Policy Corner

Policy Corner: Free markets and impact investing in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s rulings

By: Fran Seegull

Originally Published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner On July 11, 2024. Read The Article Here.

Impact investing is at a crossroads and in the crosshairs. That is a dichotomy we continue to revisit in our work to grow the practice of impact investing for a more sustainable, equitable economy.

Our field has grown exponentially and entered the mainstream, with the flourishing of funds incorporating ESG, sustainability and impact. There is growing recognition that issues like climate risk are synonymous with financial risk.

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Policy Corner: Reimagining slums: The business case for infrastructure investments in informal settlements

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By: Sebastian Welisiejko

Originally published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner on May 16, 2023. Read the article here.

More than one billion people around the world live in urban areas without formal access to basic infrastructure such as potable water, sewage, and electricity. The UN predicts that this number will continue to rise, with as many as three billion people living in slums and informal settlements by 2050.

There is a clear case for public-private sector partnerships to invest in the rehabilitation of informal urban areas. That case is built on strong community focus and engagement, the potential for social value creation, and the need to avoid massive, long-term social costs to be faced if nothing is done.

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Policy Corner: Public investment alone cannot achieve the goals of U.S. industrial policy

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By: David Wood, Aaron Cantrell, Melanie Brusseler

Originally Published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner On April 18, 2023. Read The Article Here.

A new paradigm for U.S. industrial strategy

The IRA, IIJA, and CHIPS Act iconize a new era in US green industrial strategy: a narrow definition of redressing “market failures” is giving way, on both sides of the aisle, to a more constructive vision of the public sector’s role in building an equitable and sustainable economy.

Industrial policy incorporates a wide range of carrots and sticks, including trade and procurement policies, financial and industrial regulation, and labor policies. But it is public investment that, when done well, can create a center of gravity that other policy tools can’t provide: for building infrastructure and productive capacity to deal with the climate crisis, driving equitable growth, and enhancing resilience in historically marginalized communities.

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Policy Corner: Get ready: ESG critics are coming for ‘S’ issues

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By: Fran Seegull

Originally Published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner On April 4, 2023. Read The Article Here.

The year ahead promises to be a momentous one for progress on ‘S,’ or social issues, in public policy solutions, as a recent ImpactAlpha Call explored. From the SEC’s imminent proposal on human capital management disclosures to historic levels of federal funds flowing into rural and low-income communities, there is a groundswell of activity aimed at supporting workers and creating more equitable economic opportunities for all Americans.

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Policy Corner: How the U.S. can boost community financial institutions to counter bank consolidation and bridge racial wealth gaps

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By: Beth Bafford And Bulbul Gupta

Originally published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner on March 29, 2023. Read the article here.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank sent depositors fleeing into the arms of large “Systemically Important Banks,” even after the federal government stepped in aggressively to restore confidence and calm markets.

Too-big-to-fail banks may help individuals and businesses feel better about the safety of their accounts in the short-term. But the shift will be devastating for lower-income families, small businesses, and communities of color if the federal government doesn’t counterbalance their emergency efforts with major, long-term commitments to the community finance sector.

Such support is not only good policy. It is essential to build trust with communities who feel that large banks – which often exclude community members from financial inclusion and access to capital – are always bailed out at their expense.

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Policy Corner: The state of impact investing public policy – and opportunities for 2023

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The past year has been one of both exciting growth and unexpected challenges for the impact investing industry. Amid an uncertain macroeconomic forecast and complex geopolitical circumstances, the market eclipsed $1 trillion in assets under management for the first time. The field’s evolution has been driven by steady investor demand for impact and ESG products, increased focus on impact measurement and management, and of course, critical public policy developments. 

The question on the minds of many leaders in this field is: “Where do we go from here?” The answer, I believe, is to drive toward more and deeper impact, taking care that the field scales with impact integrity.  

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Policy Corner: Reclaiming ESG as pro-business and pro-worker

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By: Fran Seegull

Originally Published In ImpactAlpha’s Policy Corner On September 14, 2022. Read The Article Here.

Right-wing politicians at both federal and state levels have started latching onto the well-known term of “ESG” as the new scapegoat for all things wrong with the economy. While ESG refers simply to an assessment framework for risk and opportunity that is widely accepted and growing in popularity among the investor and business communities, anti-ESG pundits have called it everything from “woke” to “leftist” to “the devil incarnate.”

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U.S. Impact Investing Alliance Applauds Historic Climate Action by Congress

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Earlier this week, the White House and Congress made strides toward achieving a number of climate, health care, and tax priorities by passing the Inflation Reduction Act in the Senate. The U.S. Impact Investing Alliance is particularly encouraged to see the inclusion of a $27 billion "green bank" facility to help finance clean energy projects, within the $370 billion dedicated to climate programs.

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Policy Corner: The S.E.C.’s new rules (Part Two): Five features of the ESG proposal that warrant attention from investors

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] I recently wrote about the transformational pair of proposed rules from the SEC that would, at long last, lend clarity and comparability to the ESG investing market. You can read my analysis of the two rulemakings – the Fund Names Rule Amendment and ESG Disclosure Rule – in an accompanying ImpactAlpha article. The two proposals contain a number of features likely to be of enormous importance to investors concerned about greenwashing and other deceptions regarding ESG funds by asset managers. I discuss five below that deserve focused attention in technical comments due to be filed with the SEC by its August 16 deadline.

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Policy Corner: The SEC’s new rules (Part One): An opportunity to rein in greenwashing in asset management

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] Fossil fuel industry-supported activist groups and politicians have launched a campaign to discredit ESG investing as “woke capitalism.” This new push appears to be part of the broader fossil fuel industry-supported disinformation campaign, which has moved beyond climate change denialism into cultural warfare and dismissal of concerns about social and environmental justice as elitist and hypocritical. As this anti-woke capitalism campaign moves to the Congressional arena, investors must speak out and defend their rights to deploy their assets as they see fit, including, if they so choose, divestment from fossil fuels.

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Policy Corner: Ensuring the Community Reinvestment Act addresses the racial wealth gap, as intended

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] More than 40 years after the Community Reinvestment Act was put in place to undo racist policies in banking, the racial wealth gap persists. New CRA regulations cannot continue to be color blind. Enacted in 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) came out of the civil rights movement. The CRA affirmatively obligates banks to serve the entire community in which they are located. In passing this law, Congress acknowledged the banks’ failure to serve the whole community in the past, and the essential need for banks to do so. Line drawing is not permissible.

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Policy Corner: Keeping communities at the center of equitable infrastructure by reimagining risk, power and accountability

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] Largely missing from conversations around the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal has been an acknowledgement of the impact of past infrastructure investment to underserved communities, notably Black, Indigenous and low-wealth communities. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, along with the American Rescue Plan, affords this nation with the opportunity to repair past harm while building infrastructure that serves the needs of underserved communities.

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Policy Corner: Rules and regulatory trends impact investors should be tracking

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] Public policy and regulatory action have helped accelerate and catalyze the flow of private capital for public good for decades. The historic regulatory moment we find ourselves in, marked by significant movement on landmark policies, calls for attention and action from actors across the impact investing ecosystem. Below are specific opportunities to raise your voice and help shape regulations that will impact the future of our field.

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Policy Corner: Expanding the ‘S’ in ESG to account for the full scope of corporate impact on workers and communities

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] From the Great Resignation to the historic worker-organized unionization of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y., worker empowerment represents an increasingly important lever for corporate accountability. The bottom-up grassroots energy, combined with top-down government action, creates a unique opportunity to advance the conversation around the role of corporations in society and the ‘S’ in ESG.

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Policy Corner: On ESG disclosure, companies should listen to the opinion of the American public

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] The risk that climate change poses to business operations and investment portfolios and companies’ role in contributing to global temperature increases are now undeniable. Similarly, since the beginning of the pandemic, it has become clear how critical a strong human capital strategy is to business success.

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Policy Corner: From wage earners to asset owners: A policy agenda for employee ownership

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] In an increasingly divided economy, how can impact investors transform the American workforce from wage earners into asset owners? Impact investors looking for strategies to build a more inclusive and dynamic American capitalism should support public policies designed to accelerate the investment potential of employee ownership.

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Policy Corner: Agents of Impact eye corporate disclosure rules on climate and human capital

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] Healthy and functioning markets depend on transparency and accountability. Impact investors have long understood that this extends to a need for information on companies' behavior and impact on the world around them. Now, amid the growing urgency of the climate crisis and the cost of inequality, regulators are taking notice too.

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Policy Corner: Progress on a dozen policies to mobilize private capital for public good

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] There is no shortage of challenges facing leaders in Washington. The coming midterm elections will increasingly dominate the headlines. But impact investors must continue to push for policies that will catalyze private capital to improve the lives of Americans and help address our ongoing social, economic and environmental crises. The principles of impact investing have long captured bipartisan interest.

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Policy Corner: How business, investors and government are working together to drive equitable economic growth

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] It’s not every day that leaders from government, business and finance come together to advance a shared vision of how to make economic growth more equitable and inclusive. But a group of 60 impact-oriented businesses and investors, including the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and B Lab, are answering the call with the launch of a coalition committed to working side-by-side with government to amplify and accelerate the equity agenda.

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Policy Corner: Congress must keep path clear for SEC to require corporate political spending disclosure

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[Originally published in ImpactAlpha’s ‘Policy Corner’] In these challenging times, we must celebrate the wins where we can. After years of conservative obstruction in Congress, the Senate finally removed harmful language from the federal budget bill stopping the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing a rule requiring corporations to disclose their political activity. Now, Democrats in the House and Senate must fight to fund the government before the money runs out on Dec. 3, and keep this harmful language from returning to any final budget deal. Call your members of Congress today and tell them to pass a clean budget, free of this pernicious provision.

 

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