Impact investment is a force for good, but a better way is needed to assess its value

Negative screening is well established among ESG and other impact investors, involving the avoidance of downside exposures, but the next generation will demand far more positive results. 

The dawn of the much-heralded 2020s have seen many business-as-usual assumptions overturned. Among them are the notions that globalization would continue on a predicable course, that the United States would remain a stable and unchallenged regulator of global markets, and that the climate and biodiversity emergencies would continue to lurk in the footnotes of corporate annual accounts.  

And then there were the assumptions about pandemics — a set of manageable risks, dealt with by experts. The global and continuing impact of COVID-19 and its variants signal the increasing risks from systemic challenges that were once seen as the preserve of governments. 

Now that governments, to whatever effect, have been forced to find and spend trillions of dollars, there has been a growing concern…