Behavior Change in Impact Investing

Abstract

Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity, but funding to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate is not commensurate with the scale of the problem at hand. Across asset classes, there is insufficient funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions. At the same time, however, over 140 billion dollars in private wealth is sitting idle, waiting to be deployed by its owners into philanthropic initiatives, charities, and income-generating investments, for example. There is a higher use for these funds, namely helping humankind mitigate and adapt to climate change. CapShift, our project partner, is a platform that empowers philanthropic and financial institutions, along with their clients, to mobilize capital for social and environmental change. It was founded with the idea that there needed to be a better way to give away and invest large sums of money in ways that benefit society and the environment. In 2020, they focused their energies on developing a racial justice framework to facilitate funding of racial justice-related opportunities. In 2021, their focus is on funding climate change mitigation and adaptation opportunities. In 2022, their focus is on funding agrifood solutions. Our team’s focus was on these 2021 and 2022 goals. CapShift found it’s hard to give away billions of dollars, let alone find uses for that money that will generate financial returns. While the latter makes intuitive sense for laypeople who might dabble in the stock market or retirement accounts, the former may sound nonsensical on its face; there should be plenty of people and organizations willing to accept money, the thinking goes. However, upon closer inspection, we see that it can, in fact, be challenging for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and their fiduciaries, pensions, and other private wealth holders (together, “CapShift clients”) to ensure their money will have the impact they want once it is given away, if they can find a worthy opportunity to which they can give their assets. Goals must be set and outputs, outcomes, and impacts of that money must be measured, reported, verified, and communicated. “Giving away” money for impact is sometimes as complicated as investing it for financial gain. Climate change mitigation, adaptation, and agrifood solutions represent an opportunity for CapShift clients to allocate their capital. Unfortunately, however, funding these opportunities are not presented to current and prospective CapShift clients in a way that inspires and mobilizes them to invest. We aim to change that.