NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), in collaboration with PayPal, the TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good, and Visa Foundation, launched the GIIN’s corporate impact investing initiative and issued an open invitation to companies to engage and contribute.
The new initiative aims to help corporations better deliver on their environmental and social goals, while also achieving shareholder and business objectives, by connecting company leaders with a new set of tools and resources. With more than $2 trillion held by U.S. companies alone, corporations have enormous potential to leverage impact investments and partnerships toward addressing urgent environmental and social needs – such as closing the funding gap for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – while simultaneously responding to growing calls from corporate stakeholders to improve lives and livelihoods.
“Leveraging corporate treasury for impact investing is a strategic way for corporations to align shareholder and community interests,” said Gabrielle Rabinovitch, Acting Chief Financial Officer and SVP, Capital Markets, Investor Relations, and Treasurer at PayPal. “Over the last two years, we expanded our impact investing capabilities, and as a result, we were able to allocate $400 million in treasury investments toward closing the racial wealth gap in the United States and committed an additional $100 million towards global gender equality. We’re thrilled to partner with the GIIN on this initiative and exchange learnings at a time when society is facing complex challenges that need innovative solutions and sustainable funding.”
By uniting the complementary strengths of corporations and impact investors through working groups and research, the GIIN Initiative will help support corporations to direct their financial assets and capabilities into impact investing. Interested companies are invited to engage in the multi-year effort by sharing insights and contributing to resource and tool development. As part of the initiative, the GIIN and interested corporations will collaborate to produce a landscape report on the use of impact investing vehicles and partnerships as a means to pursue corporate environmental and social objectives.
“This initiative is an important lever to help unlock much-needed capital and technical skills that are currently sitting on the sidelines,” said Amit Bouri, CEO & co-founder at the GIIN. “Corporations are critical to scaling the most promising solutions for the pressing challenges in our local communities and around the world. By working with impact investors, companies can discover new possibilities to help build a sustainable, just, and inclusive future. It is exciting to see a corporate movement, led by our founding partners PayPal, the TELUS Pollinator Fund, and Visa Foundation, that is dedicated to re-defining ‘business as usual’ when it comes to corporate investing and asset management.”
The initiative is a call-to-action for companies to engage with the GIIN and the impact investing community to explore how to leverage collaboration to achieve shared environmental and social goals, leading to greater outcomes. In addition to directing capital to help solve critical issues—such as gender equality, climate change, and racial and wealth inequity—corporations and their executive leaders bring critical skills and are well-positioned to direct significant new resources towards these challenges as well as spur innovation to help drive long-term value and impact.
"The vision behind our CEO's desire to launch the TELUS Pollinator Fund was to demonstrate the responsibility corporates have to generate more than just profitable growth while also helping to build the impact investing ecosystem,” said Blair Miller, Managing Partner, TELUS Pollinator Fund. "We firmly believe the ability to deploy capital as investments and draw upon the commercial and industry experience of TELUS presents a unique opportunity that can further help deliver financial and impact returns. We look forward to contributing to this important initiative by sharing with and learning from our peers at GIIN, and other members of this initiative, to catalyze change at a scale beyond what we could do on our own.”
Interested companies and their executive leaders, including chief financial and investment officers, sustainability officers, treasurers, and venture partners, are invited to participate in this multi-year effort with the GIIN and its 400-strong member network. To learn more, please visit the GIIN’s website and sign up.
“Systemic issues such as gender and racial inequity and climate change call for systemic solutions and capital at scale. Corporations and their foundations can play a critical role in addressing these issues by aligning their capital with their purpose,” said Colleen Ostrowski, Senior Vice President, Treasurer, Visa Inc., and Treasurer, Visa Foundation. “Visa Foundation uses grants and investments to accelerate the impact that our grantees and investees are having on the ground. To date we’ve committed over $190 million across the globe. We are proud to partner with the GIIN and with other impact investing leaders to exchange learnings and take action.”
About the Global Impact Investing Network
The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) is the global champion of impact investing, dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing around the world. Impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate positive, measurable, social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Impact investments can be made in both emerging and developed markets and target a range of returns from below market to market rate, depending upon investors’ objectives. The GIIN builds critical infrastructure and supports activities, education, and research that help accelerate the development of a coherent impact investing industry. For more information, please visit www.thegiin.org.
