Generating real world impact: Join us in The Hague on 7 December

With the second edition of our annual Impact Investor Conference around the corner, we take a look at some of the key highlights from the upcoming event.

In recent years, Europe has emerged as a vibrant hub for impact investing, reflecting a profound shift in how we perceive the role of capital in our society. While the impact investment industry has entered into the mainstream, it is not without its growing pains, even as the problems it is trying to solve have become increasingly complex. Now, more than ever, looking at how our industry can mobilise private and institutional capital to generate real-world impact is of vital importance.

At Impact Investor’s second annual conference, leading practitioners and experts will come together to explore exactly this. Highlights will include Maurits Schouten’s keynote presentation on his own impact investing journey, and how interesting and rewarding that journey has been. Schouten is an impact investor and board member of PYM.

We will also be exploring the unique and collaborative journey between investee companies and their investors, when leading impact figures, including Christin ter Braak-Forstinger, founder and chief executive of Chi Impact Capital, Maarten Bosch, chief executive of Mosa Meat, Costas Papaikonomou, founding partner at Una Terra Venture Capital Fund, and Farhad Miri, chief financial officer at Micvac, come together to share their experiences and their partnerships, in what promises to be a wide-ranging and insightful discussion.

Another key theme explored in the conference will be how to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through financial inclusion. Sytske Groenewald, senior sustainability and impact analyst at Cardano, will look at how investments in access to financial products and services can contribute to achieving the global SDGs.

For an institutional investor perspective, PGGM’s Karin Bouwmeester will provide a pension fund view on impact investing strategies across asset classes, and will also examine some of the opportunities and challenges for pension funds as they embark on their impact journeys. She will be followed by Nicolas Thomas, private equity manager at Pictet Asset Management, who will talk about how to invest in environmental-related companies while generating alpha and going beyond returns, using Planetary Boundaries as a tool to invest in environment companies.

Later in the day, Wim Vandenhoeck, senior portfolio manager at Invesco, will look at how private capital can be mobilised to support climate adaptation in developing countries, given that many of these communities are bearing the brunt of climate change, while generating the least emissions.

Lisa van Splunteren, manager, investor relations and business development at Triple Jump, will be joined by Laure Wessemius-Chibrac, managing director of the Netherlands Advisory Board on Impact Investing, to discuss how the SDG goals can be achieved in emerging markets. What can be done to scale up the mobilisation of capital towards strategies generating real-world impact in emerging countries?

Rosie Rankin, investment specialist director at Baillie Gifford, will then discuss the important role that impact investing plays in listed equities, and Jan Anton van Zanten, SDG strategist at Robeco, will make the case for integrating SDGs into government bond portfolios.

Impact measurement and management (IMM) will also be on the agenda, with panellists Adrien Gruson, senior associate at Impact Institute, Christophe Bochatay, head of ESG and impact at Triple Jump, and Wouter Koelewijn, senior advisor Europe for the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), discussing recent developments and current practices in IMM.

Join us in what promises to be an exciting and vibrant day full of learning and insights from Europe’s leading impact investing experts.