Much of the impact investing ecosystem is focused on motivating business leaders and shareholders to embrace tradeoffs that produce positive social impact and that may be financially beneficial in the long term, but that are often financially difficult in the near term. This movement has the potential to transform established businesses for the better, but it must overcome significant challenges, including near-term misalignment between financial and positive impact outcomes and the need to enforce and manage these trade-offs through events such as a change in company ownership.
In contrast, an integrated approach to company building and investing favors companies that produce positive impact at the business model level so that the outcomes produced are a core part of the underlying business, and impact and return grow in concert. This allows both investors and shareholders to remain faithful and efficient in their decision making, melding impact and financial goals. Similarly, models that have achieved a positive relationship between impact and financial return allow managers to benefit from a clarity of mission, as they are able drive impact by doing good business. This is the most resilient approach to impact investing.
Join us as we explore the truth of this claim; evaluate its merits as an antidote to both non-concessionary branded concessionary investing on the one hand, and impact washing on the other; and engage in a collective discussion about what makes a business model “integrated,” identifying compelling examples of leading integrated model companies.
