The Impact Investor Guide 2024 provides an overview of the impact investment ecosystem and offers insights into the latest developments in the sector. The report portrays how asset owners and managers align their investments with their values, financial objectives and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report examines impact investment strategies across various asset classes such as – private equity, real estate, listed equities, and infrastructure. It notes that fund managers view impact investing as an opportunity to align their investment approach with their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values to support positive social and environmental outcomes while generating superior returns.

Fund managers should identify impact targets throughout the investment process, check them against their established ESG criteria, and determine the positive environmental, social, and governance outcomes that the target investments will deliver.

The report highlights the importance of maintaining an impact focus while providing financial returns ensuring its consistency with a particular asset class. It suggests that peer sharing, outcomes financing options, and blended finance structures can help to generate capital momentum to provide better financial returns reflecting measures of social impact.

Asset owners should evaluate the broader impact of their investments holistically, going beyond the narrow financial metrics to compare investment portfolios across multiple categories like social outcomes, environmental, and governance.

The CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) discusses the need for investors to approach all their investments from an ‘impact’ lens. He also shares valuable insights on how the GIIN is helping mainstream ‘impact investing’ by assisting fund managers, private debt investors, and private equity investors.

Investors should approach all their investments through an ‘impact lens’ and work with investment managers and consultants possessing expertise in sustainable investments, ESG factors, or responsible investing.

The Impact Investor Guide 2024 sheds light on impact investing throughout the world, focusing on investment opportunities for generating real-world impact. It outlines that advocacy and education will remain crucial to help mature the market and promote policies aimed at increasing the reach and scope of capital market solutions that deliver positive social and environmental impact across the globe.