The Current Approach to Scaling Impact Capital isn’t Working: Why Addressing the Polycrisis Requires More ‘Impact-Native’ Capital
May 12, 2025
Impact investing must scale if it hopes to address the interconnected social and environmental problems that comprise the global polycrisis. Yet as Tripp Baird at Builders Fund explains, a substantial amount of “impact” capital flows to large asset aggregator financial institutions whose impact and ESG-branded funds include investments in unaligned or actively counter-productive assets — e.g., sustainability funds that invest in mining companies — making it virtually impossible to effect lasting change. He argues that purpose-driven investors should choose “impact-native” investment firms, which provide a real alternative to the extractive and short-term focus of traditional capital markets.
