NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Join editors of The Economist and more than 200 leading financiers, institutional investors, policymakers, academics, impact investors and philanthropies, to analyse the main obstacles and opportunities presented by impact investing and examine how it could alter the course of trillions of pounds of investment in the years to come.

The relationship between the private capital markets and the well-being of society and the planet has become a hot topic. In 2015, in New York and Paris, the world’s governments signed up to ambitious goals to curb climate change and generate the sort of economic growth that benefits everyone, not just a wealthy minority – goals that it is estimated will require over $2.5 trillion a year of additional private investment.

At the same time, partly in response to criticisms that irresponsible short-termism in the capital markets caused the 2008 financial crash and the Great Recession that followed, some leading capital-market institutions have pledged to take a more long term, sustainable and socially responsible approach to investing.

The growing demand for a more socially-responsible, purpose-driven finance has been best illustrated by the emergence of a new approach to putting capital to work called “impact investing.” Having started out as a niche activity, largely practised by wealthy and philanthropically-inclined individuals, impact investment is now championed by a growing number of leading institutions in the capital markets. Yet such a shift is by no means inevitable. Critics question whether the recent commitment of mainstream finance to impact investing is more than skin deep.

Uniting leading financiers, institutional investors, policymakers, academics, impact investors and philanthropists, The Impact Investing Summit will analyse the main obstacles and opportunities presented by impact investing, broadly defined, and examine how it could alter the course of trillions of pounds of investment in the years to come.