The third conference on Impact Investing From Margin to Mainstream took place on the 14th of August 2014 at Nestlé’s Auditorium in São Paulo.
The event was organized by the University of St.Gallen (HSG) Hub São Paulo in partnership with Insper and the Sustainability Committee of the Swiss-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. It counted on the support of Nestlé Brazil and the institutional support of ICE, NESsT, Endeavor Visão de Sucesso, BMW Foundation, ACG Brasil, Sitawi, and the General Consulate of Switzerland in São Paulo.
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| Abigail Noble (World Economic Forum) |
This year’s event brought together around 200 attendees, among which were the main players in the Brazilian Impact Investing ecosystem: entrepreneurs, family offices, investors, representatives of Impact Investment funds, accelerators, and academia. They got together in order to discuss their perspectives on how to bring Impact Investing from the margin to the mainstream in a practice-oriented fashion.
Following the welcome addresses by Thomas Bieger (University of St.Gallen) and Claudio Haddad (Insper), the master of ceremony Stephan Buser (Swiss-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce) proceeded to the official opening of the conference. The first block consisted of keynote speeches by Abigail Noble (World Economic Forum) on the conference’s main topic Impact Investing: from the Margin to the Mainstream, followed by Wolfgang Reichenberger (Inventages VC) on Impact investing as an attractive area for institutional investors & family offices. Afterwards, Rebeca Rocha (ANDE) did the pre-launch of the Impact Investing Scenario Brazil Mapping, followed by Frédéric Kuonen (University of St.Gallen) who presented the outcomes of his master research on the Post-investment involvement of Brazilian impact investing funds, and Johannes Boch (University of St.Gallen) who introduced the concept of the Impact Investing Latin America Knowledge Platform – IILA being hosted by the University of St.Gallen hub office, and Sérgio Lazzarini (Academic Director at Insper) who introduced and launched the Insper METRICIS initiative which aims at assessing and measuring impact.
The second part of the conference aimed at sharing experiences of new business arrangements in Impact Investing in Brazil. Two innovative cases were presented: Ana Luísa da Riva (Instituto Semeia) about the importance of pro-actively managing national parks in Brazil and the case of Rota Lund (in Minas Gerais) in which they are applying a public-private partnership with a series of compensation bonds; and Guilherme Cintra (Gera Venture) presented the Gera Venture experience in measuring impact in the area of education. Both presentations were followed by a Q&A session.
After the networking coffee break, Gilberto Socoloski (APEX) presented APEX Brasil and launched the call for the “Segunda Rodada de Impact Investing Apex” – a second round of impact investors and potential businesses round, for which entrepreneurs can subscribe to until the end of August 2014.
The last block consisted of two panel discussions. The first one was moderated by Angélica Rotondaro (University of St. Gallen) focused on How companies and privately owned foundations can promote Impact Investing initiatives by enabling local cluster development. Mônica Neves (Nestlé), Luis Fernando Laranja (Ouro Verde Amazônia), Tiago Biusse Ghion (Fundação Jari) shared their best practices in looking into their value chains and identifying opportunities for engaging small producers either as part of an their inclusive business or shared value strategies; and Joaquim Cordeiro (BNDES - DESOL) introduced their main lines of financing linked to local development of for SMEs that would like to increase production lines in order to optimize their position in the value chain.
Andrea Minardi (Insper) moderated the second and final panel discussion on how to invest in impact investing projects and what advantages it brings, in which Filipe Borsato (BNDES-Par), Ana María Aristizabal (Bamboo Finance), and Daniel Izzo (Vox Capital) took part. The conference concluded with an intense discussion between the speakers and the audience on mechanism for investing in businesses with high social and environmental impact. Right after the second panel, Sergio Lazzarini (Insper) did the conference wrap-up.
By combining keynote speeches, real-life cases and panel discussions, the third Impact Investing conference ensured a well-balanced program. The event set an additional milestone for the further development of the impact investing ecosystem in Brazil by providing the platform for the players to meet and interact, and by contributing to raising awareness and spreading knowledge about Impact Investing.
