Impact Investing — An Investment Approach That Is Ready for Prime Time

Gary Hunt • 11 May 2021

Impact Investing — An Investment Approach That Is Ready for Prime Time

There is a small — but rapidly growing — set of investors that want to go further and ensure that their investment portfolios have positive social and environmental impact, alongside financial returns. This group of investors is not just concerned with ESG risks that may affect the financial performance of the firm (the so-called First Materiality), but also the effects that the firms they invest in may have on wider society and the environment (the so-called Second Materiality). 

Investors have always known that their investments have social and environmental impacts. But until recently, it was seen more as a side-effect than the goal of investing. For many years, socially concerned investors have screened out certain investments from their portfolios — such as so-called “sin stocks” of companies involved in gambling, alcohol and tobacco. More recently, as environmental concerns have come to the fore, investors have gone beyond simple screening out of certain types of firm towards assessing the ESG (environment, social and governance) risk in all the investments in their portfolio. As they have done so, they have started to appreciate that engagement with these companies not only can reduce risks which may affect financial performance, but also can contribute to better environmental and social outcomes. This has become known as ESG investing, and today up to one third of global assets are managed in alignment with the UN Principles of Responsible Investing

For more information click on the main text.

Citation: International Finance Corporation
by Gary Hunt 8 July 2026
The Evolution of UK Manufacturing Capability
by Gary Hunt 3 July 2026
Structural Convergence in Administrative Law: Institutional Pressure, Statutory Authority and Constitutional Equilibrium in Barclays and Trump v. Slaughter
by Gary Hunt 28 June 2026
Purchasing Power Parity Capability Report
by Gary Hunt 25 June 2026
Doctrinal Constraint, Institutional Cognition, and Governance Entropy in the Modern Regulatory Environment
by Gary Hunt 6 June 2026
Global Competition Between Capital Environments: Environmental Physics, Liquidity Architecture, and Jurisdictional Advantage.
by Gary Hunt 3 June 2026
An Application of Capital Environment Theory
by Gary Hunt 29 May 2026
The Banner of Capital and the Capital Environment Foundations of Capital Environment Theory (CET)
by Gary Hunt 27 May 2026
Property, Power, and Jurisdictional Migration: ExxonMobil, the Texas Business Court, and the Structural Evolution of Corporate Governance
by Gary Hunt 19 May 2026
NatWest Group and the Re‑Emergence of the Strategic Bank
by Gary Hunt 15 May 2026
From the Experience Economy to the Capability Economy