Global impact investment market tops $1 trillion
17 June 2020 at 5:51 pm
The majority of impact investors do not see the pandemic as a reason to commit less capital
The global impact investing market is continuing to mature despite the COVID-19 crisis and is now worth more than $1 trillion, new research shows.
The Global Impact Investing Network’s (GIIN) latest Annual Impact Investor Survey offers data and insights from 294 of the world’s leading impact investors, who collectively manage US$404 billion (A$588 billion) in assets.
The top sectors to which respondents allocated capital were energy (16 per cent) and financial services (12 per cent), while the top investment region was the US and Canada (30 per cent).
GIIN last year estimated the global impact investing market was worth US$502 billion (A$731 billion), and this new report includes a revised figure that points to significant growth in the market.
“Last year, the GIIN took on an unprecedented effort to estimate the total size of the impact investing market,” GIIN’s director of research Dean Hand said.
“This year’s updated estimate of US$715 billion [$A1.04 trillion] improves upon the rigorous methodology of its previous figure with a strengthened database that includes over 1,700 impact investors.”
The report said that the market was continuing to mature, despite the COVID crisis, with the pandemic not scaring impact investors away.
GIIN’s survey found that 57 per cent of investors were unlikely to change their capital commitments due to the pandemic, while 15 per cent were likely to commit even more capital.
Amit Bouri, GIIN’s co-founder and CEO, said over the past decade there has been incredible growth and increased sophistication in impact investing.
“Despite challenges or perhaps because of them, many investors have, and will continue to turn to impact investing to contribute to social and environmental solutions,” Bouri said.
“Investment capital has an important role to play in driving positive impact for our communities and planet, and I believe we’ll see even greater possibilities for what impact investing can achieve, in this moment, as well as in the years ahead.”
The full report can be seen here.
