The study highlights the pivotal role of impact investing policies in promoting regional economic development and environmental betterment. In the face of pressing global environmental challenges, such as climate change and energy resource scarcity, the study underscores the need for effective measures that positively shape state policy formation. The primary goal of such policy initiatives is to bolster human capital development and ensure the long-term realization of strategic objectives. This holds particular significance for nations with substantial potential in the tourism industry, where the hospitality sector acts as a linchpin for tourism recovery and presents compelling opportunities for impactful investments. As energy shortages and dependence took center stage in 2022, the research calls for the exploration of alternative renewable energy sources and the development of new commodity markets to invigorate energy sector growth. Against the backdrop of the hospitality industry’s postpandemic resurgence, the integration of impact investing emerges as vital for both developing and developed nations. Given the prevailing global environmental crisis, the study underscores the imperative of effective international cooperation mechanisms to tackle environmental challenges, positioning impact investing as a catalyst for achieving sustainable economic development goals, advancing eco-friendly practices, and addressing global environmental imperatives.

https://clck.ru/37jM55

4. ENTANGLED VALUE(S): VALUATION AS CRITIQUE IN IMPACT INVESTING

Kaja Kirstine Hegstad Lilleng

Paper, July 2023

Academy of Management Proceedings

Practices where economic value and environmental value entangle are becoming more prevalent. Impact investing is one emerging approach aimed at boosting long term sustainable solutions. This aim, however, is hampered by economized valuation practices in financial investments and the challenge of assessing impact. The author explores how impact investors attribute value in novel ways. This is done through a qualitative study of early-stage private equity impact investors in the Nordic region, drawing on interviews and field observations. She analyses the emerging valuation process by looking at how impact investors select which objects should be paid attention and qualify values through their critique and criticisms. This highlights practices and assumptions the investors challenge and discard of, and attributes they value instead. The findings show how investors criticise simplified measures and shallow understandings of impact and value frames that can encompass complexity and uncertainty, valuing profound and intentional approaches. Overall, the study contributes insights into new and changing modes of valuation in a highly economized setting. By exploring how financial value and environmental value(s) entangle and shape novel forms of valuation researcher advocates for a better understanding of valuation processes that try to look beyond the financial imagination.

https://clck.ru/37HrFC

5. SUSTAINABLE INVESTING WITH ESG — VARIABLES IMPACTING INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR DECISIONS

P. Makhija, E. Chacko, M. Kukreja, S. Agarwal

Paper, October 2023

SDMIMD Journal of Management

Lately, global investors have shifted their focus from pure financial activity to impact investing. In addition to economic reasons, many investors worldwide are interested in corporate efforts addressing global issues such as climate change, work equity, and eradicating poverty. Millennials, according to polls, are more likely to purchase a product from a firm with a favorable environmental and social standing. Investors are seriously contemplating ESG investment opportunities with the notion that companies that adhere to ethical, environmental, social, and regulation practices have access to financial services. ESG investing has increased in India in recent years. However, this could only be the beginning, and more investor understanding of the concept and benefits of ESG investment in emerging markets is required. In light of the above context, the objective of this research was to understand better investors’ opinions regarding ESG activities and how they influence their investment decisions. Our findings confirmed that investors’ attitudes influenced by ESG Perception lead to investment decisions, and ESG activities can help moderate the relationship between ESG activities and investment decisions.

https://clck.ru/37Hq8j

6. AN ECONOMIC VIEW OF CORPORATE SOCIAL IMPACT

H. Allcott, G. Montanari, B. Ozaltun, B. Tan

Paper, October 2023

Social Science Research Network

The growing discussions of impact investing and stakeholder capitalism have increased interest in measuring companies’ social impact, not just their profits. Authors conceptualize corporate social impact as the social welfare loss that would be caused by a firm’s exit in equilibrium. Then they quantify the social impacts of 73 large firms in 12 industries. Researchers field a new survey measuring people’s willingness to substitute away from the firms they buy from and work for. Authors use the survey data to estimate product market and labor market models and simulate counterfactual equilibria after a firm’s exit. A key result is that consumer surplus is the most important component of firms’ social impact, dwarfing profits (because they overwhelmingly accrue to wealthy people with low social marginal welfare weights), worker surplus, and externalities. Existing impact rating systems have little correlation with our economics-based metric.

https://clck.ru/37Hqcb

7. IMPACT FINANCE: HOW SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS ARE ADDRESSED IN TIMES OF FINANCIALIZED CAPITALISM

Eve Chiapello

Paper, July 2023

Review of Evolutionary Political Economy

This article discusses the growth and different guises of impact finance. Impact investing, social impact bonds, blended finance, and venture philanthropy all share the aim of directing private money in search of a financial return towards “impactful” projects or businesses. The association between the concept of social (or environmental) impact and finance was forged in public debate after the 2008 financial crisis, and has enabled the development of a whole ecosystem of actors (evaluators, consultants, asset managers, dedicated associations and forums, training programs, etc.) promising a new kind of finance, capable of producing both financial and social returns. Eve Chiapello argues that despite the growth of this ecosystem, its proposals are unable to meet social and environmental needs and are in fact reinforcing neoliberal financialized capitalism. First, they confer legitimacy on financial actors by giving the impression that with appropriate incentives, such actors are capable of responding to social and environmental issues with no need for major institutional changes.

Second, they contribute to the capture by financial actors of public money earmarked for