Social impact

Independent media, along with other businesses contributing to the UN SDG 16 goals of peace, justice and strong institutions are key to wider developmental aims, MDIF head Harlan Mandel tells Impact Investor. 

Chief impact officer Servane Metzger-Corrigou has been named executive director of the endowment fund, which is now expanding its efforts beyond France into the wider European region and francophone Africa.

The loans will be used to upgrade Britain’s ageing social housing sector, which needs close to £36bn of investment to fully decarbonise, according to the National Housing Federation.

The funds will be used to build environmentally friendly homes in northern England for tenants who are struggling to find accommodation amid the country’s housing crisis.

SDG 16 is among the most underfunded of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and needs greater attention amid rising levels of violence, inequality and corruption, say impact investors.

As the UK government moves forward with reforms in the local government pensions sector, Anna Shiel, chief investment officer at Better Society Capital, explores the challenges and opportunities of leveraging impact investing to drive local growth.

Elizabeth Corley is chairing a group of investors and experts charged with devising new mechanisms for social impact funding in the UK.

The chair of the authority that runs the UK’s main financial centre says the investment community has a duty to make more social and environmental investments.

The European Investment Fund has made its second investment into IB Deuda Impacto España committing a further €25m to support Spanish businesses generating high social impact.

The UK-based investor hopes to build on the growing interest by pension funds to invest in addressing the country’s housing crisis, according to the head of its homelessness property funds.