Welcome to the Purpose Pod!
More than ever, we need to learn about and adopt inspiring and constructive solutions to the multiple social and environmental challenges we are all facing.
With interviews revealing the professional and personal stories of impact experts and practitioners from Greece and across the world, we hope you'll find ideas, inspiration and perhaps a little respite to help you and your organisations along the way.
For any interview or topic requests/enquiries, please email richard@investing-for-purpose.com
Investing for Purpose is a community based in Greece connecting impact investors with purposeful companies in need of growth capital across Environment/Climate, Diversity Equity & Inclusion and Education & Culture: www.investing-for-purpose.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to the Purpose Pod!
More than ever, we need to learn about and adopt inspiring and constructive solutions to the multiple social and environmental challenges we are all facing.
With interviews revealing the professional and personal stories of impact experts and practitioners from Greece and across the world, we hope you'll find ideas, inspiration and perhaps a little respite to help you and your organisations along the way.
For any interview or topic requests/enquiries, please email richard@investing-for-purpose.com
Investing for Purpose is a community based in Greece connecting impact investors with purposeful companies in need of growth capital across Environment/Climate, Diversity Equity & Inclusion and Education & Culture: www.investing-for-purpose.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is healthy soil and how can you help nurture it? What is the true definition of regenerative agriculture? And is it possible to grow different fruits from the same tree?!
Take a walk around the incredibly biodiverse farm of Sheila Darmos, a regenerative agriculture pioneer and learning lighthouse for the progressive farming community, who attracts students from across Europe looking to become leaders in the transition to sustainable agriculture, including:
- How to build out a resilient alternative to monoculture in farming at a local and national level
- The myriad benefits of holistic diversity in farming, including welcoming species diversity across insects, frogs, toads and snakes
- Uncovering hidden forests, Food recipes, and more!
Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux
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“Climate change is applying pressure to a society’s weakest fissures”
Europe is by some distance the world’s fastest warming continent and the Mediterranean is one of the fastest warming seas. In this half an hour chat, author and environmental journalist Peter Schwartzstein describes the lessons learned from his many years of research on the front lines of climate conflict across Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, detailed in his new book, The Heat and the Fury, and explains why Europe is already on the front lines of climate conflict, including:
- Why first person, often dangerous, reporting is the only way to prove climate change's contribution to violence
- Why 'Water is the messenger by which climate change comes to your doorstep'
- How changing tuna migration patterns in the mediterranean are creating conditions for flashpoints between Greek and Turkish fishermen and their coastguards.
- The role of social enterprises in mitigating climate related hostilities between communities.
- Why the defence industry climate national security considerations narrative may in fact be the best way to apply positive pressure to rowing back on the tearing up of climate related policies and commitments
- The connections between increasing heat and violence against women
- How climate related drought has led to high olive oil prices which in turn has led to a spike in agricultural crime;
- How hard line populist parties are benefitting from and exacerbating the lack of clarity surrounding climate change; reading history as a coping mechanism to dealing with current crises - and more!
Peter Schwartzstein: The Heat and the Fury
Recommended books:
Peter Frankopan - The Earth Transformed
Akshat Rathi - Climate Capitalism
Hannah Ritchie - Not the End of the world
US Department of Defence: 2018 U.S. Department of Defence Report
Social Value International SDG Impact Standards Assurance
Hellenic Impact Investing Network (HIIN)
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Global Impact Investing Network
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In a climate in which the business value of DEI is increasingly undermined, this wide-ranging discussion with Bonnie Chiu, MD of The Social Investment Consultancy, sets the record straight on how the inclusivity debate should be re-connected to innovation and finding the best talent, how she is helping to shape the new SDG Standards assurance framework for private equity funds to combat SDG washing, and:
- The power of grandparents
- How to support social enterprises and funds to better understand and scale their impact
- How to tackle the shocking stat that only 1-2% of financial assets globally are managed by people of colour and/or women
- How it feels to experience DEI discrimination
- How to use your individual lived experience to catalyse systems change
- How to unlock the commercial value in NGOs and Charities to help them transition into self sustaining social enterprises to thrive and scale their impact
- Why founder team mindsets are the key to effective esg and impact improvements, not frameworks and box ticking
- The beauty of London life, tips for parents with young children, inspiring books and podcasts, and more!
The Social Investment Consultancy
Social Value International SDG Impact Standards Assurance latest
UN Sustainable Development Goals
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
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"On our current path, there will be more plastics in our oceans than fish by 2050"
Lefteris comes from generations of fishermen, though by his own admission he is not a natural... However, when out on fishing boats as part of a Greek fishing school run by his start up during the financial crisis, he witnessed a fisherman hauling plastic out of the sea along with their catch - and simply throwing the bottles, cans, plastic bags, old nets and even fridges back into the ocean. That's when the idea came to him: What if someone could harness the power of fishing fleets to haul out plastics from the ocean and offer them an additional revenue stream by bringing it in bulk back to shore for recycling and reuse?
This is the incredible story of how, starting with one fisherman (his father), he and Enaleia have scaled into an operation of over 6000 vessels covering most of the mediterranean coast enabling over 1.5m tons of plastics to be recycled, including:
- How to use the tipping point theory to mobilise communities into action (including using charm and tradecraft to persuade the household decision makers!)
- Evolving social enterprise models to deliver systems change to prevent plastics entering the ocean in the first place
- How Enaleia turn over 57% of the plastics retrieved into commercial products including furniture, kayaks, clothing and trainers
- How to build a circular economy network combining the raw power of fishing communities with cutting edge blockchain to verify end-to-end traceability
- Details on the CO2 efficiencies of melting down recycled plastics to create new products vs virgin plastic processing
- How Enaleia's circularity operations in Egypt include repurposing plastics at scale into urban products including street paving
- The future potential of plastic credits
- The power of simplicity, the value of being authentic, how to gain people's trust - and so much more..!
"Clean-ups are great but we are just treating the symptom of the problem. There are 1000 rivers in the world responsible for 80% of plastics pollution in our oceans"
#Circularity #MarinePlastics #Tippingpoints #SystemsChange
Lefteris portrait picture credit + Enaleia article from The Washington Post
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“Why are we measuring Impact? To make sure we are maximising impact”
Across the impact investment industry there is an ongoing evolution of impact measurement. But how often do you hear details of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that impact funds are actually using and the reasons that they were chosen? In this impact masterclass, Lara Viada of Creas, Spain’s pioneering impact investment intermediary, now in the process of raising a third fund of €70m, reveals all, including:
- The magic ingredients impact investors are looking for in founder teams
- Detailed IMM framework and KPI examples across elderly care, nutrition and education
- How the European Investment Fund (EiF) has been instrumental in scaling the impact investment sector
- The advantages of impact fund sector/vertical specialisation and why Creas transitioned to 'Empowering people, Caring for People and Regenerating the Economy'
- Using Theory of Change to identify actionable impact KPIs that inform strategic decision making
- How Creas use the EiF impact carry model to tie in the impact performance of their funds with 100% of their potential carried interest to safeguard and maximise their impact
- How funds can stand out to entrepreneurs in an increasingly competitive impact fund marketplace
- Novel approaches to getting into the impact finance sector, book recommendations, inspiration from India and more!
“If the social impact multiple of the fund is below 60%, then we don’t get any carried interest”
Creas investees discussed:
The European Investment Fund (EIF)
A day in the life of Abed Salama, by Nathan Thrall
Global Impact Investing Network
#ImpactInvesting #ImpactKPIs #Marketbuilding
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“Within the next decade the financial system has to make some progressive moves to protect our way of life, because if we don’t, the economy as we’ve known it for the last 150 years is going to break.”
With the meaning and value of Diversity Equity and Inclusion increasingly undermined, Beth Knight, Head of Social Sustainability at Lloyds Banking Group, shares her lived experience of the necessary and tangible gains made from engaging with underserved stakeholder groups across the globe, in her refreshingly personal, frank and illuminating style, including:
- Career lessons through a social/environmental lens spanning Accenture, E&Y, NGOs to co-ordinating Amazon’s global humanitarian response to the Ukraine War
- The meaning of sustainability and the joy of training cohorts as a fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
- How to successfully host a room of indigenous leaders representing 80% of the worlds biodiversity and 30 financiers possessing transformative power but limited attention spans
- Unpacking the complexities of the critical junctions where equity meets environmental impact
- A cheat code for being a successful CSO
- Why family owned businesses and funds tend to embody exemplary legacy thinking
- The role of finance to enable sustainable livelihoods and the impact of insurance
- How to stay well in a time of upheaval (Spoiler alert: Includes outdoor walking meetings and picking up the phone) and more!….
“The social aspects of sustainability have been mobilised around poverty to a certain extent, but where where equity meets environmental impact is critical”
Links
Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
Task force for Socially Related Financial Disclosures
The Centre for Synchronous Leadership
Accenture Development Partnerships
Tickling Sharks - John Elkington
Tony Juniper & King Charles: Climate Change Ladybird Book
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“I would like to invite impact investors to look at the region as an opportunity for revival”
After 20 years of leading effective capacity building across social enterprises in the MENA regional through venture philanthropy, Alfanar are now launching the first regional impact investment fund for the Arab world, aimed for investing in scalable enterprises matching purpose with profit. Richard Mullane caught up with Alfanar Country Director for Lebanon Maya Rahal at the Impact Europe Bilbao conference to find out how Alfanar have managed to support so many brilliant start-ups, delivering critical social and environmental solutions, often under extreme circumstances, including:
- Stories from flourishing regional Social enterprises across edtech, circular fashion and culture
- What it takes to stay working towards positive solutions in zones devastated by conflict
- How Alfanar select enterprises and help them transform from being reliant on philanthropy to being self-sustaining
- Lessons learned from 20 years on the ground for other global venture philanthropists
- How Maya made the journey from being a journalist and communications expert to an Impact leader
- Why the relationships between funds and enterprises can be like a marriage, the social ingredients that make Lebanon such a special place to live, tips for staying grounded and healthy - and more!
“It’s rare for you to be in a job when you can actually see the results in people’s faces”
Alfanar: Tabshoura: Digitising education across Lebanon and the region
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
“If you are born every day with one seed in your hand, then you have to plant it”
#venturephilanthropy #socialenterprise #menaimpactfund
Global Impact Investing Network
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"The cost of inaction will be substantially larger than the cost of action"
The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review has become one of the most influential reports on climate change ever produced since its release by Her Majesty’s Treasury of the UK Government in October 2006. Dimitri Zenghelis, senior economist for the review, worked under Gordon Brown as Head of Economic Forecasting in HM Treasury and has since held multiple roles, fellowships and academic posts including Senior Visiting Fellow at the LSE's The Grantham Institute and Senior Advisor to the Bennett Institute (University of Cambridge). He advises governments, banks, financial institutions, NGOs, and other international organisations on sustainability, climate change, innovation, economic modelling and clean urbanisation. Get comfortable for a macro-economic and financial markets double espresso covering topics including:
- Shenanigans that went on at the heart of government between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
- The impact of the Stern Review’s focus on an economic case for climate action on the acceleration of the transition
- Optimising your investment strategy across the transition
- Who is Wan Gang? And why did he have a greater influence on the development of electric vehicles than Elon Musk.
- The reinforcing feedback between reduction in cost of technologies and favourable politics
- The difference between conditional and complacent optimism, the future of aviation, the joy of reading children's books - and a great deal more!
#cleantech #sustainabletransition #macroeconomics #innovation #cleanurbanisation
"It's about forward looking strategy, not backwards looking disclosures"
Links
The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review
The Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge
Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment
Global Impact Investing Network
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"I would encourage philanthropists to ask the question, ‘How is your philanthropy unlocking capital?’”
Over the last 10 years, 1billion people have gained access to energy for the first time from solar lighting and home systems. 30% of those people were provided energy by companies that Acumen invested in.
Working across climate resilient agriculture, off grid energy access, workforce development, education, minority founded companies, healthcare access, financial inclusion and entrepreneurial solutions for forcibly displaced people, all while applying a gender lens across each investment strategy, Acumen are impact market leaders in solving problems of poverty at scale across the globe.
Buckle up for a social investment masterclass with Yasmina Zaidman, Chief Development and Partnerships Officer on scaling impact at the nexus of poverty and climate change, including:
- How to catalyse businesses to create markets where markets have failed
- De-risking agriculture in emerging markets with blended patient capital before scaling up with private markets
- How Acumen academy train 200+ fellows each year in how to build businesses and transformational leadership
- Designing due diligence impact strategy to add value to investees regardless of whether investment is achieved
- How Acumen developed a new model for impact measurement, lean data, which has become social impact measurement specialists 60 Decibels
- Working with development finance institutions to scale a stable prosperous society that tackles climate change
- How a trip on a bus in Venezuela involving a 4 ft iguana and a shoeless child led Yasmina to a career in impact…. and more!
#energyaccess #unlockingcapital #socialimpact #genderlensinvesting
“We need to stop treating issues like poverty and inequality and inclusion and diversity as a ‘nice to have’. They are fundamentally important to the ability of our society”
Links
Global Impact Investing Network
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“If you’re not generating a healthy return and an impact, then people should not back you”
ETF (Environmental Technologies Fund) Partners are one of the original pioneers in sustainable investing, with nearly $1bn raised across 4 funds since 2006. Currently with 31 portfolio companies across the energy transition, future mobility, green connectivity, the responsible consumer and sustainable food, they are leading the charge for impact investing at scale.
In this pod, Robert Geneiser, Managing Partner, brings his insight and infectious enthusiasm to a revealing 30 minute chat covering:
- Why Greece is a particularly entrepreneurial place and increasingly attractive to investors
- How ETF invested in two Greek startups which are now both at Series B and beyond
- The rise of the sustainable consumer
- The importance of young companies demonstrating market pull-through for solutions
- Why insurance is important for adaptation technologies
- The personal qualities in founders that ETF look for beyond business models
- How a focus on digital solutions helps ETF to aggregate impact at speed and scale
Plus required reading, life balance recommendations and more!
“We all have to look our children in the eye and say we’ve done something worthwhile”
ETF Sustainability Talks Podcast
ETF Podcast with Jeffrey Nachmanoff
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Global Impact Investing Network
#Deepsea #Hellasdirect #Phenix #energytransition #futuremobility #greenconnectivity #responsibleconsumer #sustainablefood
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"We should no longer move fast and break things, but rather create systems change through collaboration and kindness."
- Collaboration as the key to systems change
- How do you build an impact ecosystem?
- Can you match a financial instrument to a personality type?
- Why you shouldn't take yourself too seriously
- Why kindness should not be underrated
- The do's and dont's of co-founder dating
- How to avoid VC ar*eholes ..... and more!
Buckle up for an inspiring Impact masterclass with Yonca Braeckman, founder of Impact Shakers, hosted by Richard Mullane.
#inclusiveentrepreneurship #collaboration #systemschange
Global Impact Investing Network
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"There are many committed businesses out there with a lot of power - that movement creates a place where the others cannot hide"
Business for Societal Impact (B4SI) is a global membership network uniting close to 200 mid to high cap corporations in managing & measuring their shared value & intentional approach to positive social impact, with up to $3bn held in community investments. So how do you transition corporates into engagement with positive social impact without enabling Socialwashing?
Join Global Director Clodagh Connolly and Richard Mullane for this wide-ranging 20 minute chat, including:
- Why companies that articulate and measure their societal impact are primed to win the war for talent
- The problem of ESG investment as a due diligence construct versus Impact investment as intentional and forward looking
- How B4Si ensure transparency while mitigating greenwashing risks
- Why corporates can no longer hide from social and environmental responsibilities
- The implications of CSRD role out and where the costs will end up
- Why double materiality is good for businesses
- Why the right Social Enterprises and community organisations are perfectly placed to work alongside corporates like Nokia to help them transition
- How to successfully engage with corporates to stand the best chance of channelling investment
#Community investment #Social innovation #Social procurement #CSRD #corporatetransition
"In the future the war for talent is going to be extraordinary across businesses"
Business for Sustainable Impact (B4Si)
B4Si September 2024 events: Bonn, London & New York
Dow Jones Sustainability Index
Iberdrola: Promoting women's STEM
Nokia: Bridging the Digital Divide
Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN)
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"Guests expect everyone to be offering a sustainable holiday so they don't think that they should be paying more for it"
As we reach peak holiday season, join Eleni Andreadis, ESG Executive Director of Sani Ikos resorts group as she describes their 15 year journey to fully embed ESG principles and actions across 12 resorts in Greece and Spain with over 7000 employees, to become the exemplar for sustainability in tourism. Eleni also describes the other hats she juggles, including NGO Planet Agents, which delivers engaging environmental education each year to over 12,000 school children and writing 11 children's books - so far! Topics discussed include:
- Transforming Sani Resort into the first carbon neutral resort in Greece, with 100% certified renewable electricity
- Managing ESG around 3 pillars of Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability with over 100 performance KPIs.
- How to embed ways to engage guests with local communities combining inclusive economic stimulation with environmental education
- How to keep children holistically engaged into their teenage years to transform their physical and mental wellbeing
- How working with SBTI (The Science Based Targets Initiative) as an optimal interim approach to mitigating carbon versus that accrued by travelling guests.
- Why any organisation not fully engaging in sustainability is missing out on multiple fronts and faces existential risks
- Working with the Forest Research Institute to calculate and bolster carbon sink capacity
- Bringing back Bee hives to Parnitha, recently devastated by wild fires to release and care for the Bees to enable millions to bring new life back into the forests
- How to minimise your personal footprint and to choose holiday packages mindfully
- Why we should let our kids roam free and get lost together in forests and the countryside - and more!
"The most sustainable product that you can choose, is nothing"
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“We are now in an age where people are consuming somewhere between 5 and 7 hours of content a day. The power to use that time to do good is colossal”
Founded in 2020 by Ellen Windemuth, Executive Producer of My Octopus Teacher, WaterBear has rapidly become the leading platform and impact media network dedicated to global purpose driven storytelling.
What exactly is a Waterbear? Sam Sutaria, CEO and founding team member of an ambitious organisation uniquely positioned at the intersection of entertainment, culture, impact and purpose reveals all, including:
- How to create campaigns to build real world agency and action
- How a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, will use B2B learning to engage 30m employees
- Working with 150 NGOs to link stories to on the ground campaigns
- Why the film industry needs a new measurement of success and a universal standard for impact measurement
- Why looking someone in the eyes is still the best test for judging their greenwashing propensity
- How to create a holistic, inclusive, diverse and sustainable media model
- Targeting funding via impact driven family offices, VCs and smart capital
- Creating media designed to improve wellbeing
- Waterbear at Glastonbury 2024 - and so much more!
#impactmedia #storytelling #film #documentary #behaviourchange #wellbeing
Waterbear Network
Off the Fence + My Octopus Teacher
Nice and Serious + Moral compass
Glastonbury Festival Silver Hayes
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
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"Everyone in Impact is open to sharing failures as well as successes"
In an impact ecosystem in which thousands are scrambling for attention and the volume of must-read sources is seemingly endless, how can you cut through the noise and select, structure and transfer impact knowledge in the most beneficial ways for all? Join Alessia Gianoncelli, Director of Knowledge and Programs at Impact Europe - the Investing for Impact network - and voted one of the top 100 women in Social Enterprise 2023, as she talks this through, as well as:
- How to structure the perfect in person or online SDG/Impact seminars
- The signs and dangers of Impact washing
- A true perspective on SDG 5 Gender Equality and how to define a 'Super Heroine'
- The power of peer-to-peer learning and why we need to learn from our failures
- Why reading murder mystery novels is the perfect antidote to burnout, and more!
#equalopportunities #equitydiversityinclusion #edi #deia #deib #jedi #knowledge #knowledgetransfer #education #learning
Impact Europe
https://www.impacteurope.net/stream/stream
Impact Europe 'Impact People' Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/7247MzIWcXIUL6vxYWhiKe?si=c3a152a8d6674fce
"I hope that the new generation of girls and women will grow with equal opportunities independently from sex orientation, the conditions and countries in which they are born"
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Semia Feminist Fund
Gabriella Genisi "Lolita Lobosco"
https://www.facebook.com/gabriella.genisi/
https://www.marsilioeditori.it/lista-autori/scheda-autore/5600/gabriella-genisi
Additional Impact-related links
Investing for Purpose
Impact Frontiers
https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/
UN SDGs
Social Value International
https://www.socialvalueint.org/
Global Impact Investing Network
Hellenic Impact Investing Network
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"We can help the land, so the land can help us"
How to solve the problem of rodent infestations costing farmers in Thessaly, the breadbasket of Greece, more than EU100m each year, while mitigating overuse of rodenticides that harm biodiversity, ecology and human health? With the perfect nature-based solution, of course…
Spend some time in the home and in the fields at dusk with agricultural ecosystem expert Vasileios Bontzorlos to hear all about Tyto, the company that expertly researches, fosters and manages communities of wild barn owls across 100s of kilometres of farmland, while enabling a thriving and biodiverse ecosystem.
The question is, as the dusk light fades, will we see one of the elusive barn owls?...
Discussions include:
- The myth surrounding the barn owl and why they are so connected to humanity
- What it takes to change the mindsets and practices of rural communities
- The true definition of Regenerative Agriculture
- Why you should read E.O Wilson after Dawkins
- How to pave the way for a career connected to nature
- Why you might want to approach barn owl boxes with an umbrella...! And much more besides.
#naturebasedsolutions #barnowl #raptor #agriculturalecosystems #wildlifeconservation #ecology #communityengagement
"Barn owl populations locally move like a cloud"
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Alexandre Roulin
https://barnowl-research.ch/en
Richard Dawkins
E.O. Wilson
https://eowilsonfoundation.org/
Convention on Biological Diversity
Additional links
Investing for Purpose
Impact Frontiers
https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/
UN SDGs
Social Value International
https://www.socialvalueint.org/
Impact Europe
Hellenic Impact Investing Network
Global Impact Investing Network
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“We always provide food supplies that we would give to our children”
In 2013, in the depths of the financial crisis, when Melina Taprantzi visited a regional social grocery supplying food for the unemployed, the only thing that was available on the shelves was razor blades.
This stark reality was a turning point for Melina, who has since focussed her energies on building Wise Greece into a uniquely circular Social Enterprise that now supports over 100 small Greek farmers and food producers to grow and export 2500 food products - including award winning innovations such as salads in a jar and mushroom flavoured sweets!
Profits are used to buy food from the same producers to supply soup kitchens and charitable institutions across Greece, with over 180 tons of food donated to support over half a million people in need so far.
Have a listen to Melina’s incredible story in our latest podcast, with insights including:
- How to design social enterprise business model generating positive compound Impacts from indivuduals to ecosystem
- Equality lessons learned from over 20 years of being a woman on the workplace
- Why being overreactive to natural disasters can have limited or even negative Impact
- Tips for start-ups: Why having a brilliant idea is not enough; and how to genuinely bootstrap with limited funding
- Investment opportunities across the Greek education, tourism, food, services sectors
- Why social enterprises are part of the real economy
- Why a career in impact is about enjoying the grind and celebrating every small win
- Why being adaptable is the core skill that students (and all of us!) need to develop
And more - including how to send the finest herbs via postcard....!
“When I stepped into my career I stepped in as a ‘man’. After 10 or 20 years you get to discover your female side more.”
#food #foodinnovation #compoundimpact #equality #socialenterprise #womenintheworkplace #socialgood #circularimpact
Impact Frontiers
https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/
OECD wellbeing Index
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
UN SDGs
Social Value International
https://www.socialvalueint.org/
Impact Europe
Global Impact Investing Network
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“The paradigm shift embodied in the impact investment community is from Egosystem to Ecosystem”
Why should we be building Impact Economies across the world? And how can it be done?
This is the mission of The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG). Spearheaded by Sir Ronald Cohen, GSG are already enabling impact capacity building by establishing and supporting national impact advisory boards across 75 countries, including with our colleagues at the Hellenic Impact Investing Network (HIIN), here in Greece.
With a goal to harness influence, stimulate innovation and foster the building of impact economies, GSG also push for knowledge sharing and collaboration, a natural trait of the impact community and something that is close to our hearts at Investing for Purpose.
To hear more, Krisztina Tora, GSGs Chief Market Development Officer, tells the full story in this pod, including:
- Why we need to develop impact investment globally and how local-to-global impact networks are key to the solution
- The need to focus attention on early-stage companies
- The stark differences between ESG and Impact investing
- The importance of channelling capital flows into emerging markets and SDG aligned solutions
- Why post-growth thinking is not comfortable, but is essential in an AI dominated future
- The ABC definitions of impact categorisation
As well as the Impact community as a 'family', how we can all get better sleep - and more!
“Impact should become the driver for all decisions in business, investment, policy and consumption”
GSG Global Steering Group for Impact Investment
Hellenic Impact Investing Network
Impact Management Platform: ABC
https://impactmanagementplatform.org/?s=ABC
Impact Frontiers
https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/
OECD wellbeing Index
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
UN SDGs
Social Value International
https://www.socialvalueint.org/
Impact Europe
Global Impact Investing Network
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"The relationship between entrepreneurs and investors is like a marriage. You really have to be certain that on the human side of things you are also aligned".
In the world of impact finance it’s easy to focus a lot of attention on the myriad challenges: How to source and support the most impactful enterprises; how to find like-minded investors with skillsets aligned to the entrepreneur business; how to design innovative, smart and patient capital models; how to assess the impact of enterprises; how to help enterprise growth and valuation in parallel with impact; etc.....
But how often do we also step back to celebrate the impact of social enterprises that are going from strength to strength as a result?
Ellinor Schweyer, Co-Founder and MD of Munich based impact finance advisors FASE, which was born out of the original social entrepreneurship funding organisation Ashoka, tells of their success stories ranging from a triple-win solution to detecting breast cancer, to insuring the health of previously uninsurable field workers in developing nations, and making civic sports clubs sustainable to reliably provide a priceless framework that so many teenagers benefit from.
Ellinor also delves deep into the best approaches to bootstrapping a social enterprise to be sure of attracting impact funding- and on the importance of choosing wisely when it comes to committing to the right investor 'marriage'. As well as her thoughts on:
- The corporate saturation that led her to jump into impact and careers advice for those looking to switch to impact finance
- Impact finance vs VC start up failure rates
- The challenges thrown up by the positive reality of Impact investing becoming trendy and attracting an increase in venture funds
- Using Ashoka Impact metrics to measure Impact
- The FASE approach to structuring debt, mezzanine financing, social bonds and impact ROI
- How to stay healthy in an age of climate anxiety
"Impact is not equally defined and often in impact investments you still see that the brain rules over the heart"
https://www.discovering-hands.de/international/page-international
#SocialVentureCapital #matchmaking #impactsuccessstories #impactfinance #ashoka #SocialEntrepreneurs
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"I've realised that being close to nature gives you a different understanding of what growth is, of what a meaningful life may be."
Is it possible to tackle climate change and soil-degeneration with a nature-based solution while at the same time building a resilient social economy for an existing remote community and for those that migrate there? Yes.
Staramaki is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Kilkis Greece, which produces straws from the stems of wheat as an alternative to plastic straws which, despite the ban, are still omnipresent and for paper straws that often contain harmful PFAs and are typically shipped in bulk containers (containing mostly air) from Asia.
"The wealth created by the company is distributed in an equal and fair way. The salaries of everybody in Staramaki is the same, no matter the position, no matter the experience."
Born out of a reaction to the Greek crisis and from a new perspective arising from moving back to his rural roots, this is the story of the impact Staramaki co-founder/manager Stefanos Kamperis and the like-minded collective that formed around a simple idea. The collective both set up a resilient NGO to tackle the rehousing and integration crisis stemming from the mass migration that at one point had 25,000 people walking barefoot through Kilkis village each day - and resulted in one of the most progressive organisations in Greece, currently producing over 3m natural straws per year.
"Without Impact Investing, it's almost impossible for a social enterprise in Greece to find the investment necessary for it to grow"
With social enterprises struggling to raise vital growth funding, we were delighted, along with our investors, to enable the highest funding round for a social enterprise in Greece to help Staramaki build resilience and acquire new machinery to expand production.
"It's something that money cannot buy. It's passion."
https://www.nespresso.com/gr/en/
#Ikigai #valueeconomy #circulareconomy #naturebasedsolutions #socialenterprise #impactinvesting
Other useful impact industry resources:
Ellen Macarthur Foundation
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/
SDG Goals
Social Value International
https://www.socialvalueint.org/
UNDP / Duke University free course: Impact Measurement and Management for SDGS for enterprises and investors
Impact Measurement & Management - investment best practice:
Global Impact Investing Network
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