Discussing Impact Investing at the Geneva Forum for Sustainable Investment 2011

GENEVA - Impact Economy was invited to moderate a panel discussion on impact investments at the Geneva Forum for Sustainable Investment 2011. The event was held at the Hôtel Le Richemond and brought together a selected audience of firms operating in the Swiss financial sector. Organized by European Investor Relations, the Forum saw Sarasin as lead sponsor, Conser as co-organizer and Sustainable Finance Geneva as partner.

Maximilian Martin, Founder & Managing Director of Impact Economy, moderated the afternoon session, titled “Initiation to Impact Finance”. The speakers were: Christian Schattenmann, Director Finance, BlueOrchard Investments; Regula Ritter, Head of Research, responsAbility Social Investments AG; and Guillaume Taylor, Managing Director, Quadia SA.

After an opening impulse focused on key questions regarding the impact investments space – such as market size and fund offering mapping, or how to demarcate the boundaries of impact investing and deliver on impact measurement – the panelists shared with the audience how their organizations entered this particular sector and recounted their experiences on managing tradeoffs between profit and impact, operationalizing impact measurement, pipeline development and applying impact investing as an investment style across an entire asset portfolio. It became clear that while there is substantial enthusiasm about impact investing, there are still some building blocks to put together in this emerging industry.

You can download the program of the conference below.