Bringing Impact Investing Down To Earth: Making Sense, Managing Outcomes, And Meeting Client Demand – A Special Report by the Money Management Institute and Burckart Consulting
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 11, 2015 – The Money Management Institute (MMI), the national association representing the $4 trillion managed investment solutions and wealth management industry, and Burckart Consulting, an impact investing analytics and strategy firm, today released a special report entitled Bringing Impact Investing Down to Earth: Insights for Making Sense, Managing Outcomes, and Meeting Client Demand. The report examines the systems, indices, and other kinds of resources that have emerged to help with the measurement, management, and marketing of the non-financial performance of investments and evaluating them by the social good they achieve.
The report details the growing client demand for impact investing – the practice of investing with the intention to generate measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return – and the obstacles to truly widespread adoption. Chief among these is the need to address issues related to transparency.
Building on an earlier report released by MMI in May 2014 – Serving Client Demand for Impact Investing: A Hands-on Guide for Financial Advisors and Senior Management – and a series of in-depth interviews with key senior executives, the new report offers greater clarity on how to link social and environmental impact with existing wealth management activities in the financial services industry. It also includes essays by leading practitioners who are learning by doing – Erika Karp and John Wilson of Cornerstone Capital Group, Jamie Butterworth of Circularity Capital, Mark Sloss of UBS, and Anna Snider of Merrill Lynch.
“With investor interest in achieving social and environmental impact on the rise, the actions of major financial players reflect a resolve to remain competitive by serving that growing demand,” said William Burckart, the founder and CEO of Burckart Consulting and the author of the report. “There has clearly been no shortage of effort or ingenuity to address the issues involved with impact measurement, and, while impact accounting systems and complicated frameworks exist, well-defined, basic steps on how to actually harness impact data are absent. Addressing these shortcomings is essential if the impact investing proposition is to become both viable and sustainable for all stakeholders.”
“There is ample evidence across our industry that impact investing is becoming more deeply rooted in mainstream finance,” said Craig D. Pfeiffer, President and CEO of the Money Management Institute. “This report outlines some of the pioneering work now being done and offers a broad perspective on what is yet to be accomplished. We will continue to work with experts like Bill Burckart to build the knowledge base and support capabilities to help our member firms equip their financial advisors to meet the growing demand – especially among millennial investors – for impact investing.”
See full report below.
About the Money Management Institute (MMI): Since 1997 the Money Management Institute (MMI) has been the leading voice for the global financial services organizations that provide advice and professionally managed solutions to individual and institutional investors. Through industry advocacy, educational initiatives, regulatory affairs, data reporting and professional networking, MMI supports and advances the growth of advisory solutions. MMI members’ advice-driven investment solutions serve an evolving worldwide financial landscape and their organizations are committed to the highest standards of fiduciary responsibility and ethical conduct and to creating the most successful outcomes for investors at every level of assets. For more information, visit www.MMInst.org.
About Burckart Consulting: Burckart Consulting is an impact investing analytics and strategy firm headquartered in New York. The firm helps clients integrate social and environmental impact into investments and enterprises to better deploy and attract capital – fortifying assets across a range of sectors. For more information, visit www.burckartconsulting.com.
