Impact Investing Nieuws: IMPACT INVESTING in the United Nations Global Goals

This new series is about impact investing in the UN's Global or Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). I'll look at opportunities in listed public equity impact investments focusing on PEOPLE impact. My portfolio aims at risk related return & net positive impact looking at sectors, (ESG) operations & impact ambition.

In het Nederlands: http://impactinvestingnews.blogspot.com/2018/09/impact-investing-in-de-un-sustainable.html (echt waar :)

Net impact is the result of core activities & the contribution of sectors to the SDG's as measured & rated by Bob 'best-in-class' Eccles. Eccles analysed the Materiality of Sustainability and recently presented a model for SDG contribution of sectors based on the Sustainability Accounting Standards in Forbes.

Data on ESG i.e. operations can be found online e.g. Yahoo Finance & Sustainalytics.

Future impact depends on vision, ambition, sector, market- & technological developments. In my portfolio selection is the result of my personal background, education, work experience, 7 years impact investing & priorities. The same goes for exclusion, as impact investing without taking negative impact into account doesn't make sense.

Impact investing opportunities can be found in:

● investment products & companies active in basic needs, & e.g. largecap value stock.

● investment products & companies in impact tech, technological innovation making basic needs affordable & accessible, eg growth stock.

● A third group are sectors & companies leading the impact transition: decoupling negative impact from growth, decreasing negative impact 'do less harm' & growing positive impact 'do good'.

Sustainable benchmarks show companies with net negative impact (AGTAF & more) investing in impact theme's. It aims to make them future proof and be part of Capitalism 2.0 companies offering societal solutions.

There are few sectors that are not investing in the impact transition. Only the Tobacco sector does poorly according to Bob Eccles (Food & Beverages sector contribution to the SDG's, Forbes July29th18). Whilst e.g. British American Tobacco (BAT) presents attractive sustainability aims: Transforming Tobacco for harm reduction; sustainable agriculture and farmer livelihoods; and corporate behaviour. BAT gets Gold & is the industry leader in RobecoSAM Sustainability Leaders Yearbook.

My Impact Investment Rating* model category HOLD contains many 'sustainable' companies whose net impact has yet to become transparent.

In my portfolio you will probably recognize Dutch Sustainability Leaders, multinationals as you buy their products and maybe even own investment products such as ESG ETP's, funds, stock or bonds. The Dutch are world champion in impact investing thanks to our pension funds, insurers, banks & asset managers. Their impact, ethical, sustainable or thematic (water, micro finance) investments are usually a few percent of the AuM, but it is our claim to global fame. The Dutch have been investing with impact for decades and we have dedicated super sustainable banks as catalysts in the sector.

The sector aims to increase it's impact investments because of client demand, because sustainable, impact investing shows better returns in the long run and because of the limits to economic growth.

Continuing to ignore negative impact by outsourcing it to the environment, climate or ignoring effects on people in developed, emerging & developing markets / countries is poor risk management & unsustainable.

To quote the UN's secretary Ban Ki Moon:

'there is no plan B because there is no planet B'.

The European Union, Dutch government & it's Central Bank are facilitating impact investing with policies, regulations (such as ESG transparency from 2018), working groups etc.

Selecting Impact Investments can be done by:

● analysing the marketing & definitions of impact investments; watch out for rebranded relaunched products based on 'do less harm' operations as 'do good' impact without real transition & innovation. Also lots of focus on PLANET impact. On the up side: costs & fees can be low(er) thus funds more inclusive.

● looking at impact opportunities within sectors, eg property, healthcare, energy, finance, as the impact transition to ''do less harm'' decrease negative impact & ''do good'' have positive impact is evolving

● looking at technologal innovations disruptive potential to change the world(economy).

The world is changing rapidly & the financial sector can be huge catalysts:

the biggest companies in the world are Chinese & American banks (Forbes 2018)

I aim to show (retail) investors that impact investing is more affordable & accessible i.e. inclusive than they might think. Retail investors can find impact opportunities in indexfunds & ETP's, stock, bonds, real estate, crowdfunding for impact, etc.

In 10 Impact Investing Myths I challenge the most common cliche's. My Tools & Thoughtpieces can be used to select funds, build portfolio's & analyse risk related return & impact: The Impact Indicator for Investment Products, The Ideal Impact Investment Product, Impact Investment Rating & DecisionTrees for Impact Investing etc.

I use free online available impact metrics & rating, ESG data & rating, (Strong) Buy hold Sell advice offered by Yahoo Finance & Sustainalytics, the Community Employees Environment Governance ratings on CSRHub, Toniic's Impact Investments Directory & the investment universe (including indices) on nachhaltiges-investment.org and of the Dutch ASN Bank & Triodos Bank.

With the series I also aim to be a catalyst for private capital investments for impact the way sustainable operations have attracted private capital, thus lowered capital costs, for best in class companies regardless of their core activities. (Eccles, Serafeim et al) Consequently Eccles & Serafeim looked at Materiality of Sustainability (for growth of profit & impact). Right now Eccles is analysing (sub)sectoral Contribution to the SDG's.(Forbes series)

About the author: I am a doctorandus (MA) in Political History: strategies & trends in development cooperation (RUUtrecht 1983 & RUGroningen 1985-1988), Master of Arts, (Erasmus) Institute of Social Studies (The Hague) in Politics of Alternative Development Strategies (1989-1990). I worked in (leading) Charity Marketing & Fundraising for 20 years & as an impact investor since 2011.

Contact & Column request:

https://nl.linkedin .com/in/alcannehoutzaager (Pulse)