Making money by doing good needn’t be impossible

‘Impact investing’ — the idea of doing good and making money at the same time — is reaching a tipping point of acceptance. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have provided a blueprint that is pushing impact investing into the financial mainstream.

Consider a few of our planet’s economic challenges. According to the Business and Sustainable Development Commission (a group of 35 corporate chiefs and civil society leaders) violence and armed conflict cost the world the equivalent of 9 per cent of global GDP in 2014 alone. Lost biodiversity and eco-system damage cost another 3 per cent. Meanwhile, median wages in developed countries have been stagnant for 30 years and there’s growing anxiety that automation and globalisation will continue to eat away at human jobs.

But the good news is that there’s a plan. In 2015, 193 countries (that’s pretty well every country in the world at the time) signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals, an ambitious framework for creating a better world by 2030.