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Impact investing: Making the case for low-margin, high social return investments
Capital from impact investing often acts as a catalyst to commercial capital. For instance, it helps to showcase the viability of new business models and products, and it drives existing enterprises toward improved services and new geographies. But organizations that don’t generate commercially attractive returns often can’t attract mainstream capital. Geeta Goel argues that in these cases, impact capital focused on social impact has a vital role.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Social innovation means business becoming a force for good
Business needs to reconnect with the community and better serve society, Terry Slavin reports from the Guardian Sustainable Business Quarterly workshop
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- impact investing
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Healthy food chain helps kids get off the streets
Erik Oberholtzer started the program at a time when many CEOs were focused on surviving the recession. But Tender Greens was in the midst of a rapid expansion. The company grew from $7.3 million and 115 employees in 2009 to $28 million in revenues and 450 employees in 2013.
- Categories
- Environment, Impact Assessment
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Beyond Bitcoin: some alternative marketplaces lend social empowerment
A variety of companies, like e-Choupal and OneMorePallet, are creating new marketplaces to add value - and boost social and environmental benefits, writes SustainAbility's Lindsay Clinton.
- Categories
- Environment
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Ziqitza a ‘Driver’ Among Social Businesses: Ambulance company expanding rapidly, eyeing markets outside India
Ziqitza has grown from just 10 ambulances in 2005 to more than 800 today, has served more than 2.5 million people – many of whom live below the poverty line – and its annual revenue is roughly $20 million. The secret, according to its CEO, lies in its revenue model.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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The Doctor is (Checking) In … Via Mobile: Pesinet combines apps, mircoinsruance with old-fashioned grassroots education
In Mali and Burkina Faso, an NGO uses a three-prong approach designed to get families to bring their children to local health centers starting with the earliest symptoms.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Technology
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‘Vanity is Not Monopolized By the Rich’: VisionSpring’s innovative way to sell eyeglasses proving to be sustainable; a Q&A with COO Peter Eliassen
Through a hub-and-spoke business model, middle-income customers are subsidizing company’s work with BoP consumers. And it’s proving to be sustainable.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- supply chains
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Delegates Debate Climate Change Influence On Health
Through providing leadership, advocacy, policy and research, the Alliance aims to ensure health impacts are integrated into global, national and local responses to climate change and to encourage the health sector's mitigation and adaptation efforts.
- Categories
- Education, Environment, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- public health
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