6 Hotspots for Social Impact in Asia: Key Trends and Players
4 min read
Inclusive Business (IB) is a novel concept in Asia, but highly relevant. Aiming to catalyse social impact in a financially viable way, it provides opportunities for private and public sector players to work alongside communities at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) to enable sustainable livelihoods for all.
Above and Beyond a Grantmaking Exercise: How an Evolving Partnership Can Create Better Futures for Girls in Cambodia
5 min read
As social issues like unequal access to education transcends across multiple silos, like-minded stakeholders need to partner and move collectively to create impact. Find out how Atlassian Foundation and Room To Read are doing just that, and how you can do so too.
AVPN 2020 | Aligning Investors on Impact Management
Despite the widely held belief that impact measurement and management is needed, questions remain: What is considered a “good” impact is highly debatable
AVPN 2020 | Deal Share Live: Building Climate Resiliency of Frontline Communities Through Adaptive Solutions
In recognition of the urgency of the climate crisis there are a number of businesses being developed in the region looking at how to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
AVPN 2020 | Deal Share Live: Empowering Green Solutions Towards a Climate-Safe Future
This session showcases enterprises working on innovative solutions for climate mitigation. Solutions ranged from restoring kelp forests through responsible urchin ranching
AVPN 2020 | Investing for Impact Across Your Portfolio
As impact investing is becoming more mainstream across Asia and there are several investors who have been leading this movement.
AVPN 2020 | Maximising Social Impact within Family Offices
This session highlighted that many see conventional investing and social impact on different poles but in fact asset owners should consider aligning their full portfolio with their values, leveraging various asset classes to achieve different goals. On one side of this spectrum there is conventional public securities using ESG-integration, then there are impact funds that can offer deeper impact with still competitive risk-adjusted returns, and on the other end of the spectrum there is concessionary capital for social enterprises or more impact-first funds and finally philanthropy which of course would focus only on impact returns with no financial return expected.
AVPN 2020 | The Future of Impact and Sustainable Investing
Asia is the largest manufacturing base in the world which has resulted in high carbon emissions
AVPN 2020 | The Role of Angel Investing in Asia
Angel investors, while still nascent in Asia in comparison to the West, play an extremely important role to plug the gap for funding enterprises that do not qualify for traditional funding methods. When start-ups are in the very early stage
AVPN November Webinar recording: Hardware Pioneers-Harness the Impact Potential of Technology Entrepreneurs
Insights on some challenges faced by hardware social entrepreneurs and the roles impact investors play in supporting these new solutions scale their impact.
AVPN Virtual Deal Share Live: Showcase of Women-Led Enterprises in the Philippines
While the Philippines comes second place among East Asia and the Pacific region in gender parity as reported by the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index report, much more needs to be done. In partnership with Investing In Women, this session focuses on uplifting women-founded/led enterprises with the aim of further narrowing the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity through Gender Lens Investing.
AVPN Webinar: Impact Investing in a Post-COVID World: ESG Trends, Measurement & Analysis Across Asia-Pacific
While the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that there is an upcoming shift to rethink sustainability practices, business models, and investment priorities. With ESG standards being one of the most powerful and globally recognized tools to advance progress in sustainability, it is critical to ensure that we are well-positioned to integrate ESG in our current context.
AVPN Webinar: A Gender Lens Response to COVID-19 Funding & Philanthropy
Data has shown that women and girls across Asia and the globe are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Whether it is the exacerbated burdens of unpaid care work on women and girls, or the increasing rates of gender-based violence during quarantine, the gendered impacts of the current pandemic requires an urgent response from funders and philanthropists.
AVPN Webinar: Demystifying Gender Lens Investing
Gender lens investing (GLI) has gained traction globally with an increasing number of mainstream investors incorporating gender-based analysis into their investment decisions. While investing along a gender lens may be more pronounced in the west, the GLI landscape in Asia has shown rapid growth over the past few years. By investing in gender equity, Asia Pacific could see $4.5 trillion added to the annual GDP by 2025.
AVPN Webinar: Gender Lens Investing in Practice: Investment Showcase
AVPN with support from Investing in Women and in partnership with AmCham and AusCham in Vietnam look forward to the second installment of Gender-Lens Investing in Practice with a focus on showcasing women entrepreneurs.
AVPN Webinar: Opportunities in Gender Lens Investing to Drive Economic Growth in Indonesia
Over the years, there has been increasing efforts to achieve women’s economic empowerment in Indonesia. There is a unanimous appetite among impact and mainstream investors to understand gender lens investing, a relatively new and emerging theme in Indonesia.
AVPN x Circulate Capital: Catalyzing Capital to Advance the Circular Economy and Fight Climate Change in Asia
The circular economy presents a specific and unique opportunity for corporate, private and development finance investors to capture the value of plastic waste as well as to meaningfully mitigate the climate impacts of plastic pollution, especially in Asia. According to Circulate Capital, we could eliminate almost 150 million tonnes of GHG from the environment if […]
Catalyzing the Circular Economy: Investment Potential in Asia
4 min read The most important climate change conference – COP26 – is just around the corner, reminding countries, leaders, media and the public, of the pressing need to fight climate change for a better collective future. Without intervention, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the plastic lifecycle will make up 20 percent of the global […]
GIIN Survey Highlights Industry Development Milestones
5 min read
Time and again, disparate industries have followed a common pattern of development, beginning in infancy as new products and services emerge before entering a youthful growth phase in which those products gain traction among key market segments. Then, as more players enter a market, industries typically face a shakeout period in which they grapple with issues of identity, consolidation, and competition. And, ultimately, industries stabilize in a phase of saturation and maturity.
How Can New Family Offices/Angel Investors Maximise Impact?
4 min read
With the rise of impact investing in recent years, many high net worth individuals are increasingly aware of the pressing demand for impact investing capital to alleviate social issues.This has led to the surge in family offices and angel investing to cater to the demand. However, family offices and angel investors often face teething issues when starting out.
Impact Investing
In the third episode of our podcast series Money Meets Mission, we discuss the topic of Impact Investing – a term that is becoming extremely familiar on th Asian finance & Sustainability landscapes as more private money is being diverted towards projects that contain within them some degree of Impact. Join our guests Mari Kogiso […]
Impact Investing – an Investing Lens for the Mainstream Market
4 min read
Investing in companies that create value/impact for the world, is not just for “impact investors”. All investors can (and should) adopt such a lens, as our decisions shape the world we live in and impact investing pioneers have proven that such an investment philosophy can bring attractive returns.
Impact Investing for Sustainable Development: Dialogues Between the World and China
Since 2007, the concept of “impact investing” has gradually united a group of investors who invest for positive and measurable sustainable impact alongside a financial return.
Impact Investment Report 2019
This report is a summary of the “Proposal for the Expansion of Impact Investing 2019” published by the GSG National Advisory Board (details on the reverse side) in April 2020.
Journey To Impact: Implementing a 100% Responsible Investing Objective
Aligning a foundation’s endowment with the values, principles and focus areas that guide its grant making brings more opportunity for impact, but barriers remain to understanding, accepting and embarking on this ‘Journey to Impact’. This webinar traced the journey of the Australian Communities Foundation, as it transitioned to 100% responsible investment of its endowment.
Looking at Impact Through the Lens of a VC Fund
4 min read ESG and impact are increasingly in the spotlight, spurred by the pandemic and climate change events, which have not left anyone untouched and have elevated business risk. We are once again reminded that we live in an interconnected world, a social and environmental ecosystem that is as complex as it is fragile, […]
Looking Beyond the Pandemic – Global Impact Investing Priorities
5 min read
We are living through an unprecedented time that is testing the preparedness and resilience of countries around the world. Antonio Gueterres, the UN Secretary General referred to it as “the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War”. As the pandemic takes its course, we believe this will have far reaching consequences for societies and economies. How the global economic system survives and recovers, however, lies in the effective combination of public sector capacity, private sector engagement and fiscal strength.
Navigating Philanthropy for the Next Generation
Working in next gen philanthropy is challenging. How does one deal with wrong perceptions, pressure, and proof-of-success? Amira Shah Chhabra, a participant in the Investing for Impact for the Next Generation program, shares her learnings from dealing with everyday limitations and experiencing the calming feeling of belonging.
Opportunities in Sustainable Finance: How To Build A Resilient Ecosystem?
4 min read
With an additional USD$ 2.5 trillion a year needed to meet the SDGs, the AVPN Conference 2020 has emphasized the necessity of adopting a partnership-centered approach to engage a larger ecosystem to take action. One thing is clear: traditional philanthropy and funding alone will not be sufficient to successfully meet sustainability targets and accelerate climate solutions.
The Current State of Impact Investing in Japan 2019
According to the survey of the GSG National Advisory Board in 2019, it is confirmed that the balance of impact investing in Japan reached at least JPY 448 billion.
The Roadmap to 100% Responsible Investing
5 min read
Australian Communities Foundation (ACF) has had a vibrant history of community giving. Over the last two decades, the Foundation has provided more than AUD $83 million in grants to improve social, economic, cultural and environmental justice in the country.
Transforming Public Institutions to Catalyse Private Investments into Impact: Lessons from Indonesia
5 min read
“Inequality is Rising or Staying Extremely High Nearly Everywhere” – the World Inequality Report, 2018. The burgeoning need to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has never been more urgent. Countries and changemakers around the world have been rapidly making progress in coming up with innovative solutions to solve the world’s most pressing problems. However, progress usually stagnates as they are unable to fully integrate into the mainstream government institutions.
