The Impact World This Week: 8 May 2025

UK: Mother nature is getting some love from interiors brand House of Hackney, with the B Corp appointing Char Love as its new mother nature and future generation director. The role “enables a non-partisan person, independent of the business, to ensure that in every decision made across all departments, the future of a liveable, thriving planet for all life on earth is fully considered”. Char Love is chief international advocacy officer at cosmetics group Natura. Previously she was co-founder, chair and activist in residence at B Lab UK. Love is currently an executive in residence at Oxford’s Said Business School, where she teaches an MBA on Regenerative Business. Love takes over the role from Brontie Ansell, who took the position when it was created in 2023 as part of House of Hackney’s move to shift the business towards being restorative and regenerative.

• Read more: Tree-huggers, board advisers, contract shapers: The lawyers leading the way for nature

USA: ChatGPT maker OpenAI confirmed on Monday it will change the status of its for-profit subsidiary to a public benefit corporation. OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with a mission to develop artificial intelligence in a way that benefits all humanity and launched its for-profit subsidiary in 2019. The company statement said the non-profit will control and also be a large shareholder of the public benefit corporation. When the restructure was first reported last year – albeit with reports suggesting the non-profit would lose its control over the for-profit subsidiary – experts expressed concern that the company’s plans indicate that it might move away from its mission in favour of focusing on profits for investors.

• Read more: Is OpenAI impact washing by becoming a public benefit corporation?

US: The bitter battle between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever continues, with the ice cream maker alleging Trump-supporting billionaire Nelson Peltz has an increasing influence over its parent company, where he sits on the board of directors. The two companies have been locked in a legal dispute since last year over allegations Unilever is damaging Ben & Jerry’s ability to carry out its social mission. In a court filing submitted last week, Ben & Jerry’s said Unilever’s edits to its social media posts, a key issue in the ongoing lawsuit, "mirror the political views of Mr Peltz". The increasing influence of Peltz over Unilever could signal broader change at the company, said Ben & Jerry’s, specifically in environmental, social and governance policies (ESG) opposed by President Trump. Ben & Jerry’s filing was submitted in response to Unilever's attempts the previous week to have the case thrown out.

Asia: gender-lens investing is getting a boost, as AVPN joins Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) in a partnership to grow the “Orange Movement”, an global initiative launched by IIX three years ago to put gender equality at the core of financial markets. IIX has led pioneering initiatives in gender-lens finance, notably through its “Orange Bonds” – investment bonds dedicated to gender equality. AVPN will be a member of the Orange Movement Advisory Council to provide strategic leadership and guidance to the initiative, and signed the Orange Pledge as a sign of its commitment to gender-lens investing. “By deepening gender-lens investing in Asia, we are actively building a more just present, thus amplifying our shared mission and accelerating a more equitable global future,” said Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN.

US: The gates will close on the Gates Foundation in 20 years. In a statement, Bill Gates said he aims to spend approximately US$200bn between now and 2045, the largest amount a private foundation has ever given away, focusing on three aspirations: no mother, child or baby dies of a preventable cause, the next generation grows up in a world without deadly infectious diseases and hundreds of millions of people break free from poverty, putting more countries on a path to prosperity. Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the foundation’s board, including Gates, had been discussing the 20-year sunsetting plan for more than a year (although when the foundation was first established in 2000 there was always a plan for it to close “several decades” after Bill and Melinda Gates’ deaths).

• Read more: LePage and Novogratz debate 'sunset clauses' for 'wacky' foundations investing money without impact

Northern Ireland: A lack of clear ambition and strategy is holding back growth in Northern Ireland’s social enterprises, according to research published this week. The Barriers to Growth Research on the Social Economy in Northern Ireland, published by the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland, recommends establishing a five-year strategy for social enterprise and associated funding plans, and the appointment of a senior member of central government responsible to deliver that strategy. The research, based on survey responses, global best practices and literature reviews, found 61% of social enterprises in Northern Ireland identify lack of access to finance or investment as a critical challenge. Other key barriers to growth cited include legal and structural constraints, market visibility issues, recruitment challenges and gaps in programmatic support.

UK: Outstanding social enterprises have been recognised among the 197 recipients of this year’s Kings Awards for Enterprise. The awards aim to recognise leading businesses across the country that play a vital role in growing the economy to improve lives. Among the awardees are: 

• Sustainable bank Triodos 
• London Early Years Foundation, the country’s largest charitable social enterprise for early years education and care (whose CEO June O’Sullivan was named Social business Woman of the Year at the WISE100 awards 2025)
• Community Energy South, a business with a mission to scale up the community energy sector across England to drive the transition to net-zero; 
• Social Pantry, a catering business that employs and mentors ex-offenders

Browse the full list to find out more.

South Africa: Intensifying competition for resources and a decline in international funding, led by the US, are putting the social economy in South Africa under threat. That’s according to the 2025/2026 social economy in South Africa report, published last week by impact consultancy Next Generation. The report, which Next Generation says is the first ever analysis aimed at determining the sector’s size and scope in the country, argues that South Africa’s social economy requires a ‘backbone organisation’ to support and mobilise the sector, citing Philea and Philanthropy Australia as examples. 

Global: The Ford Foundation, the Sorenson Impact Foundation and the Surdna Foundation have joined the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3), an organisation that aims to foster the awareness and use of catalytic capital to create positive impact. C3 offers grants to field-building initiatives and invests in funds that demonstrate a powerful use of catalytic capital. The organisation has added a total of nine new funders as partners in the past year as it seeks to expand its work.

Figure of the week: €69bn is the amount raised by impact funds targeting the “Blue Economy” since 2015, according to the latest research by Phenix Capital, based on a database of 2,900 “returns-first” impact funds. While the number of “Blue Economy” funds listed by Phenix has grown nearly five-fold in the past decade to 186, they represent only 6.6% of the total.

In case you missed it

UK: Social investment wholesaler Better Society Capital has reached £1bn in investments in charities and social enterprises since its inception in 2012. Mobilising another £2.9bn in co-investment from other investors, it has channelled nearly £4bn in investment to a total of 3,750 impact-led organisations. Better Society Capital says its impact venture investments in financial inclusion and health reached 7m people and its investment in social housing delivered more than 7,000 homes, while 60% of lending to social enterprises and charities goes to the most deprived areas of the country. CIO Anna Shiel said the achievement gave the organisation “tremendous hope for the sector's future”.

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Global: British International Investment has published a report to help impact investors develop blended finance funds and scale the practice. Developed with Boston Consulting Group, Scaling Blended Finance: Practical Tools for Blended Finance Fund Design offers two key tools for investors to successfully establish and manage blended finance vehicles: a “typology” of fund archetypes, which outlines the main types of blended finance structures currently in use and how they respond to different needs and objectives; and a scorecard to enable investors to assess how well the blended finance structure they’re using is working.