Research & Insights

The case is about a sustainable investor firm, Nia Impact Capital (Nia) (Oakland, California), and its founder and CEO, Kristin Hull. Hull aims to invest in gender and racial justice and to make money with meaning and purpose.

Angaza’s story is not a typical solar light story, but the story of a female social entrepreneur with a for-profit Silicon Valley mindset transforming a social enterprise from a hardware to a software business model.

At luxury fashion house Maison Chloé, minds were focused on the first collection of new creative director, Gabriela Hearst, which was just hitting the stores.

In a short span of five or six years, CHANEL embraced CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social, governance) initiatives that stretched far beyond its established comfort zone of artistic direction and creative output.

This case provides the opportunity to perform a real, but simplified, ESG research analysis and portfolio investment decision from the perspective of an impact investor, testing students’ analytical and financial skills.

In 2020, Triodos Investment Management (Triodos) was a globally active impact investor. It believed the true purpose of investing was to generate social and environmental impact alongside a healthy financial return.

Philip Morris International (PMI) CEO André Calantzopoulos announced in 2016 a radical pivot in the Marlboro cigarette manufacturer’s strategy: the company would shift to “smoke-free” products in more than 180 countries around the world.

In 2020, Triodos Investment Management had approximately EUR 4.9 billion in assets under its management (impact investment). Triodos motto was “Financing for change. The case challenges students to reflect on the responsible leadership role of financial institutions.

By March 2020, Philip Morris International (PMI) had defined its purpose, “[to] create a smoke-free future and ultimately replace cigarettes with smoke-free products” and had validated PMI’s materiality matrix.

The case is about a company in one of the so-called sin industries that has committed to phase out cigarettes – the origin of its sins – in favor of a smoke-free future based on reduced-risk products.

Philip Morris International (PMI) CEO André Calantzopoulos announced in 2016 a radical pivot in the Marlboro cigarette manufacturer’s strategy: the company would shift to “smoke-free” products in more than 180 countries around the world.

The case features Sara Razmpa, head of responsible investment, and Fiona Frick, CEO of Unigestion, at a critical juncture in the Geneva-based asset management firm’s new and challenging ESG journey.

In July 2017, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched the world’s first Humanitarian Impact Bond. This innovative finance pilot was an experiment by the ICRC to engage the private sector differently and diversify funding – critical given the widening humanitarian aid gap. Case A focuses on the background of the ICRC and the factors driving the humanitarian sector to innovate and engage the private sector in a new way. Furthermore, it explores a critical question – what makes a humanitarian project investable?

The ICRC’s Humanitarian Impact bond is based on the social impact bond model, which brings together outcome funders (donors such as governments, foundations and corporations), service providers (NGOs, social enterprises, etc.) and social investors to pay for the delivery of social outcomes through “pay-for-success” agreements. Case B explores the mechanics of the social impact bond model, how it is applied in the HIB case, and the purpose and role of the term sheet in aligning the needs of the different stakeholders and driving a transaction forward.

The last case in the three-part series looks at ICRC’s journey and learnings in putting together the HIB bond. Additionally, it explores how the ICRC built on this first experience to build up its organizational readiness and launch more new financing models.