Last week I had the opportunity to take part in a panel discussion at Connected Places Catapult. The topic of discussion was ‘Impact-led innovation: investor’s friend or foe?’
The discussion was facilitated by Yusuf Chadun, the Catapult’s SME Investor Relations Manager. The other panelists were Arnold du Toit, Co-Founder and CEO WeSprint, and Rajiv Tanna, CO-Founder and CPO of Birdie.
The discussion
Given I work in ESG, it won’t have been surprising for me to say that impact led innovations, and being able to clearly evidence that impact, is an investor’s friend. As I flagged, I work with companies to develop their approach to ESG. I outlined that the focus of ESG is on risk management and sustainability in the broadest sense.
We then moved on to discuss what we mean by impact-led innovation. For me, impact-led innovations are both longer terms, and focus on what’s termed the triple bottom line with its emphasis on profit, people and planet, as opposed to a singular focus on profit. Here the focus is clearly on outcomes and with these outcomes, the end user needs to remain in sight.
For me, ESG is a quite elegant solution to a complex set of issues. But, at the same time it’s messy, complex and fast moving. Some of this is a response to various regulatory regimes, the development of global frameworks and so on. Some of it is very much driven but global events such as extreme weather events, COVID, the Black Lives Matter movement.
What we’re seeing as a result is that for an increasing number of people, recently put at around 20-30%, ESG is an essential component to their investment approach. We’ve also seen growing in-flows into sustainable funds, particularly those that are termed ‘dark green’ funds. This is just part of the reason impact led innovation continues grow as an investment vehicle.
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Get in touch if you’d like to discuss how I might be able to support you in ESG.
