The world of social finance and impact investing continues to gain traction. That’s why in previous blog posts we’ve written about green investing ideas and investing in responsible companies. So what is social finance?
Social finance is an umbrella term, incorporating a range of approaches that incorporate varying degrees of environmental and social considerations into investing decisions.
“Responsible investments” and “socially responsible investments” (or “SRIs”) are very important to publicly traded securities market, and involve screening companies for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors. A lot of major banks and mutual fund companies now offer SRIs for individual and retail investors. Another type of social finance are impact investments.
Impact investments are usually made in privately held companies that offer a market-based solution to a social or environmental issue. Impact investments seek to deliver measurable social impact and financial return. As you can imagine, this is a pretty innovative aspect of investing.
So when I saw these new resources on social finance and impact investing, I wanted to share them with you.
Plus:
It seems evident from the 2014 World Wealth Report that I’m not the only one interested in socially responsible investing and social finance. In fact, the aforementioned wealth report goes on to state that…
“92% of high net worth individuals feel that investing their time, money or expertise to make a positive social impact is important to them, with 61% describing it as very or extremely important. Globally, high net worth individuals are looking to play a great role in supporting their social impact objectives.”
Pretty impressive, right? It’s nice to see investors becoming more responsible about conscious capitalism. So when I saw these new social finance research papers I wanted to make sure to share them with readers of StockIdeas.org.
New Social Finance Research in 2014:
RBC (NYSE:RY, TSE:RY) is a reputable thought-leader in the world of social finance. And so it should come as no surprise that they’re dedicated to publishing innovative new research on the field of social finance.
Their Community and Sustainability group has done a wonderful job compiling Social Finance Research, that provides valuable insight for anyone interested in the space. And they’ve just released a new white paper that shares great context and insight into the evolving world of social finance and impact investing.
The paper is called “Financing Social Good – A Primer on Impact Investing in Canada.” This research takes an in-depth look at the intriguing business revolution being catalyzed by social and environmental problems. Learn how market-based solutions are changing the way investors think about returns and capital allocation in the face of complex social and environmental problem.
As you can see, this resource goes a long way to helping bring individual and institutional investors up to speed on what’s happening in the world of social finance and impact investing. It’s important stuff. And I encourage you to bookmark the RBC social finance resource page as they are always updating it with new information.
And By The Way: If you want to stay up to date with a contemporary approach to intelligent investing, I encourage you to download my eBook below. You can get your copy free to see how I’ve improved my approach to stock market decision making to make capital gains more consistent. You’ll also get free tips and tools each week with my favorite stock market tips and tools.