GIIN and Toniic offer mix of impact investing insights

Two reports putting impact investment under the microscope were unveiled this week at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Investor Forum in Amsterdam.

The first was by the GIIN itself. Impact Investing Trends: Evidence of a Growing Industry revealed that assets under management by those surveyed grew from $25.4bn in 2013 to $35.5bn in 2015. 

Although the GIIN had 158 respondents to its survey, it looked at 62 who had responded in each of the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. The majority of respondents were fund managers (34%) followed by foundations (12%).

The report stated that one of the challenges for the sector was ‘a shortage of high-quality investment opportunities with track record’. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the flatlining of capital committed in 2014 and 2015, at $9.2bn and $9.1bn respectively.

Of prime concern to impact investors is ‘business model execution and management risk’, the report states.

Toniic, described as ‘a global action community for impact investors’ also launched its T100 report, which looks at the portfolios of Toniic members looking to make their portfolios 100% impactful. 

Founder Charly Kleissner valiantly tried to make the announcement during the din of hundreds of GIIN Investor Forum attendees enjoying a break between sessions.

Of the 51 portfolios analysed (representing $1.65bn), one third stood at the 90% impactful mark. Investors were high net worth individuals (HNWIs), family offices or foundations. The report describes them as ‘self-made millionaires, inheritors, and trustees’. The survey did not include insititutional investors such as pensions or insurance companies.

More than a third of the investments (36%) were ‘thematic’ ie addressing one particular cause such as clean energy or access to clean water. 

The majority of impact investors (70%) had established impact objectives and 87% of them had either met or exceeded these. However, only 38% of respondents measured the impact of their investments.  

Those wondering where the money is going can access a directory of more than 1,000 impact investments that is searchable by asset class, impact theme or geography on the Toniic website here.

Photo credit: cyclonebill