J.P. Morgan/GIIN report on impact investment

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Measuring the growth of a four year old treeIn December, investment bank J.P. Morgan released a report with the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) detailing interviews with 52 impact or potential impact investors. Impact investing represents roughly $4 billion in market potential in 2012, and is expected to capture potentially 5-10% of all investment in a decade.

The survey aims to uncover impact investor motivations and provide a more transparent view of the overall industry by analyzing investor responses to questions ranging from return expectations to investment motivations to topical investment focus. So what do investors think of the impact investing space? Here are some of the more interesting takeaways, from our perspective.

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Is social investment guilt-driven?

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I recently came across an article by Thomas Kostigen on MarketWatch, called "Investment driven by guilt, and that’s good". He suggests that the impressive growth of socially responsible investing is being driven by guilty investor consciences.

Kostigen makes generic statements about investor motivations and the growth of "social investing" that only confuses the argument and encourages readers to blast him from every angle. Aside: you've got to wonder if the Dow Jones-published MarketWatch (ahem, NewsCorp owned) just runs this blog to entice its readers with fresh liberal meat - most of the comments are scathing.

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Nurturing Social Ventures

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Liriano inspects a mahogany treeLiriano inspects a mahogany treeTriplePundit recently did a blog post entitled "Social Entrepreneurs Lag Behind Impact Investors".

Citing investor feedback from the SOCAP Europe and San Francisco conferences, the author posits that there aren't enough investment-ready social enterprises to meet the growing demand among impact investors.

At the same time, many of the investors at SOCAP Europe, and the SOCAP conference last September in San Francisco, could be heard noting that the supply of investment-ready social businesses is not adequate. It appears that there may be a mismatch between supply and demand, particularly in developing countries where entrepreneurs with great ideas and great companies lack the commercial sophistication, strategic thinking, and organizational systems to handle investments.

The article goes on to suggest that social enterprises need a support network similar to that found in the tech sector. In addition to venture financing, this network should provide idea incubation, mentorship and strong peer support.

From our perspective, the industry-wide need for venture capital is most pressing.

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ForestBond 2019 goes live on Mission Markets platform

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Mission Markets, an online platform for socially responsible investments, recently facilitated its first deal.

Planting Empowerment is particularly excited about this news because we recently launched our ForestBond 2019 product on Mission Markets' platform. The ForestBond 2019 will finance 100 hectares of mixed species timber cultivations based on PE's equitable forestry model.

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