The Impact World This Week: 12 June 2025

UK: Celebrity business leader Mary Portas and Tony’s Chocolonely CEO Douglas Lamont were joined by more than 150 business leaders in Parliament on Wednesday to mark Better Business Day 2025, as part of the Better Business Act campaign. The event, hosted by B Lab UK, was attended by more than a dozen MPs, who encouraged government ministers to back new measures requiring UK-based companies to consider people and the planet, alongside profit. The number of businesses supporting the Better Business Act campaign has grown tenfold in the last three years, from 300 to more than 3,000 to date. Portas said: “The world is on a knife-edge – socially, culturally, environmentally. People are not just asking more from business, they are demanding it.…The Better Business Act will give businesses the power – and responsibility – to put people and planet on par with profit. This really is a line in the sand moment. Businesses simply need to choose - be part of the solution, or get left behind.”

• Read more: Legislating for all businesses to be purpose-led will boost UK economy, argues think tank

UK: More details about the forthcoming government-led social impact investment vehicle will emerge over the summer, this week’s spending review confirmed. The vehicle was originally announced in the Labour government’s budget in October 2024, aiming to “mobilise private investment to deliver positive social impacts”. The spending review 2025 document explained that the Treasury, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Office for Investment had been working to develop their plans with the Social Impact Investment Advisory Group, which itself has come under fire for its lack of representation of social entrepreneurs. 

• Read more: Budget 2024: UK Government will create social impact investment vehicle to deliver its missions  

UK: Also in the spending review, the government’s emphasis on regeneration of deprived communities was welcomed by Nick Temple, CEO at social investor Social Investment Business, who said it was a “rocket-booster for renewal”. The Chancellor confirmed additional funding for up to 350 deprived communities, a ‘growth mission fund’ to push forward forgotten local projects and a £39bn affordable homes programme.

Asia: Are you looking for credible and reliable impact organisations in Asia to collaborate with? If so, AVPN’s new ImpactCollab platform may have the answers you’re looking for. Designed for grantmakers, wealth managers and philanthropy advisors, the platform already hosts more than 400 impact-focused organisations, vetted by AVPN to ensure they are trustworthy and impactful. Supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Gates Foundation, and offering due diligence support and impact management tools, ImpactCollab will replace the Deal Share Platform, which will be phased out. 

Canada: To achieve its ‘Build Canada Strong’ objective the government should expand its support for social enterprise and social procurement. That’s according to social enterprise Buy Social Canada, which responded last week to the government’s Speech from the Throne, which opens every new session of parliament. Buy Social Canada welcomed the government’s emphasis on affordable housing, clean energy, and local workforce development and urged it to explicitly support social enterprises with policy, procurement opportunities, and access to stable, long-term funding.

UK: Hey Girls CIC said “hey” to a new leadership team this week, with the period poverty social enterprise appointing co-founder Kate Smith as CEO. Smith (pictured above) is taking over the role from her mother and Hey Girls co-founder Celia Hodson OBE, who becomes chair of the organisation while building W/O Pads, a new social enterprise developing incontinence products. Hodson founded Hey Girls after the experience of living on benefits and being unable to afford period products for her two daughters. Chris Shutt has been promoted to managing director at Hey Girls, from his previous role as general manager.

• Read more: Celia Hodson on the challenges of building a social enterprise supply chain at Hey Girls

UK: AI initiatives to improve clean energy systems were celebrated this week, with the finalists of a government-funded prize rewarding AI solutions for public good announced on Wednesday. Through the Manchester Prize, 10 finalists each receive £100,000 to develop their work, with one winning a £1m grand prize in March 2026. The finalists include AI-enabled heat-mapping drones to help councils and housing associations pinpoint social housing stock in need of insulation upgrades more efficiently, AI to recycle old solar panel stock into new and AI-designed panels to heat houses from the outside in. The prize is funded by the government Department of Science, Innovation and Technology and delivered by Challenge Works (part of the Nesta group).

UK: A £100m reparations fund to address the Church of England’s past involvement in the slave trade is expected to cause a backlash when it starts making grants. The Church Commissioners 2024 annual report, published on Monday, said the fund was “highly significant and contested” and the plans had attracted significant criticism. “Further reaction, including negative comment, to this programme is expected,” added the report. The Church Commissioners engaged “extensively” with dissenting voices while developing the fund, said the annual report, adding that “on occasion this has involved being on the receiving end of correspondence that has been vitriolic and abusive” to the extent the Commissioners had to take steps to protect its staff and volunteers. The Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice was announced in March 2024 with an aim of growing it to £1bn, and the church held briefings and engagement sessions throughout the year as part of its initial implementation. 

• Read more: Church of England to launch £1bn impact fund in response to historic links to slave trade

UK: Mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) declined in the majority of FTSE 100 companies’ annual reports last year, found analysis carried out by the Observer newspaper. The analysis found 85 companies’ 2024 annual reports had 16% less of both total mentions of DEI and number of pages containing the phrase and variations on it, in comparison to 2023 annual reports. Total mentions of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and variations on that term declined by 22%. The newspaper points to the policies of US president Donald Trump to remove mention of DEI and ESG from federal documents, and threatening to take legal action against companies that fail to do the same, to explain the decline.

• Read more: DEI is under threat, but can it hide in plain sight?

Eastern Europe: €1.2m has been deployed for social enterprises in Eastern Europe through the five-year Collaborate for Impact project, delivered by Impact Europe with support from the European Union. The project launched in September 2020 aiming to increase access to finance for social enterprises in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Catalytic funding from the EU has enabled the creation of three impact funds, in Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine, leading to 91 social enterprises securing investment and 250 receiving non-financial support, and creating 166 jobs. The project sought to develop a long-term local impact ecosystem by engaging with stakeholders, reaching 400 social investors through four investor communities.