Dave Chen of Equilibrium Capital joins David Bank to make bold predictions for 2020 on another episode of our special series: Institutional Shift.

On the latest edition of ImpactAlpha’s Returns on Investment podcast, host Brian Walsh suggests that the ‘technology’ of ESG and impact investing has passed the early-adopter stage and entered the early majority, gaining momentum among companies, asset managers and banks.

“The positive news is that more and more people know what we are talking about,” Bertrand Badré says on the most recent ImpactAlpha podcast. “The negative news is there is not enough action.” The former World Bank official and founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital (the name comes from a French surrealist poem) says needed changes in the financial system were not given enough thought when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted five years ago. He’s writing a book on the topic; as a down payment, Blue Orange is releasing at Davos its internal rating system, SDG Blue, which scores investments against the SDGs in much the same way Moody’s scores companies’ credit ratings.

The Decapitalization of the Fossil Fuel Industry by ImpactAlpha

“Global thematic impact didn’t exist, so we decided to build it ourselves," says Erika Karp in the latest ROI. Cornerstone’s Access Impact Fund is a Nasdaq-listed mutual fund that for a minimum $1,000 investment offers access to sub-advisors looking for thematic investments in small-, medium- and large-cap companies across geographies.

Karp, formerly the head of global sector research at UBS Investment Bank, is taking a stand on hotly debated investment topics that go beyond impact investing. She says active management, which has fallen out of favor because of high fees and uneven performance, is key to intentional impact.

How impact investing will fare in the inevitable event of the next economic downturn is the topic of the most recent instalment of ImpactAlpha’s podcast Returns on Investment. Roundtable regulars Brian Walsh, David Bank and your “loveable curmudgeon” all agree that a slowdown, and possibly even a crash, is inevitable in the not-so-distant future.

The popular protests that drove the GSG Impact Summit out of Santiago, Chile, added “a poignant urgency” to the first day of the global gathering of impact investors in Buenos Aires, Sir Ronald Cohen said in a podcast interview with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank.

Dave Chen of Equilibrium Capital returns for another edition of Institutional Shift.

Now that big private equity players are spinning up impact funds left and right, the impact of the rest of their investments is getting a lot more scrutiny as well.

ImpactAlpha’s roundtable regulars recorded a podcast episode keying on Blackstone’s investments in Brazilian agricultural processing plants linked to deforestation in the Amazon. But other private equity giants have stepped up with their own deals of questionable impact. As a source for stories, keeping watch on private equity impact is the gift that keeps on giving.

In a counter-intuitive shift, the estimated four million global youth climate strikers who took to the streets last week may be more pro-business than recalcitrant heads of state gathering at the United Nations intent on slow-walking climate action. The U.S., Brazil and Japan, for example, have not even asked to speak at today’s Climate Action Summit, where 60 or so countries are expected to present more ambitious carbon-reduction plans.

By catalyzing a powerful political constituency for urgent climate action, protestors may accelerate the low-carbon transition and soften climate shock. By most expert analysis, keep global temperature rise with 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius produces better returns for almost all in