This report examines how private market investors influence social and environmental outcomes through investment decisions and firm-level actions. It proposes a framework to assess pathways, outcomes and causality, supporting impact management beyond portfolio company effects.

The report finds European pension funds and insurers have limited capacity to scale EMDE investment. Even doubling allocations by the 35 largest asset owners would yield about USD 120 billion annually, concentrated in investment-grade assets. Regulation constrains insurers more than pension funds.

Climate X is a climate risk analytics company providing asset-level physical climate risk data and scenario analysis. It supports financial institutions, insurers and corporates with decision-making, stress testing and regulatory alignment using proprietary climate models and geospatial intelligence.

Mindful Money is a New Zealand–based charity promoting ethical investing and financial transparency. It provides independent research, fund comparison tools and investor advocacy to help people understand where their money is invested, supporting responsible investment, ESG integration and accountability across KiwiSaver and managed funds.

Impact Frontiers is a finance-focused NGO advancing impact investing practice.It helps asset owners, asset managers and advisors integrate social and environmental impact into investment decision-making through frameworks, research, case studies and peer learning programmes, supporting impact measurement, management and capital allocation across public and private markets.

This month’s sustainable finance roundup traces the shift from ambition to enforcement, as climate and nature risks become financial, regulatory and legal realities. It covers Australia’s environmental law reforms, the embedding of climate and nature risk through prudential supervision, disclosure and shareholder pressure, and insurer warnings on the limits of insurability. It also highlights how markets are responding to deforestation and biodiversity risk, and how litigation and regulation are reshaping governance and long-term financial resilience.

This ESCAP policy brief examines climate finance options for scaling low-carbon transport in Asia–Pacific. It assesses funding gaps, barriers, and mechanisms—including subsidies, carbon pricing, green bonds, PPPs, and international finance—and recommends policy alignment, capacity building, investor matching, and diversified financing to accelerate investment.

This guide outlines how investors can integrate physical climate risks into listed equity and debt portfolios, strengthen portfolio resilience, and mobilise capital for adaptation through asset allocation, due diligence, engagement, and collaboration across policy, finance and the real economy.

ICMA’s DLT Bonds Reference Guide outlines practical considerations across the lifecycle of distributed ledger technology-based debt securities. It addresses legal, regulatory, operational, trading, settlement and investor issues, aiming to support consistent market practice and wider adoption while reducing fragmentation in global bond markets.

This study compares eight biodiversity impact assessment tools used by investors. It finds low consistency in company rankings due to non-standardised methods, weak transparency and limited validation, concluding that reliance on single tools risks mispricing nature-related financial risk and calling for improved disclosures and spatially explicit approaches.

The ICMA Guidance Handbook (November 2024) consolidates interpretative guidance on Green, Social, Sustainability and Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles, covering use of proceeds, reporting, verification, secured bonds and market issues. It supports consistent application and market integrity across sustainable debt markets.

This conceptual paper examines corporate sustainability reporting, distinguishing investor-focused sustainability-related financial disclosure from broader impact reporting. It argues investor interests are imperfectly aligned with societal goals and concludes that complementary financial and impact reporting standards are needed to support accountability, capital allocation and sustainability transition.

This bibliometric review of 1,055 works (1983–2021) charts the evolution of shareholder activism research. It highlights a shift from financial drivers to sustainability-oriented goals. While interdisciplinarity is increasing, disciplinary silos remain. The authors advocate for holistic approaches evaluating non-financial impacts alongside traditional metrics.

The report outlines bipartisan US federal policy recommendations to mobilise private capital for shared prosperity. It focuses on strengthening economic competitiveness, scaling community investing, and improving impact transparency to support inclusive growth, underinvested communities, and long-term economic resilience.

The report analyses how investment professionals use AI and big data, noting moderate but rising adoption, multihoming across tools, and key challenges including skills gaps, data quality, and model opacity. It highlights organisational priorities such as upskilling and workflow automation to enhance efficiency and decision making.

The handbook provides a harmonised framework for issuers to report social bond impacts, outlining core reporting principles, target population disclosure, and preferred quantitative indicators. It introduces sector guidance—initially affordable housing—and offers templates to support consistent, transparent, and comparable impact reporting across social project categories.