Collection: Earth Fixers
The Impact World this Week: 26 June 2025
Your quick guide to the most interesting news snippets about social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business around the world from the Pioneers Post team. This week: 'most sustainable' company in the world revealed, young changemakers use AI for impact, Chocolate Films awarded royal warrant, and more.
Agroforestry in Peru: social enterprise Plant Your Future supports smallholder farmers to diversify their income by growing cocoa trees alongside timber trees and protecting the forest. Credit Plant Your Future/Adam Dickens.
Latin America: Community-led sustainable businesses in the Amazon region are getting a boost as impact investor NESsT joins the AmazonBeEco project. The four-year initiative supports local communities to increase their income from biodiversity-related activities – such as agroforestry, artisanal fishing or community-based forest management – by providing technical assistance, developing appropriate financing options and network building. The project was initially launched by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Green Climate Fund last year, and aims to support more than 100 community-led such “biobusinesses” and increase income for 8,000 families. NESsT will lead the project’s implementation in Peru, aiming to support 25 businesses.
Global: The ‘most sustainable company’ in the world is French energy management and equipment firm Schneider Electric, according to a ranking published this week by TIME magazine. The list of the 500 most sustainable companies was produced for TIME by data firm Statista, based on the companies’ public commitment to and progress toward sustainability targets during the calendar year of 2023 (the most recent year for which complete data is available). Statista began by identifying over 5,000 of the world's largest and most influential companies, then eliminated businesses in non-sustainable industries like fossil fuels or deforestation or which appear on negative lists related to sustainability issues. The remaining companies were scored on more than 20 data points, covering sustainability commitments, external sustainability ratings, reporting and transparency, environmental and social stewardship and social metrics (including gender diversity on the board of directors and in leadership, gender pay gap and worker safety). The top 500 companies are spread across more than 30 countries, with the United States, Japan, and France being the countries with most businesses on the list.
Global: Almost two-thirds of ‘young changemakers’ use AI at least once a week despite having ethical and environmental concerns, according to The Possibilists 2025 AI Deep Dive, released this week as part of its 2025 global report. More than one in four respondents report using AI daily to support their work and an additional 38% report using AI weekly. While a majority of surveyed ‘changemakers’ acknowledge that AI has beneficial applications, only one in four say they actually trust AI. About two-thirds express concerns about the ethics behind AI use and its environmental impact. The report is based on a survey of 922 young people aged 14 to 35 who hold leading positions within their organisations, addressing social and environmental issues across 110 countries worldwide.
- Read more: How to do AI – the social enterprise way
Global: The UK government will join the Friends of Cali Fund global coalition, which brings together governments and businesses to champion the fair and equitable sharing of benefits they derive from nature. The announcement was made at an event held during London Climate Week and attended by representatives of business and finance representing trillions of pounds, Indigenous leaders and other governments. Also attended by King Charles III, the gathering was organised by the UK government with the aim of driving the delivery of the deal agreed by almost 200 countries at the UN Nature summit in Montreal two years ago to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, as well as the Paris Agreement. The global nature deal set out a target to mobilise US$200bn per year globally by 2030, including US$20bn in flows to developing countries by 2025, rising to US$30bn by 2030.
Global: There are 423 private debt impact funds across the world, which represents a 185% growth in the last 10 years. Of the 423 funds, 264 are open to investors. This data comes from a report published today by impact investment consultancy Phenix Capital Group, based on its database of 2,800 impact funds. The report found that development finance institutions are the largest investor type in private debt impact funds, in which they often play a catalytic or de-risking role. A total of €66bn has been raised in private debt impact funds since 2015. The two top sustainable development goals targeted by the private debt impact funds are No Poverty (targeted by 206 funds) and Affordable and Clean Energy (targeted by 152 funds).
Global: The overall level of disclosure by development finance institutions (DFIs) remains insufficient to support accountability, informed investment decisions or meaningful stakeholder engagement. That’s according to the Publish What You Fund campaign for aid and development transparency, which published its 2025 DFI Transparency Index today as part of London Climate Week. The index assessed 32 portfolios from 25 bilateral and multilateral DFIs, covering both sovereign and non-sovereign (private sector) operations. The World Bank topped the sovereign transparency ratings and the Asian Development Bank topped the non-sovereign list. The US International Development Finance Corporation was the only DFI to see a drop in transparency, due to reduced disclosure of climate and impact information. Two DFIs – the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and IDB Invest – began disclosing private capital mobilisation data at project level for the first time, while seven large bilateral DFIs, including the China Development Bank, remain too opaque to assess.
Rachel Wang, director of Chocolate Films
UK: It has been a sweet week for Chocolate Films after the social enterprise was awarded a royal warrant by King Charles III for video production services. The royal warrant is granted to companies that have supplied goods or services to the Royal Household for at least five years and continue to uphold the highest standards of sustainability, quality and reliability. Chocolate Films was awarded the Warrant in recognition of over a decade of service to the Royal Household and Royal Collection Trust. The social enterprise film production company reinvests its profits into community filmmaking programmes across the UK, working with young people, underrepresented voices, and those with limited access to the creative industries.
Global: Trading impact could be a way to scale finance for positive social and environmental outcomes, according to a new report published by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. The authors argue that by creating a system of “impact credits”, (similar to carbon credits), positive social and environmental outcomes could be given monetary value and create market incentives to create positive impact. In carbon credit markets, companies can buy credits from carbon-reducing initiatives to offset their CO2 emissions. The report does not specify if impact credits could be bought by organisations to offset their negative impacts, but authors say buyers in the “social impact market" would include governments, philanthropists and development agencies, and “potentially the private sector in the future”. Challenges to the method include a lack of comparable metrics for social and environmental impact and burdensome verification.
Global: To help asset owners navigate the challenges of investing in climate solutions, like regulatory uncertainty and lack of standardised assessment, the Global Impact Investing Network has launched a new tool: the Climate Solutions Investing Framework, launched on Tuesday as part of London Climate Action Week. The framework is designed to offer a clear set of criteria to identify and prioritise among climate solutions investments that contribute meaningfully to global climate goals.
UK: Over 5,000 jobs were created or safeguarded in the North of England in the 2024/25 financial year thanks to investment from social investor Business Enterprise Fund, according to its 2024/25 impact report, published this week. The report also shows its investments helped create 500 new businesses through a total of £21.8m of lending. Business Enterprise Fund supports SME businesses in the North of England which are unable to access other forms of finance. In 2024/25, 75% of its lending was invested in the most deprived areas in the North of England, but only £5.9m of that (27%) went to female entrepreneurs, 2% less than in 2023/24.
Figure of the week: £2.5bn is the amount invested in impact-driven projects by Triodos Bank UK since its inception 30 years ago – ranging from social housing to charities and community projects.
In case you missed it
MENA: In 2024 Alfanar Venture Philanthropy deployed £712,000 to 38 enterprises in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. The NGO, which provides funding and management support to social enterprises in the MENA region, published its 2024 impact report earlier this month. The report outlines how in 2024 the organisation restructured its portfolio to drive sustainable impact with a focus on marginalised communities, including women, youth, children, and refugees. The organisation reported a 23% growth in self-generated revenue over 2024.
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