At least four super funds are contributing to the inaugural Impact Investor Survey which aims to provide critical insights to help grow the opportunities for investments that deliver positive social or environmental impacts in addition to a financial return.
Christian Super, First State Super, HESTA and VicSuper, who have all separately shown leadership in this area, have provided learnings and experience to help better understand the motivations and barriers encountered by investors participating in impact investing.
Tim Macready, chief investment officer at Christian Super, said it was important to understand where the deals were being done to allow the identification of the parts of the industry that are already working in this space.
“Hopefully, if we can identify where activity is happening in each of those areas, and we can engage with people who are already pushing forward, the opportunity to network and collaborate will be able to drive impact investing further,” Macready said.
He added it would be interesting to a get a sense of people’s expectations as there were differing views on how significant impact investing could become.
“I know globally figures of $1 trillion by 2020 have been thrown around. There are people who think that will happen no matter what and there are people who think that’s an ambitious statement of where it will be. It will be interesting to see the divergence of views in Australia on how significant people think it [impact investing] will be by 2020.”
The working group who designed the survey come from a broad range of organisations and include some of the leading investment minds in the space:
| Fabienne Michaux (Chair) | Standard & Poors |
| Phil Vernon (Deputy Chair) | Australian Ethical |
| Nicki Ashton | Russell Investments |
| Sarah Brennan | Comparator |
| Helga Birgden | Mercer |
| Richard Brandweiner | First State Super |
| Miles Collins | Myer Family Company |
| Alicia Darvall | B Lab Australia and New Zealand |
| David Knowles | Koda Capital |
| John McLeod | Independent |
| Caitlin Medley | QBE |
| Anna Moynihan | Uniting Care Queensland |
| Simon O’Connor | Responsible Investment Association Australasia |
| Louise O’Halloran | Independent |
| Susheela Peres da Costa | Regnan – Governance Research & Engagement |
| Cathy Truong | Trawalla Foundation |
| Lisa Wade | Bendigo and Adelaide Bank |
All survey participants will receive a copy of the final report and be invited to a briefing session to share findings before the public release of the final report in late 2015/early 2016.
To participate in the survey visit:
http://impactinvestingaustralia.com/2015-australian-impact-investor-survey/
The survey will close on Friday 2 October.
Impact Investing Australia, the organisations responsible for the survey, is also supporting a summit in Sydney on October 19 – 21 which will showcase the best strategies in finding impact investments and measuring their success. Program content will be curated specifically for impact investors – with prime focus on the capital supply side (not the demand side) of impact investment.
