Short n Sweet: 3 October 2019

Feedback sought for Social Stock Exchange in Scotland 

A consultation has opened to seek feedback on the impact reporting requirements for a proposed Social Stock Exchange in Scotland. 

Tomás Carruthers, CEO and founder of Project Heather – the team building the exchange – opened the consultation ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit, saying the project aimed to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “feasible and achievable” by helping move capital at speed and scale to relevant projects. 

“We have spent considerable time working on what a potential issuer on our proposed new Scottish stock exchange might look like, but now it is time to call on the global impact community to help,” he said. 

Jamison Ervin, global manager on nature for development at the UNDP, said private sector support was essential to achieve the SDGs and that an impact-focused stock exchange could be “a game-changer for our planet” by helping to change how capital markets value natural capital. 

The proposed Scottish-based, global facing stock exchange will be specifically for impact investments and will require impact reporting for every issuer, on admission and annually thereafter. Every issuer will be required to report against the SDGs and the current consultation seeks opinion on this plus other elements of impact reporting. The consultation is open at www.projectheather.scot until 21 October 2019. 

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Appointments: Bamboo Capital Partners, Responsible Finance, GLL, Big Society Capital, Social Investment Scotland

Bamboo Capital Partners, a Luxembourg-headquartered impact investing platform that has raised over $400m for developing countries, has appointed Katherine Milligan as its head of diversity and gender lens investing. Milligan will work with fund managers and investment committees across the business to ensure that Bamboo’s investments improve women’s access to finance, increase workplace equality policies and practices, and expand access to goods and services that help bring women into the formal economy. She will also lead the firm’s partnership with CARE Enterprises to invest in growth stage companies in South and Southeast Asia.  

Milligan was formerly the executive director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the sister organisation of the World Economic Forum. She is also an adjunct professor of Social Entrepreneurship at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Development Studies in Geneva, and a board member of the Social Impact Award.

In other career news this week:

• Responsible Finance, the organisation representing the UK’s growing ethical and affordable finance industry, has promoted Theodora Hadjimichael from policy and research manager to CEO.
• Big Society Capital has appointed James Westhead, the former executive director at Teach First, as its head of engagement, in a role responsible for growing understanding of and the amount of social impact investment.
• Scotland manager at Big Issue Invest Kieran Daly announced on Twitter an upcoming move to Social Investment Scotland, where he’ll take up the role as head of market building.
• GLL, the UK’s largest leisure charitable social enterprise, is strengthening its investment in communities across the country by appointing a new manager for its two foundations. James Jebb will oversee the continued development of both the GLL Sport Foundation and the GLL Community Foundation. Together the two bodies have distributed over £12m in the last 12 years.
• CrackedIt CEO Josh Babarinde has announced he is campaigning to the Liberal Democrat MP for the east London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow. The seat is currently held by Labour’s Rushanara Ali, who chairs an All-Party Parliamentary Group on philanthropy and social investment.

H&M, Aesop and others get on board with period dignity at work campaign

Social enterprise Hey Girls kicked off another campaign, this time calling for dignity at work by making sanitary products in the workplace as freely available as toilet roll or soap.

The campaign is already working with businesses including Autotrader, BrewDog, H&M Customer Service and Aesop Skincare. James Cooney, design project manager at Aesop Skincare, said providing Hey Girls period products in its bathrooms was “such a simple step in allowing our workforce to perform to the best of their ability". He added: “We are really proud to join Hey Girls on this venture, it’s safe to say they have now become a core part of our business.”

Hey Girls also unveiled a new quote generator on its website for businesses looking to make an order.

The social enterprise's Buy One Give One pledge means that every product purchased will be matched by Hey Girls and donated to a local charity. Founded in January 2018, it is a key partner in the Scottish Government’s initiative to provide free sanitary products to pupils and students in schools, colleges and universities across Scotland. 

More Dads on the dance floor thanks to social investment 

Many more children in south-west England are set to cringe thanks to investment of £120,000 from the Resonance Health & Wellbeing Challenge Fund (South West) to support a dancing club run by Dangerous Dads CIC. 

The community interest company has been running outdoor activities and events since 2007, encouraging dads to spend more quality time with their children. Its Dad Dancing Fit Club combines cheesy music with “wonderfully embarrassing dance moves” targeting dads and their children, with a fitness routine developed by professional instructors and sessions aimed to be affordable for all. 

Resonance made its first loan to Dangerous Dads in 2017. Leila Sharland, investment manager at Resonance praised the organisation as “inclusive and creative” and said its growth would “mean more families can be active and build relationships together through their exciting range of activities across the UK.”

The Health & Wellbeing Challenge Fund is an impact investment fund created with investment from the Growth Fund (which is managed by Access - The Foundation for Social Investment and is funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Big Society Capital) and South West Academic Health Science Network.

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