The Purpose Pod

"We should no longer move fast and break things, but rather create systems change through collaboration and kindness."

- Collaboration as the key to systems change

- How do you build an impact ecosystem?

- Can you match a financial instrument to a personality type?

- Why you shouldn't take yourself too seriously

- Why kindness should not be underrated

- The do's and dont's of co-founder dating

- How to avoid VC ar*eholes ..... and more!

Buckle up for an inspiring Impact masterclass with Yonca Braeckman, founder of Impact Shakers, hosted by Richard Mullane.

Impact Shakers

#inclusiveentrepreneurship #collaboration #systemschange

Vyldness

Vested Impact

Faircado

Investing for Purpose

Social Value International

https://impactfrontiers.org/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

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"There are many committed businesses out there with a lot of power - that movement creates a place where the others cannot hide"

Business for Societal Impact (B4SI) is a global membership network uniting close to 200 mid to high cap corporations in managing & measuring their shared value & intentional approach to positive social impact, with up to $3bn held in community investments. So how do you transition corporates into engagement with positive social impact without enabling Socialwashing?

Join Global Director Clodagh Connolly and Richard Mullane for this wide-ranging 20 minute chat, including:

- Why companies that articulate and measure their societal impact are primed to win the war for talent

- The problem of ESG investment as a due diligence construct versus Impact investment as intentional and forward looking

- How B4Si ensure transparency while mitigating greenwashing risks 

- Why corporates can no longer hide from social and environmental responsibilities

- The implications of CSRD role out and where the costs will end up

- Why double materiality is good for businesses

- Why the right Social Enterprises and community organisations are perfectly placed to work alongside corporates like Nokia to help them transition

- How to successfully engage with corporates to stand the best chance of channelling investment

#Community investment #Social innovation #Social procurement #CSRD #corporatetransition

"In the future the war for talent is going to be extraordinary across businesses"

Business for Sustainable Impact (B4Si)

B4Si September 2024 events: Bonn, London & New York

Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Iberdrola: Promoting women's STEM

Nokia: Bridging the Digital Divide

Investing for Purpose

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN)

Impact Frontiers

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"Guests expect everyone to be offering a sustainable holiday so they don't think that they should be paying more for it"

As we reach peak holiday season, join Eleni Andreadis, ESG Executive Director of Sani Ikos resorts group as she describes their 15 year journey to fully embed ESG principles and actions across 12 resorts in Greece and Spain with over 7000 employees, to become the exemplar for sustainability in tourism. Eleni also describes the other hats she juggles, including NGO Planet Agents, which delivers engaging environmental education each year to over 12,000 school children and writing 11 children's books - so far! Topics discussed include:

- Transforming Sani Resort into the first carbon neutral resort in Greece, with 100% certified renewable electricity

- Managing ESG around 3 pillars of Environmental, Social and Economic Sustainability with over 100 performance KPIs.

- How to embed ways to engage guests with local communities combining inclusive economic stimulation with environmental education

- How to keep children holistically engaged into their teenage years to transform their physical and mental wellbeing 

- How working with SBTI (The Science Based Targets Initiative) as an optimal interim approach to mitigating carbon versus that accrued by travelling guests.

- Why any organisation not fully engaging in sustainability is missing out on multiple fronts and faces existential risks

- Working with the Forest Research Institute to calculate and bolster carbon sink capacity

- Bringing back Bee hives to Parnitha, recently devastated by wild fires to release and care for the Bees to enable millions to bring new life back into the forests 

- How to minimise your personal footprint and to choose holiday packages mindfully

- Why we should let our kids roam free and get lost together in forests and the countryside - and more!

Sani Ikos Group

Sani Resort

Ikos Resorts

"The most sustainable product that you can choose, is nothing"

Save the Bee

Forest Research Institute

Planet Agents

Children's book series

Not The End of the World

Investing for Purpose

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

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“We are now in an age where people are consuming somewhere between 5 and 7 hours of content a day. The power to use that time to do good is colossal”

Founded in 2020 by Ellen Windemuth, Executive Producer of My Octopus Teacher, WaterBear has rapidly become the leading platform and impact media network dedicated to global purpose driven storytelling.

What exactly is a Waterbear? Sam Sutaria, CEO and founding team member of an ambitious organisation uniquely positioned at the intersection of entertainment, culture, impact and purpose reveals all, including:

- How to create campaigns to build real world agency and action

- How a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, will use B2B learning to engage 30m employees

- Working with 150 NGOs to link stories to on the ground campaigns

- Why the film industry needs a new measurement of success and a universal standard for impact measurement

- Why looking someone in the eyes is still the best test for judging their greenwashing propensity

- How to create a holistic, inclusive, diverse and sustainable media model 

- Targeting funding via impact driven family offices, VCs and smart capital

- Creating media designed to improve wellbeing

- Waterbear at Glastonbury 2024 - and so much more!

#impactmedia #storytelling #film #documentary #behaviourchange #wellbeing

Waterbear Network

https://www.waterbear.com/

Tardigrade

Off the Fence + My Octopus Teacher

BBC Natural History Unit

Nice and Serious + Moral compass

Blue Carbon film

Jayda G

Rebels With A Cause film

Glastonbury Festival Silver Hayes

For Sama film

Aegean Film Festival

Imagine 5

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

Off Menu (Podcast)

Alladale Wilderness Reserve

Investing for Purpose

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

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"Everyone in Impact is open to sharing failures as well as successes"

In an impact ecosystem in which thousands are scrambling for attention and the volume of must-read sources is seemingly endless, how can you cut through the noise and select, structure and transfer impact knowledge in the most beneficial ways for all? Join Alessia Gianoncelli, Director of Knowledge and Programs at Impact Europe - the Investing for Impact network - and voted one of the top 100 women in Social Enterprise 2023, as she talks this through, as well as:

- How to structure the perfect in person or online SDG/Impact seminars

- The signs and dangers of Impact washing

- A true perspective on SDG 5 Gender Equality and how to define a 'Super Heroine'

- The power of peer-to-peer learning and why we need to learn from our failures

- Why reading murder mystery novels is the perfect antidote to burnout, and more!

#equalopportunities #equitydiversityinclusion #edi #deia #deib #jedi #knowledge #knowledgetransfer #education #learning

Impact Europe

https://www.impacteurope.net/

https://www.impacteurope.net/stream/stream

Impact Europe 'Impact People' Podcast

https://open.spotify.com/show/7247MzIWcXIUL6vxYWhiKe?si=c3a152a8d6674fce

"I hope that the new generation of girls and women will grow with equal opportunities independently from sex orientation, the conditions and countries in which they are born"

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Semia Feminist Fund

https://semiafund.org/en/

Gabriella Genisi "Lolita Lobosco"

https://www.facebook.com/gabriella.genisi/

https://www.marsilioeditori.it/lista-autori/scheda-autore/5600/gabriella-genisi

Additional Impact-related links

Investing for Purpose

Investing for Purpose

Impact Frontiers

https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/

UN SDGs

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

https://www.socialvalueint.org/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://thegiin.org/

Hellenic Impact Investing Network

https://thehiin.org/

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"We can help the land, so the land can help us"

How to solve the problem of rodent infestations costing farmers in Thessaly, the breadbasket of Greece, more than EU100m each year, while mitigating overuse of rodenticides that harm biodiversity, ecology and human health? With the perfect nature-based solution, of course…

Spend some time in the home and in the fields at dusk with agricultural ecosystem expert Vasileios Bontzorlos to hear all about Tyto, the company that expertly researches, fosters and manages communities of wild barn owls across 100s of kilometres of farmland, while enabling a thriving and biodiverse ecosystem. 

The question is, as the dusk light fades, will we see one of the elusive barn owls?...

Discussions include:

- The myth surrounding the barn owl and why they are so connected to humanity

- What it takes to change the mindsets and practices of rural communities

- The true definition of Regenerative Agriculture

- Why you should read E.O Wilson after Dawkins

- How to pave the way for a career connected to nature

- Why you might want to approach barn owl boxes with an umbrella...! And much more besides.

www.tyto.org.gr

#naturebasedsolutions #barnowl #raptor #agriculturalecosystems #wildlifeconservation #ecology #communityengagement

"Barn owl populations locally move like a cloud"

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Alexandre Roulin

https://barnowl-research.ch/en

https://www.cambridgeblog.org

Richard Dawkins 

https://richarddawkins.net/

E.O. Wilson 

https://eowilsonfoundation.org/

Convention on Biological Diversity

https://www.cbd.int

Additional links

Investing for Purpose

Investing for Purpose

Impact Frontiers

https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/

UN SDGs

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

https://www.socialvalueint.org/

Impact Europe

https://www.impacteurope.net/

Hellenic Impact Investing Network

https://thehiin.org/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://thegiin.org/

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“We always provide food supplies that we would give to our children”

In 2013, in the depths of the financial crisis, when Melina Taprantzi visited a regional social grocery supplying food for the unemployed, the only thing that was available on the shelves was razor blades. 

This stark reality was a turning point for Melina, who has since focussed her energies on building Wise Greece into a uniquely circular Social Enterprise that now supports over 100 small Greek farmers and food producers to grow and export 2500 food products - including award winning innovations such as salads in a jar and mushroom flavoured sweets!

Profits are used to buy food from the same producers to supply soup kitchens and charitable institutions across Greece, with over 180 tons of food donated to support over half a million people in need so far.

Have a listen to Melina’s incredible story in our latest podcast, with insights including:

- How to design social enterprise business model generating positive compound Impacts from indivuduals to ecosystem

- Equality lessons learned from over 20 years of being a woman on the workplace

- Why being overreactive to natural disasters can have limited or even negative Impact

- Tips for start-ups: Why having a brilliant idea is not enough; and how to genuinely bootstrap with limited funding

- Investment opportunities across the Greek education, tourism, food, services sectors

- Why social enterprises are part of the real economy

- Why a career in impact is about enjoying the grind and celebrating every small win

- Why being adaptable is the core skill that students (and all of us!) need to develop

And more - including how to send the finest herbs via postcard....!

www.wisegreece.com

World Bank SDGs and Her

“When I stepped into my career I stepped in as a ‘man’. After 10 or 20 years you get to discover your female side more.”

#food #foodinnovation #compoundimpact #equality #socialenterprise #womenintheworkplace #socialgood #circularimpact

Investing for Purpose

Impact Frontiers

https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/

OECD wellbeing Index

https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

UN SDGs

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

https://www.socialvalueint.org/

Impact Europe

https://www.impacteurope.net/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://thegiin.org/

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“The paradigm shift embodied in the impact investment community is from Egosystem to Ecosystem”

Why should we be building Impact Economies across the world? And how can it be done?

This is the mission of The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG). Spearheaded by Sir Ronald Cohen, GSG are already enabling impact capacity building by establishing and supporting national impact advisory boards across 75 countries, including with our colleagues at the Hellenic Impact Investing Network (HIIN), here in Greece.

With a goal to harness influence, stimulate innovation and foster the building of impact economies, GSG also push for knowledge sharing and collaboration, a natural trait of the impact community and something that is close to our hearts at Investing for Purpose.

To hear more, Krisztina Tora, GSGs Chief Market Development Officer, tells the full story in this pod, including:

- Why we need to develop impact investment globally and how local-to-global impact networks are key to the solution

- The need to focus attention on early-stage companies 

- The stark differences between ESG and Impact investing

- The importance of channelling capital flows into emerging markets and SDG aligned solutions

- Why post-growth thinking is not comfortable, but is essential in an AI dominated future

- The ABC definitions of impact categorisation

As well as the Impact community as a 'family', how we can all get better sleep - and more!

“Impact should become the driver for all decisions in business, investment, policy and consumption” 

GSG Global Steering Group for Impact Investment 

https://gsgii.org/

Hellenic Impact Investing Network

https://thehiin.org/

Impact Management Platform: ABC

https://impactmanagementplatform.org/?s=ABC

Impact Frontiers

https://impactfrontiers.org/norms/five-dimensions-of-impact/

OECD wellbeing Index

https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

UN SDGs

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

https://www.socialvalueint.org/

Impact Europe

https://www.impacteurope.net/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://thegiin.org/

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"The relationship between entrepreneurs and investors is like a marriage. You really have to be certain that on the human side of things you are also aligned".

In the world of impact finance it’s easy to focus a lot of attention on the myriad challenges: How to source and support the most impactful enterprises; how to find like-minded investors with skillsets aligned to the entrepreneur business; how to design innovative, smart and patient capital models; how to assess the impact of enterprises; how to help enterprise growth and valuation in parallel with impact; etc.....

But how often do we also step back to celebrate the impact of social enterprises that are going from strength to strength as a result?

Ellinor Schweyer, Co-Founder and MD of Munich based impact finance advisors FASE, which was born out of the original social entrepreneurship funding organisation Ashoka, tells of their success stories ranging from a triple-win solution to detecting breast cancer, to insuring the health of previously uninsurable field workers in developing nations, and making civic sports clubs sustainable to reliably provide a priceless framework that so many teenagers benefit from.

Ellinor also delves deep into the best approaches to bootstrapping a social enterprise to be sure of attracting impact funding- and on the importance of choosing wisely when it comes to committing to the right investor 'marriage'. As well as her thoughts on:

- The corporate saturation that led her to jump into impact and careers advice for those looking to switch to impact finance

- Impact finance vs VC start up failure rates

- The challenges thrown up by the positive reality of Impact investing becoming trendy and attracting an increase in venture funds

- Using Ashoka Impact metrics to measure Impact

- The FASE approach to structuring debt, mezzanine financing, social bonds and impact ROI

- How to stay healthy in an age of climate anxiety

"Impact is not equally defined and often in impact investments you still see that the brain rules over the heart"

https://fa-se.de/en/

https://www.ashoka.org/

https://www.discovering-hands.de/international/page-international

https://www.elucid.social/

https://klubtalent.org/

#SocialVentureCapital #matchmaking #impactsuccessstories #impactfinance #ashoka #SocialEntrepreneurs

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"I've realised that being close to nature gives you a different understanding of what growth is, of what a meaningful life may be."

Is it possible to tackle climate change and soil-degeneration with a nature-based solution while at the same time building a resilient social economy for an existing remote community and for those that migrate there? Yes.

Staramaki is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Kilkis Greece, which produces straws from the stems of wheat as an alternative to plastic straws which, despite the ban, are still omnipresent and for paper straws that often contain harmful PFAs and are typically shipped in bulk containers (containing mostly air) from Asia.

"The wealth created by the company is distributed in an equal and fair way. The salaries of everybody in Staramaki is the same, no matter the position, no matter the experience."

Born out of a reaction to the Greek crisis and from a new perspective arising from moving back to his rural roots, this is the story of the impact Staramaki co-founder/manager Stefanos Kamperis and the like-minded collective that formed around a simple idea. The collective both set up a resilient NGO to tackle the rehousing and integration crisis stemming from the mass migration that at one point had 25,000 people walking barefoot through Kilkis village each day - and resulted in one of the most progressive organisations in Greece, currently producing over 3m natural straws per year.

"Without Impact Investing, it's almost impossible for a social enterprise in Greece to find the investment necessary for it to grow"

With social enterprises struggling to raise vital growth funding, we were delighted, along with our investors, to enable the highest funding round for a social enterprise in Greece to help Staramaki build resilience and acquire new machinery to expand production.

www.staramaki.gr

"It's something that money cannot buy. It's passion."

www.nestle.gr

https://www.nespresso.com/gr/en/

#Ikigai #valueeconomy #circulareconomy #naturebasedsolutions #socialenterprise #impactinvesting

Other useful impact industry resources:

Ellen Macarthur Foundation

https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/

SDG Goals

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Social Value International

https://www.socialvalueint.org/

UNDP / Duke University free course: Impact Measurement and Management for SDGS for enterprises and investors

https://sdgfinance.undp.org/news/undp-and-case-duke-university-launch-impact-measurement-and-management-course

Impact Measurement & Management - investment best practice:

https://impactfrontiers.org/

Global Impact Investing Network

https://thegiin.org/

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