Innovations in Sustainable Finance Julian Kölbel

In this episode, I speak with Bertrand Gacon, Co-Founder and CEO at Impaakt. Impaakt is an impact assessment platform that crowdsources information from hundreds of contributors and thousands of reviewers. My favorite insights from this conversation were:
I can highly recommend to try out the platform. You can explore company profiles, follow discussions, and put in your personal view of what is important and generate lists of companies or funds that are either “heroes” or “villains” given your priorities.The question of which companies have the most positive impacts on people and planet is simple. The answer is tricky. This platform relies on both paid and voluntary contributors to provide a nuanced answer.According to Bertrand, it should be us – the citizens – who decide what counts as socially responsible, not bankers, not corporations, and also not regulators because they tend to come too late. Power to the people!

In this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Christoph Gosdenoz, partner and chairman of FairCapital. FairCapital is an impact investor based in Switzerland that specializes in financing solutions for Fairtrade cooperatives in the global south. My favorite insights from this conversation were: 
It’s the specific design and timing rather than just the interest rate that determines whether a loan helps a cooperative.  One of FairCapital’s innovations is to use existing purchase agreements from reliable buyers as collateral. FairCapital is open to retail impact investors at a minimum commitment of CHF 5’000. However, there is a plan for a token that would allow retail investors to become impact investors with very small amounts.

In this episode, I sit down with Sam Vionnet, the author of Impact Thinking, subtitled “Learn critical thinking skills to make better decisions that create societal value”.
 
The book is based on 15 years of experience in consulting with multinational corporations, NGOs, and investors. Sam reveals that there are a lot of beliefs that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Rather than blindly following numbers and standards, he advocates for a principled approach that, first of all, establishes what should be measured. He presents a step-by-step framework for thinking about impact up and down the value chain and keeping an eye on trade-offs. I think the book is really helpful in assessing impact constructively and fighting greenwashing with intellectual rigor.
More about the book here: https://www.valuingnature.ch/post/the-impact-thinking-book

Can you imagine voting yourself on who should sit on the board of a company you are invested in? Perhaps on your cell-phone?  
In this episode, I discuss with Georgia Stewart, Co-founder and CEO of Tumelo, how their technology democratizes shareholder voting and explore the opportunities and risks that direct shareholder voting presents in the context of sustainable finance.  
Nowadays, shareholder voting is usually delegated to asset managers, raising questions about whether the voice of the ultimate owners is heard. Georgia introduces the concept of “Pass-through Voting,” which allows investors in pooled funds to vote at company AGMs proportionate to their fund ownership. She explains how Tumelo’s technology not only aligns the interests of shareholders and corporations but also increases shareholder participation and engagement. 
Some of my favorite insights from this episode 
Pass-through voting potentially empowers long-term thinking investors to have a say, shifting the voting power from short-term focused asset managers.Even if “Expression on Wish” doesn’t directly empower shareholders to vote, it can increase people’s interest and engagement in financial matters, including saving and investing. While there is a debate about whether “direct democracy” is a good idea in the context of shareholder voting, shareholders have a right to vote that was difficult to realize so far. New technology, such as Tumelo’s, can help realize it. Similar to a representative democracy, interest groups such as NGOs could take the role of parties that provide voting guidance, helping individuals make informed choices.

In this episode, I had a conversation with Philippe van der Beck, who wrote a fascinating paper (work in progress) titled "Flow-driven ESG returns". The paper highlights that investing $1 in sustainable mutual funds can increase the value of green firms by 40 cents. This raises questions about whether ESG investing really has an impact.
Philippe explains in detail how he arrived at this statement. He cautions that the impact is limited to the stock price, and it is challenging to say how it affects real outcomes. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing deep dive into how markets and prices move, and how sustainable investing may drive prices and behavior more than the standard models in finance would suggest.

Did you know that the University of St. Gallen in collaboration with Solarify offers the opportunity to invest into solar panels on their gym rooftop? In this episode, I talk to Aurel Schmid, founder of Solarify. Together we dive into the finance and impact behind crowd-founded solar panels and discover how small scale investor can have an impact towards green energy. We find out what makes the solar rooftop project at the University of St. Gallen special and what kind of return and impact investors can expect from it. We conclude with an outlook from Aurel on the current challenges they face and what he wishes to see in the industry.
Link to the HSG project: https://solarify.ch/produkt/hsg-sporthalle/