Collaborative Capitalism and the Rise of Impact Investing

Investing with the explicit goal of creating financial returnsalongside measurable social and environmental benefits is catchingfire. Wall Street's biggest players are rushing to provide clientswith access to new impact investing options, amid growing consumerdemand and evidence that the approach can be successfully executed.Recent research on outstanding impact investing funds has revealeda mature practice, vibrant with commercial investors, providingstable, predictable returns to their investors as well assupporting the creation of millions of jobs and other tangibleoutcomes in markets overlooked by traditional asset managers. And yet, the individuals and organizations committed to impactinvesting are just the tip of the iceberg in a larger movement.This includes the growing field of social enterprise, wheremarket-based solutions can go beyond what government andphilanthropy can do to directly address society's problems. And itincludes institutional investors who have utilized impact screensand shareholder activism as a risk reduction strategy over the past30 years. Collaborative Capitalism and the Rise of ImpactInvesting sees these movements as signs of a much morefundamental shift, as finance as a whole responds to an increasedconsumer demand for market transparency—the need to knowexactly what we are buying, where and how it was made, and who itaffects. By putting a lens on the underlying practices that bridgeimpact investing and risk mitigation finance, the book outlines thetransformation in finance itself, driven by more cross-sector,transparent relationships in the service of creating long-termvalue for multiple stakeholders, not just shareholders.