Thinkpiece 2014: Dahlmann
thinkpiece summary: How can Impact Investing integrate a Nexus Approach?
Frederik Dahlmann, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
Impact investing may be an ideal vehicle for targeting energy-water-food nexus considerations.
Finance is seen as a key enabler of addressing nexus challenges together with governance and innovation, and includes investment in natural capital and infrastructure.
A new investment approach called ‘impact investing’ intentionally seeks to create both financial return and positive social or environmental impact that is actively measured.
This thinkpiece will investigate the extent to which the financial community in general and impact investors in particular, are aware of and integrate the notion of the ‘energy-water-food nexus’ in their decision making processes.
By conducting open-ended, semi-structured interviews with a variety of investment professionals, the research will examine the views and opinions on whether the financial community already employs suitable frameworks and metrics (for example,
those promoted by the Global Impact Investor Network through its IRIS catalogue of performance metrics) or whether more innovative investment criteria, data and information are needed to support a nexus-based impact investment approach.
Respondents for this study will be identified from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, BlackRock, Aviva, the World Economic Forum, and the Global Impact Investor Network.
The research makes two key contributions:
- First, it comes as a direct response to some of the research questions raised during the recent ESRC workshop on ‘Sustainable Prosperity’ and the role of the green and ethical investment movement in particular.
- Second, the more practical goal of this thinkpiece is to develop a better understanding of the views and needs of the financial community regarding the nexus.
This thinkpiece will start involving the financial industry in the nexus network with the long-term goal of developing clear guidelines and measures enabling the financial community to optimise its impact investment approach.
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This is just a taster: the full thinkpiece will be published in Autumn 2014.
