Investing for Impact

The growing interest in impact investing is hard to miss. Today, more investors and entrepreneurs than ever are proactively investing their capital in solutions designed to generate a positive social or environmental impact, while also having the potential for some financial return.

In practice, such opportunities are emerging in most parts of the world, across nearly all asset classes, and at many different levels of risk and return. A standard impact investment structure today will invest in enterprises that provide self-sustaining solutions to social problems, such as access to clean water, improved health care, or the provision of clean energy. Investing in these organizations provides a direct and significant impact for those in poverty, and in many cases also offers a
financial return.

Ernst von Kimakowitz was delighted to have been asked to join forces with Credit Suisse and the
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship by contributing a piece jointly written with Julia Balandina Jaquier on growth ambitions and growth inherent risks for social businesses. Investing for Impact is the result of a partnership between the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Credit Suisse and was launched as Credit Suisse’s flagship contribution to the 2012 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.