Talking Heads – Fare la differenza con l'impact investing

This is an edited audio transcript of the Talking Heads episode with Berenice Lasfargues

Daniel Morris: Hello and welcome to the BNP Parry by Asset Management Talking Heads podcast. Every week, Talking Heads will bring you in-depth insights and analysis through the lens of sustainability on the topics that really matter to investors. In this episode, we’ll be discussing impact investing. I’m Daniel Morris, Chief Market Strategist, and I’m joined today by Berenice Lasfargues, Sustainability Integration Lead from our Sustainability Centre. Welcome, Baroness, and thanks for joining me.

Berenice Lasfargues: Great to be here, Daniel.

DM: We’re talking about impact investing, but perhaps some of our listeners are not necessarily all that familiar with the concept. Let’s start with the layman’s definition of impact investing.

BL: First, it’s important to acknowledge that different organisations and firms may have different views on what impact investing means in practice. However, the GIIN, which is a global impact investing network [and] one of the leading standard-setting organisations, has been recognised as having coined the mainstream definition of impact investment, which are investments made with an intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.

If you take this definition apart, you’ll see that all the words are quite deliberate. They refer specifically to the three common building blocks of impact that are widely shared by the industry. The first one is intentionality. So, that means that impact and impact investment can’t be unintended or a byproduct. They are a focal point. So that can be having an impact on climate change or trying to solve education challenges. The second one is additionality. That is the fact that the positive impact from the investment would have not occurred without the investor’s involvement. For example, engagement could be a channel of additionality. But there’s also other forms such as providing below market rate financing, providing capital to populations that otherwise do not have access to that capital. The third pillar is impact management, meaning that the environmental or social performance of the investment must be measurable, reported, and more importantly, it needs to be managed.

DM: Now that we have a better concept of what impact investing is, why do you see investors interested in this area today?

BL: That’s an excellent question. We’re in a world where there is growing scepticism around what ESG products deliver. Here you have impact investment, a product that by design looks to target the most pressing challenges that the world has and has baked transparency and accountability in the product design itself. To make it concrete, if we look at some of our impact investment, we have a fund that invests in companies targeting healthcare and well-being. We invest in [an] education company that supplies tools for children with dyslexia and other connective needs with multilingual background. There’s growing appetite to look at not just at ESG, but also at the direction of travel towards impact and how our investments actually contribute to changes on the ground and the world’s most pressing challenges.

DM: Can you give us some examples of how institutional investors are going about implementing impact investing?

BL: Asset owners’ attitudes towards impact do vary, but over the more recent years, we see a growing range of asset owners being impact-curious and some have dedicated allocations to impact in their portfolios and we see them doing so primarily in three ways. Some would have specific allocation targets. For example, PGGM, which is a pension fund in the Netherlands, has 10% of their private equity allocations earmarked for impact investments. Another one is creating their own platform. For example, Temasek, a state-owned investor from Singapore, decided to launch their platform to target impact investments in Asia with a focus on private equity. And a third way of entering the market is partnering with asset managers. We have been approached by clients around the question [of] advising them on the topic and working alongside them on their impact journey.

DM: If I can summarise a couple of the key points, we can start with the definition you gave us that impact investing is about investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social environmental impact alongside a financial return. You do see increasing interest in the area from investors. You highlighted some of the different ways that institutional investors are going about impact investing, talking about allocation targets, developing their own platforms or partnering with asset managers. Berenice, thank you very much for joining me.

BL: Thank you, Daniel. It was my pleasure to be here.

DM: That’s it for this week’s episode of Talking Heads. If you would like more information about our capabilities and impact investing, please reach out to your BNP Paribas Asset Management contact or check out Viewpoint, our website for investment insights at viewpoint.bnpparibas-am.com. Just before we go, I’d like to mention that the Talking Heads podcast is available on Spotify and on YouTube. For YouTube, visit youtube.com/BNPP AM slash playlist and tap or click on Talking Heads. You’ve been listening to the BNP Paribas Asset Management Talking Heads podcast with me, Daniel Morris, and Bernice Lafargues, Sustainability Integration Lead. Please do join me next week. Until then, take care.