jon LukomnikOpen positions/opportunities to work with Equilo

In an era already notable for remarkable technological innovation, we are approaching a precipice that could potentially make the last 30 years of progress seem quaint by comparison. The dawn and convergence of artificial intelligence, genome sequencing, robotics, energy storage, and the blockchain threaten to fundamentally disrupt the status quo as we know it.The advent of the blockchain, for instance, has led to a paradigm shift - known as Web3. This paradigm shift is seeing a move away from the closed protocol that has dominated software development over the past 20 years — where the Twitter's, Facebook's, and Google's of the world own their user data and collect the lion's share of the economic value — and moving to a world of open sourced development where creators and communities share the economics and users own their data.Already terms like DeFi (Decentralized Finance), DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations), and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are entering the common vernacular, even if many of us still don't quite understand them. At their best, innovations like this are allowing people to work collaboratively in ways that allow communities to form, share ownership, establish good governance, and operate transparently. But already there are those who worry that the potential of web3 is being co-opted by big business.Enter today's guest, Michael Lewkowitz, Co-Founder and General Partner at Possibilian Ventures; a pre-seed / seed investor in companies building a better future across the transition and cooperation economies. What makes Possibilian particularly interesting is that it is focused on supporting founders who are leveraging these converging technological breakthroughs to unlock true systems change to address the two biggest existential threats we face: climate change and inequality.During the episode, Michael and I discuss Possibilian's unique thesis, five areas of transition we're currently experiencing, the definition of terms like Web3, DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs, why Web3 could massively disrupt the status quo, and examples of investments Possibilian is making in companies leveraging these technologies for systemic change. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Michael shares his outlook for what possibilities these new technologies could enable over the next decade.Resources from this episode:Possibilian Ventures WebsitePossibilian's Perspective on Venture & TransformationKlima DAOConstitution DAOs bid to buy the US ConstitutionEpisode #542 of the Tim Ferris Podcast discussing Web 3 with Chris Dixon and Naval RavikantChris Dixon's TwitterNaval Ravikant's TwitterAndreesen Horowitz Web3 Learning ResourcesFrom the Episode Announcements: i2 Impact Investing (Columbia)

 When you consider that the traditional investment industry can be traced as far back as ancient Mesopotamia in 1700 BCE, the field of impact investing is a baby. Indeed the term itself wasn't coined until 2007. Since then the industry has been evolving and growing rapidly. Yet much of that growth has been occurring among a relatively small group of investors and concentrated heavily in a relatively small number of markets. Even today most of the world's aspiring entrepreneurs do not have access to the capital they need to grow their small businesses. And the ordinary investors who might like to provide that capital are barred from doing so due to investor protection regulations. Herein lies one of the most significant criticisms of impact investing. Much like the traditional investment world, the impact investment industry is still dominated by a small number of investors and institutions supplying capital to a select group of entrepreneurs. Enter today's guest, Sarah Burns, Founder, and CEO of Nia Crowdfund. Nia is an online investment platform serving up opportunities to make impact investments in small businesses across Africa. Nia aims to address the missing middle of finance (a problem we’ve discussed at length on this podcast) to provide between $100,000 and $1M of capital to early stages businesses. What further distinguishes Nia Crowdfund is that not only are they supplying this critical early-stage financing but they are focused on allowing ordinary investors to also participate in supplying that capital. During this episode, Sarah and I discuss her fascinating background of volunteering, researching, and working through the developing world, her doctoral thesis on impact investing as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and now her work founding Nia Crowdfund to address the missing middle of finance while also democratizing access to impact investing. Through the conversation, we discuss why the missing middle of finance is a challenge, the importance of democratizing access to impact investing, the well-intended regulations that exclude retail investors from it, and how Nia Crowdfund was designed to address the problems Sarah encountered during her work advising an ultra-high-net-worth impact investor. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Sarah and I discuss whether impact measurement is beneficial or harmful to drive real impact.  Resources from this episode: Nia websiteLearn about and register to join monthly live impact investment pitch events hosted by Nia.Sarah Burns LinkedIn ProfilePaul Collier's The Bottom BillionKIVA Microlending website*** We've been nominated for the Quill Podcast Awards in two categories, Best Business Podcast and Best Finance Podcast. We would appreciate your support, vote for us here!

For all the good that impact investors claim to be doing, it behooves us to consider what harm we might be causing in the process and whether, ultimately, we're doing more damage than good. After all, impact investing is still investing. It exists within the current framework of free-market Capitalism. And as the deep fractures in that system have been laid bare, it only makes sense to ask ourselves what systemic changes are required to bring about true and lasting equality.And while many people are beginning to discuss how Capitalism can be improved, or even whether it is salvageable, today’s guest is exploring even more fundamental questions about our understanding of economics. After all, it shouldn’t surprise us when our financial systems fail us if those systems are built off a flawed understanding of economics.Enter today’s guest, thought-leader, advisor, and author, Denise Hearn. Denise joins us today to discuss her new blog Embodied Economics, which is, in her own words, an exploration of “economic paradigms and financial systems through, Nature, Body, Power, Care, and Interconnectedness”.In Denise’s first blog post, she asks us to consider “What is life? What is economic value?” On the surface, these are easy questions to answer yet the better we understand these terms, the more difficult they become to define. Denise argues that economics for too long has operated in the theoretical realm, divorcing itself from the realities of life. If economics is to serve us better, it must be understood in the following context:(once again in Denise’s words) “to be human is to be a living, embodied person, embedded in nature and a complex tapestry of relationships.”In this episode, Denise and I discuss the intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual inquiry that is Embodied Economics. We discuss how we can better understand economic value, what she calls the Forgotten Five of Economics (body, nature, care, power, and interconnectedness), a simple way to grow global GDP by 10% overnight, her book The Myth of Capitalism, and her work on anti-competitiveness. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Denise and I discuss her thoughts on how she and each of us can affect meaningful change.Resources from this episode:Denise’s websiteEmbodied Economics blog (you should definitely subscribe!)Denise’s book The Myth of CapitalismDenise’s LinkedIn Profile*** A message from our episode sponsor, Spring Activator: On a mission to change the world through innovation, Sring Activator is working to make impact investing mainstream. Their signature Impact Investor Challenge program exists to grow the size and diversity of the impact investor community, and also to stimulate funding for innovative solutions across impact-oriented industries. Think climate solutions, health tech, food innovation, gender lens approaches, and more.The program empowers and equips individuals to invest in what they value, catalyzing the flow of impact capital and accelerating the success of purpose-driven entrepreneurs. This in turn helps solve pressing global and local challenges. It also builds a community of like-minded changemakers. Are you looking to be part of such a community, meet impact startups, and be guided into making impact investments? If so, I invite you to visit www.spring.is today to learn more about the comprehensive and value-packed Impact Investor Challenge program.***

While some might argue that the world is a much better place than it was thousands, hundreds of years, or even decades ago, it's hard not to feel like the world’s problems are greater than ever. In the past five years alone we've experienced a string of heart-wrenching global crises that have come fast and furious.Haiti, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic have all been hit by terrible natural disasters. We've seen the Syrian civil war, Venezuelan and Afghanistan refugee crises', and the Rohingya genocide to name a few. Exacerbating these catastrophes is the COVID-19 global pandemic. So despite our progress, it often feels as if the world's needs are greater than ever and we have a long way to go before approaching anything resembling true equality.Enter today's guest, Natasha Freidus, Co-Founder and CEO of NeedsList; a Public Benefit Corporation creating human-centred solutions for communities displaced by climate change, conflict, and poverty worldwide. The idea for NeedsList was sparked in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe when Tasha was in France trying to help local Syrian refugee families, and her co-founder Amanda Levinson was in Philadelphia trying to figure out how more quickly and effectively gets goods and services across the globe to those in need.The challenge is that the needs of people in crises are overwhelming and constantly changing, and it is difficult to keep track of what is needed and which organizations have the products, services, or expertise to meet those needs. In short, matching supply and demand has been incredibly difficult. That’s when Tasha decided to hack an online wedding registry as a way to solve the problem; in the process, the idea for NeedsList was born.During this episode, Tasha and I discuss how and why it's so difficult to match supply from well-meaning groups and organizations with the needs of people on the ground who are suffering through crises. Our conversation spans the gamut from the original problem Tasha experienced first hand, the journey to founding and funding NeedsList, the evolving nature of global crises over the past decade, and the challenges around impact measurement & management. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Tasha discusses the opportunities she’s seeing to use machine learning and AI to gain new insights into the nature and causes of global crises so that we can address the problems before they happen.Resources from this episode:NeedsList website: www.needslist.coNeedsList TwitterNeedsList FacebookNeedsList LinkedInNatasha’s LinkedIn Profile

Churches across the globe are in crisis. The arrival of COVID-19 served to dramatically accelerate a decades-long systemic decline in church attendance as the expectations and preferences of congregants have changed across generations. Falling church attendance has meant declining revenue and mounting financial pressure to maintain expensive real estate and buildings that sit increasingly idle. Ultimately these churches may face closure and even demolition. In Canada, it is estimated that nearly one in three churches is on track to close in the next decade.And while we live in an increasingly secular society, as today's guest will articulate, churches represent an incredibly important social infrastructure that a vast number of social programs rely upon. In Toronto alone, over 100 non-profit organizations operate from church buildings or land. Losing these churches (which are often rented out at below-market rates to non-profits) would be catastrophic for many secular social purpose organizations and the vulnerable communities they serve.Enter today's guest, Graham Singh, Founder & CEO of Trinity Centres Foundation, who joins us today to talk about his innovative work using impact investing to finance the transformation of idle church properties into thriving places of sustainable community impact. Over the past 15 years, Graham has led four historic building and community renewal projects in the United Kingdom and Canada. Graham is an ordained minister in the Anglican Church and has a long line of academic credentials that include a Master's from the London School of Economics, a Bachelor of Ministry from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in political science from Huron University.During this episode, Graham and I discuss the crisis that the church in Canada is facing, the role churches play as important social infrastructure, the role of blended finance in solving the financial challenges churches face, and the types of investors and organizations that are suitable partners in this work. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where we discuss the importance of the church in placemaking; the process of co-creating quality places that people want to live, work, play, and learn in.Resources from this episode:Graham's LinkedIn profileTrinity Centres Foundation (TCF) websiteWhere you can donate to support the work of Trinity Centres Foundation.

Investing in emerging markets isn't easy. Investing in emerging markets when you want to make a positive social and environmental impact presents even more challenges. For instance, raising capital is more challenging because you have to overcome both the typical investor belief that positive impact will come at a cost to returns and the tendency to write off unfamiliar markets as far too risky.Today's guest co-founded an asset management firm that has successfully navigated these challenges on its path to growing its asset base to over $300M USD. Serge LeVert-Chiasson is Managing Director of Impact & COO at Sarona Asset Management; an asset manager investing in private equity & private debt in frontier and emerging markets around the world.What's especially interesting is that Sarona was born out of a relatively small, but highly respected charitable organization known as MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates); which itself got its start in 1953 as a social enterprise when 7 North American Mennonite business people began running a dairy farm with Ukrainian Mennonite refugees in Paraguay who had escaped the 2nd world war.During this episode of the podcast, Serge and I discuss Sarona's unique history and how that shapes its culture to this day; the way Sarona invests in and alongside financial intermediaries in emerging & frontier markets; its approach to impact measurement & management as a fund of funds, the role that faith plays in many communities across the globe, examples of the types of direct and indirect investments that Sarona makes, and Serge's involvement in CAFIID (Canada Forum for Impact Investment & Development). And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Serge shares his thoughts for what is necessary for unlocking more impact investment dollars into emerging and frontier markets.Resources:Sarona Asset Management WebsiteSarona's 2020 Impact ReportSarona's Twitter and LinkedIn accountsSerge's Twitter and LinkedIn accountsCanada Forum For Impact Investment & Development (CAFIID) Website

While the field of social finance and impact investing has blossomed in recent years, most people still tend to think about donating or impact investing as discrete activities with discrete approaches or strategies.Say the word "philanthropy" and most people think of oversized cheques at black-tie galas where your donations are spent by organizations on goods, services, and programs. Say the words "impact investing" and most people think of rigorous due diligence where your money can be leveraged far more through investment and reinvestment.But what would happen if we combined the two approaches? That's what today's guest is here to discuss. Farahnaz Karim is the Founder & CEO of Insaan Group; a non-profit raising donations which the organization uses to invest in innovative businesses and solutions for the poor, a term they call "catalytic philanthropy".Farahnaz is a social entreprenur, political scientist, and humanist. She has worked with the OSCE, the United Nations, the World Bank and non-profits across a wide range of developing countries across multiple continents. Farahnaz was previously a teaching fellow at Harvard University and a faculty member at Zayed University in Dubai lecturing on global history and humanities. She holds an MPA from Harvard, a Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Switzerland) and a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University (Canada). And if all that wasn't enough she is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter (UK).During this episode, we discuss Insaan's unique approach, the contexts in which it is most effective, how Insaan makes investment decisions, the unique ways they engage donors through the process, examples of entrepreneurs they've invested in, and their current fundraising campaign. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where we discuss how Insaan measures and manages impact.Resources from this episode:Insaan Group Website, Instagram, Facebook, and TwitterFarahnaz's BioFarahnaz's Alliance Magazine article "The Nature of Capital and Other Threats to Impact"

Today there is a growing recognition that we need to get far more capital into the hands of people who have been systematically excluded from entrepreneurship. Historically capital has disproportionately been allocated to a very narrow slice of entrepreneurs who are ivy league educated, white men. Meanwhile, women, people of colour, LGBTQ and Indigenous communities, and many others have been systematically excluded.And while today there is a growing number of funds, incubators, and accelerators that have been established to get capital into the hands of a much more diverse group of entrepreneurs, we still have a long way to go.According to RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC's second "Diversity in U.S. Startups" report, "VC-backed startups in the United States are still significantly male (89.3%), white (71.6%), based in Silicon Valley (35.3%) and Ivy-educated (13.7%)."Part of the problem is that those who allocate capital to entrepreneurs (e.g. fund managers) are still mostly represented by wealthy white men. According to our next guest's research, of the roughly $70 trillion of investment assets in the United States, just about 1% is managed by diverse asset managers.In this episode, we're joined by Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson, Founder & CEO of VC Include. What distinguishes Bahiyah's efforts are that while others are focused on supporting diverse entrepreneurs, Bahiyah's efforts are focused on supporting diverse fund managers. Bahiyah's expertise in leading technology, investment, and social impact initiatives since the early 2000s culminated in her creating VC Include in 2018 to build platforms and programs for diverse emerging managers globally. VC Include was established to meet the market opportunity by building an ecosystem of women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ fund managers.During the episode, we discuss who and why certain groups of people get systematically excluded from the private equity industry, conscious vs unconscious bias, the moral imperative, structural inequalities, and how VC Include supports diverse emerging fund managers to overcome the hurdles that prevent them from raising and managing more capital.Resources from this episode:VC Include website, Twitter, and LinkedInGender Lens Investing In and By Private Market Funds, During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic: a View from Capital Connect written by Bahiyah and Suzanne Biegel 

As much as investing for both purpose and profit is in vogue these days, there's still a wide gap between the number of people talking about impact investing and those doing it. The fact that impact capital doesn't flow nearly as freely as traditional investment capital, makes scaling a social enterprise or raising an impact fund all the more difficult. My guest today is Keith Ippel, CEO and Founder of Spring Activator in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spring Activator works with purpose-driven entrepreneurs at an early stage by providing incubation, acceleration, and investment readiness programming. The organization also works on the demand side of the impact investing equation by helping train impact investors to find and due diligence deals. Keith founded the organization nearly eight years ago and is still incredibly passionate about building the entire impact investing ecosystem. Keith is a reformed Management Consultant who, after being raised by entrepreneurs, was dragged back into entrepreneurship through the opportunities he was seeing for technology to solve real-world problems. After a successful run leading a variety of technology-based businesses, Keith began seeing the opportunity to nurture the field of impact investing and launched Spring Activator. During the episode, Keith and I discuss the state of the impact investing space globally and in Canada, what support early-stage social entrepreneurs need to scale their businesses, how to reduce the talk-action gap in impact investing, and how his organization helps investors learn how to become impact investors. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Keith discusses his outlook for impact investing over the next decade. Resources from this episode: Spring Activator Website Spring Impact Investor Challenge

Mining is an inherently challenging industry from an impact perspective since it's all about the removal and consumption of the earth's limited natural resources. The manner in which we have historically mined these resources has caused great harm to people, communities, and our planet. At the same time, our existence (as it stands today) absolutely depends on mining to provide everything from the minerals we use in virtually all of our toiletries (makeup, vitamins, toothpaste, soap, etc.) and the fertilizer we use to grow food, to the metals we use essential to necessities like cars, buildings, roads, mobile phones, and medical equipment. Plus, mining is a massive industry that contributes greatly to wealth creation for an exceedingly large number of people globally. In Canada, nearly 700,000 people work either directly or indirectly in mining and receive the highest average wage/salaries of any industry in the country. Since it isn't possible in the foreseeable future to stop mining entirely it seems abundantly clear we need to shift our focus to reducing demand and improving mining sustainability. Enter today's guest, Elizabeth Freele, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Sympact Advisory, based in Vancouver, Canada. Liz, is a passionate social sustainability strategist and futurist entrepreneur, supporting everything from pre-seed to mature enterprises in challenging operational environments across the Americas, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. She holds an MBA from IE Business School, a certificate in Sustainable Business Strategy from Harvard Business School, and a BA in Political Science and Global Development from Western University. Liz and her colleagues at Sympact work with companies to help improve their social performance to foster both company and community resilience. And given Liz's long background in the mining industry, the organization has quickly established a stronghold there. In today's episode, I sit down with Liz to flesh out the nuances of the ESG impacts of the mining industry from an ESG perspective and the practical opportunities for improving its sustainability. During the episode, we discuss the state of mining today, just how dependent we are on the industry, the most harmful practices that need to end, how mining companies can do better, and which organizations she sees as leaders in the space. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Liz discusses her views on where there is the most opportunity for impact investing in the mining industry. Resources from this episode: Sympact Advisory Website Liz's Podcast: Prospecting Purpose Summit Nanotech (Alberta company extracting Lithium from old oil wells) Liz's book recommendation: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

In a meeting hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation in Italy in 2007, the term impact investing was coined. Yet seven years prior to that, in 2001, Sir Ronald Cohen (just Ronald Cohen at the time) was requested by the UK Treasury to establish the Social Investment Task Force (SITF). The SITF was tasked with exploring the ways in which the UK could create wealth, spur economic growth, and improve the lives of its most vulnerable people at the same time. It was his work here where he and his colleagues developed much of their thinking on impact investing. Only a year after establishing the SITF, Ronnie (as he prefers to be called) would become Sir Ronnie, not for his work in impact investing but for his three decades of work essentially bringing venture capital to the UK. Ronnie was only 26 years old when he co-founded Apax Partners, a private equity firm that would grow to manage $50B in assets with offices across the globe. By 2013, then Prime Minister David Cameron asked Ronnie to lead the G8 Social Investment Task Force (G8T) in order to "catalyze a global market in social impact investment." Not long after that he was then asked by the British Government to lead an effort to expand the G8T further globally and resulted in him establishing The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG) in 2015. During this time, Sir Ronnie also contributed to creating the world's first Social Impact Bond which aimed to reduce recidivism rates at the Peterborough Penitentiary in the UK. He and his colleague's findings on SIBs were articulated in a now-famous report "Impact Investment: The Invisible Heart of the Markets" which kicked off a movement to spread the idea of impact investing across the world. All of that amounts to one hell of an impressive career by any standard but especially for a refugee who fled Egypt as a result of the Suez Crisis in the 1950s. At 11 yrs old, Ronnie and his parents arrived in the UK with just a single suitcase each and Ronnie clutching his precious stamp collection in his arms. Therefore, it is my great honour to welcome Sir Ronald Cohen to the podcast. Show Notes: Sir Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change (Ebury Press, November 3, 2020) Harvard's Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative Yuka mobile app (deciphers product labels and analyzes the health impact of food products & cosmetics) Episode 5 of this podcast where we discuss: "Following the birth of the Social Impact Bonds" *** Enter our giveaway to win a $500 impact investing prize pack by visiting www.davidoleary.ca/giveaway ***

Access to safe and affordable housing is absolutely essential to meeting humanity's most basic needs. Housing not only protects us from the elements but provides security and stability that's so important to our physical, emotional, and mental health. Yet even in the world's most developed markets, housing affordability is approaching crisis levels. For nearly 40 years now - with the exception of a few dramatic market corrections (e.g. in the early 1980s and 2008) - housing prices have soared, far exceeding the asset class's long-term expected returns. For instance, according to The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price NSA Index, real estate has doubled since 1980. Meanwhile, in Canada, home prices have nearly quadrupled over the same period. The problem is particularly acute in cities like Toronto, Munich, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Paris, and Zurich which all top the charts of the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2020. As the global pandemic has taken hold, housing prices have only continued to surge in many markets across the globe, furthering the already staggering wealth gap between the rich and poor. Today's guests Garth Davis and Andy Broderick are Managing Partners at New Market Funds based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where they structure high-impact investments that provide affordable housing in vulnerable communities across Canada. During the episode Garth, Andy, and I discuss just how bad housing affordability is getting, some of the additional barriers vulnerable communities face in accessing affordable housing, the economics of affordable housing, the importance of community-based non-profit partners, and the various ways New Market Funds is tackling the problem. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Andy and Garth discuss the opportunities and challenges for the industry over the next decade. Resources from this episode: New Market Funds line up: Affordable Housing Equity Community Real Estate Development Community Lending Co-operative Enterprise Investment *** Enter to win a $500 impact investing prize-pack! Entry is free. The deadline is Sept 4th, 2021. Visit www.davidoleary.ca/giveaway to enter!

In 1952, Harry Markowitz published a now-famous article where he proposed that investors should optimize portfolio expected return relative to volatility. Markowitz helped investors realize that by owning a diverse basket of investments, they could significantly reduce their risk without suffering a commensurate reduction in their expected return. This insight marked the birth of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) and, by the late 1960s would come to change how investors across the globe thought about investing. The trouble is, some of the assumptions underpinning MPT are keeping more investors from embracing ESG and impact investing. Today's guest Jon Lukomnik joins us to discuss his new book Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters. In the book, which is co-authored by James Hawley, Lukomnik and Hawley give a thorough accounting of how many of the assumptions underlying MPT are unrealistic or mistaken. For instance, MPT dictates that investors can mitigate systematic risks (the risks inherent in specific investment) through diversification but cannot influence large systemic risks (threats to the entire system) such as climate change or massive geopolitical instability. Lukomnik and Hawley argue that investors can and do affect systemic risks. For evidence, one need look no further than the 2008 financial crisis where investors fueled the rise of Mortgage-Backed Securities and other collateralized securities that eventually threatened to topple the global financial system. Similarly, MPT is wrong to assert that investors cannot mitigate systemic environmental or social risks like climate change. They can. But doing so requires investors to utilize tactics that aren't part of their traditional toolbox (e.g. shareholder engagement, policy & advocacy, etc.). Jon is well-positioned to write this book. He is currently Managing Director of Sinclair Capital, a consultancy to institutional investors and formerly was a senior city official running New York City’s pension funds where he oversaw $80 billion in assets. He also co-founded the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), which now represents investors from 43 countries, overseeing some $42 trillion in assets. Jon has been a board member of public, private and not-for-profit companies.  He is a three-time recipient of the NACD’s Directorship 100 award for being one of the 100 most influential people in US corporate governance. He has also been honoured by the ICGN, Ethisphere, Global Proxy Watch and others. In this episode of the podcast, Jon and I discuss the major arguments from his book including; the importance of MPT; some of the flaws in its underlying assumptions; how the very success of MPT has further undermined the assumptions that underpin it; and why MPT apologists who argue that ESG and impact investing will underperform have it wrong. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end when Jon responds directly to a conversation from an investment podcast where the experts argue that ESG and Impact Investing is doomed to underperform. ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY - for a chance to win an awesome impact investing gift pack that includes a $250 Patagonia gift card, a 60 mins impact investing coaching call with yours truly, and two great impact investing books (including Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory). Visit www.davidoleary.ca/giveaway to enter to win.  Resources from this episode: Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters by Jon Lukomnik & James Hawley Jon Lukomnik's firm Sinclair Capital Ep 124 of the Rational Reminder Podcast with Professor Lubos Pastor

When we think about impact investing, art isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for most of us. Yet investors have used art to store and grow wealth for millennia. And few of us would deny the incredible power that art possesses to change hearts and minds and to motivate us into action. Who among us wasn’t touched deeply by Amanda Gorman’s spoken word poem, “The Hill We Climb” at Joe Biden’s inauguration earlier this year? But few of us, artists included, consider carefully how we might use our artistic talents to create, or our capital to finance, art as a force for social and environmental impact. In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with art activist and changemaker Benjamin Von Wong. Von Wong's work lies at the intersection of fantasy and photography and combines everyday objects with shocking statistics. His work has attracted the attention of corporations, like Starbucks, Dell, and Nike and has generated over 100 million views for causes like ocean plastics, electronic waste, and fashion pollution. Most recently, he was named one of Adweek's 11 content-branded masterminds. He is also the host of the Impact Everywhere Podcast. During the episode, we discuss how Benjamin chooses causes to tackle,  how he conceives of his installations, the logistics that goes into creating them, how he finances his projects, and how he thinks about impact measurement. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Benjamin touches on how he thinks about the new world of NFTs which are changing the economics for artists the world over. Resources from this episode: You can reach Benjamin and view his amazing work at https://www.vonwong.com/ or inquire about commissioning him at https://unforgettablelabs.com/ Von Wong’s art installations that we discuss during the episode: Strawpocalypse Truck Load of Plastic Toxic Laundry Fast Fashion E-Waste Walking on Air for Nike 10,000 plastic bottles, a mermaid, and a single wish Underwater Shipwreck in Bali Benjamin’s Podcast: Impact Everywhere Follow Benjamin Von Wong on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn.

I have spent well over two decades working in the investment management industry. For the vast majority of that time, ESG and responsible investing toiled in obscurity and dismissed as the pursuit of impractical idealists. However, in recent years we reached a tipping point and the industry is racing to get in on the action by overhauling its marketing and sometimes even its investment processes. These days you would be hard-pressed to find an investment manager that isn’t claiming to be incorporating ESG considerations into its processes. And there are plenty of investment managers quick to claim to be doing impact investing. The trouble is, there’s a big difference between making investments that have an impact (all investments have some impact) and doing legitimate impact investing. The reason so few large money managers are doing real impact investing is because it’s harder, more time-consuming, often offers less liquidity, and doesn’t have the necessary scale. In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with Andrew Parry, Head of Sustainable Investing and Newton Investment Management out of London, U.K. With roughly $60 billion in assets under management, Newton is a boutique investment management business that is one of eight asset managers owned by BNY Mellon Investment Management. Under Andrew’s leadership, the firm has put responsible and impact investing at the heart of its philosophy and approach. Andrew has spent his career in investment management across a variety of respected asset managers including Hermes, Lazard Brothers, and Julius Baer, and Baring Asset Management. Parry is also a member of the CFA UK’s Committee for Diversity & Inclusion. During the episode, we discuss how Andrew sees ESG investing versus impact investing, how he weaves an SDG focus into the firm’s investment process and product creation, the change in demand for responsible investments in recent years, and why he views every business as a de facto social enterprise. We also get into the age-old debate of whether responsible investing leads to lower future returns. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Andrew discusses his outlook for the investment industry headed over the next decade Resources from this episode: Newton Investment Management’s Website Newton’s Statement of Purpose Newton’s Responsible Investment Policies & Practices Follow Andrew on LinkedIn Episode Sponsor: Help make wishes come true for families in need! Become a co-owner of Geenees today for as little as $250 by visiting the Geenees FrontFundr crowdfunding page

If impact investing requires us to address systemic inequalities, and it does, then you can’t claim to be an impact investor and ignore gender equality. Consider that women, girls and gender-diverse people represent half of the earth’s population and that in virtually every culture across the globe, for all of human history, they have been systematically oppressed. In this episode of the podcast, I sit down with Joy Anderson, the Founder and President of Criterion Institute and a true OG of gender lens investing.  Criterion Institute is a non-profit think tank that works with social change-makers to demystify finance and broaden perspectives on how to engage with and shift financial systems. The core mission of Criterion Institute is to expand the demographic of those who see themselves as able to use finance as a tool for social change. This is achieved by providing resources such as blueprints and toolkits to bring people to the table who normally would not feel welcome. Criterion Institute challenges the structural inequities that create barriers in the finance world, especially as it pertains to women.  Joy’s interest in social change and systems of power was formulated through her experiences in academia during her undergraduate studies and in her work as a high school teacher in the New York public school system. Joy has since worked in finance for 20 years and was listed in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2011. In founding Good Capital alongside Timothy Freundlich and Kevin Jones, Joy experienced first-hand the opportunities and challenges involved in impact investing.  During this episode, Joy and I discuss how highly complex jargon creates barriers in the finance industry; the importance of understanding context when moving money to create social good; and the link between increased political risk in investments and rates of gender-based violence. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Joy addresses the problem of keeping the finance field binary and the cultural shifts she hopes to see in the future.  Resources from this episode:  Criterion Institute’s Website  Criterion’s latest publication: Disrupting Fields: Addressing Power Dynamics in the Fields of Climate Finance and Gender Lens Investing  Criterion’s Toolkit for Finance as a Strategy for Social Change  Criterion's Blueprints for Social Change for Women's funds, Grassroots organizations, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), and Faith-based organizations Follow Criterion on LinkedIn and Twitter Follow Joy on Twitter and on LinkedIn