The Impact Investing Institute welcomes today’s announcement that the UK’s new green bond framework will include the reporting of social co-benefits, in addition to…

The Impact Investing Institute is delighted to be a founding member and act as Secretariat for the UK Treasury and Debt Management Office’s new Stakeholder Discussion Forum on green finance.

The UK’s green gilt programme will raise much-needed funds to address the climate emergency, and today’s commitment to deliver explicit social benefits alongside environmental impact is a great step forward. This demonstrates the ability of the UK and its financial services sector to show innovative leadership in sustainable finance.

2020 has been a very demanding and often tragic year, but it has also showed us how important it is to continue working towards our goal: mobilising private sector capital at scale for public good. We have set out some goals for 2021 to help us achieve our vision of accelerating the growth and improving the effectiveness of the impact investing market in the UK and internationally.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused immense hardship across the world. But one of the (few) positive side effects of crises is that they drive spectacular examples of innovation. The pandemic has driven some pretty spectacular examples of financial innovation in 2020 in response to both the demand from investors and to the pressing need across the globe from businesses, charities and individuals for emergency funds.

It’s been a very demanding year for everyone. The pandemic has had a terrible effect on individuals, communities and economies across the globe. But this year has also brought positive developments on which we can build, and which show us how important it is to continue working towards our goal: mobilising private sector capital at scale for public good.

We believe that a Green+ Gilt with well-defined environmental and social benefits would help address the lack of investment and productivity gap faced by the UK by upgrading infrastructure, supporting innovation and building skills.

The Impact Investing Institute, the Green Finance Institute and the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment are delighted to welcome the UK government’s announcement to issue a Sovereign Green Bond.

A UK green sovereign bond would finance the green recovery plans the Prime Minister outlined in his keynote speech this week, creating green-collar jobs across the country.

The last two months have been very productive ones for the Institute. We have been making progress on several different workstreams, including the compatibility of pension trustees’ fiduciary duty and impact investing, impact measurement, management and reporting in the social housing sector.