How to Implement an Effective Impact Strategy

By Diane Seymour-Williams, Partner | Acorn Capital Advisers

E: diane.seymourwilliams@acorncapitaladvisers.com

Impact investing is an increasingly hot topic for families and investors looking to see both a financial return as well as delivering positive change for the environment and society. With ESG becoming mainstream, we are observing client driven trends towards creating measurable positive changes. Whilst it's encouraging to see these changes in the market, they are potentially challenging and confusing for investors to look at returns through a different lens.

At Acorn Capital Advisers we advise families on how to decide which environmental and societal challenges to focus their impact on and notice the next generation having an increasingly strong voice at this table. When a family agrees on the kind of impact they want to make, this is the beginning and not the end: the implementation of an effective impact strategy requires vision, conviction and careful attention to detail.

Here we aim to demystify and help investors to understand how to create impact with their wealth, strategically, and address some of the questions that impact investors face on the journey to implement their goal of targeted solutions to global challenges.

Where can you find impact opportunities?:

Impact investments can be found in bonds, listed equities, funds and private markets. This makes it difficult to decide whether to incorporate impact investments into existing allocations –for example adding green bonds within a bond allocation – or to dedicate a ‘sleeve’ of wealth exclusively to impact investing. As the chart below shows, there are many opportunities to create impact from investing in specifically themed funds, such as innovative healthcare solutions, through to venture philanthropy, where an