Bringing corporate social investors, corporate leaders and other corporate impact stakeholders together can help a company accelerate their transformation into a purposeful organisation. This was the idea behind Business of Impact in Venice: an opportunity to sit at the same table and exchange wisdom. Discussions, networking and workshops made the case that the business of impact should be everyone’s business.
It was a joy to see so many key actors from the private sector feeling hopeful about the future of business as force for positive social and environmental change. And it seems our polycrisis world has acted as a catalyst for many:
- For corporate leaders to create more coherence between impact and business agendas, with sustainability as a business imperative and a source of growth.
- For corporate social investors (corporate foundations, corporate citizenship, impact investing funds) to consider contributing to an accelerated impact journey for their company, and sometimes influence business models. This was a major shift compared to previous years and consistent with their new positioning: closely and strategically aligning their foundation with their industry or company’s core business and values.
- For all corporate impact actors to deploy capital collectively. I was thrilled to see existing and new alliances of impact funders, successfully mobilising, thanks to our EVPA community, resources in health, youth, migration, food and more.
Building a bridge between impact and business
New this year were many more engaged discussions around corporate impact investing. Renault featured their different types of complementary investment vehicles through the CareMakers impact fund, their foundation and €100 million investment in Renault-backed sustainable mobility fund Shift4Good.
Societe Generale presented the recently launched Development Impact Bond of their client Unilever, addressing plastics recycling in Nigeria and recognising the role of social entrepreneurs as key partners to solve complex social issues. Both examples showed how a corporate impact investing strategy may complement the philanthropic approach and contribute to embed purpose in their company.
Bumpy road to purpose
Participants recognised that corporates have a tremendous amount of resources and competences to deploy and contribute to positive change. But they also acknowledged that there are specific conditions necessary to make it work: leadership, organisational resources and engagement of the full industry system need to be aligned.
Honest discussions revealed that value-driven business leaders, corporate social investors and sustainability leaders are struggling to embed social factors in their environmental business agenda.
Panels like Ashoka’s On the Minds of CEOs showed that a clear gap between intention and action remains. We also learned that drivers for corporate leaders to transform their business into a force for good are mostly employees’ motivation/retention and regulation ahead of customer demand – not what we usually hear!
Are corporate social investors empowered as key allies?
Several conversations at Business of Impact reflected the frustrations of many corporate social investors, namely that senior management could do more to include them in strategic discussions around their sustainability/ESG agenda. Corporate social investors could add value to these discussions; they are at a unique vantage point between the non-profit and business sectors, and often part of their work is to identify transformative social solutions with potential business relevance. They have a natural grasp of the changing external environment; strong connection to the needs of civil society, the environment and government; and, by design, the space to experiment and innovate.
Digging deeper on these qualities, SAP, Sanofi, IKEA SE and Schneider Electric featured the potential role corporate social investors could play as a learning lab to make their company more sustainable and inclusive, and facilitate the integration of purpose into business.
Keep the conversation going
Business of Impact not only activated new conversations, but brought new voices in, too. It seems only right that the conversation will continue later this year. EVPA will be doing just that at Impact Week in Torino, 22-24 November. If you’re looking to make your perspective heard among the growing number of impactful corporates, we hope you’ll join us!
Sophie Faujour, EVPA Corporate Impact Lead
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