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Corinne Molitor, a partner at the consultancy Innpact, talks about how Luxembourg can play a bigger role in driving global environmental and social change through its investment industry. How did the bank meet these challenges?
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Making an impact interview
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orinne Molitor of Innpact says it’s a “myth” that impact investments yield lower returns. That’s one reason she wants financial firms to provide more training and for investors to ask more questions. Molitor spoke with Delano about changing Luxembourg’s financial sector in August. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Do you think that Luxembourg is punching above its weight in terms of impact investing or do the funds domiciled here need to do more? aaron grunwald
molitor We are often preaching to those that are already convinced. So within this circle of impact actors, I think a lot is done. If you talk at the level of [the Association of the Luxembourg Fund corinne
Aaron Grunwald
Finance
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Jan Hanrion/Maison Moderne
Industry] or bigger organisations, then it’s still a niche and we still have to really raise awareness, educate people and then incorporate this expertise in our everyday business. And so I think we do need to do a lot more. If people are not aware of what’s at stake and what Luxembourg can do as an international hub for finance, they are not going to move. And then we have to transmit and to build the necessary expertise in Luxembourg and not only rely on international actors and the Swiss microfinance managers coming to Luxembourg. We need to build expertise here and that’s also one of the aims of [the International Climate Finance Accelerator Luxembourg], to attract more climate finance fund managers to Luxembourg, and then we need to grow the volumes. We really need to shift a
large part of assets, that today [we] manage traditionally, into more sustainable finance and into impact finance. So how are you going to get those volumes?
We need clear incentives to invest more responsibly, be it impact funds, be it [environmental, social and governance] funds, it can be tax incentives. But it can also be other incentives. In France, for example, they’re promoting socially responsible funds via their occupational pension plans… so 10% of this money goes to impact finance. And I think that’s really good. It’s a commitment that they have taken that has really pushed the sector. So it’s not only tax. That’s by far not the only means we have. There are other things, especially when you think about long- →