GOALS

• Identify at least 5 global trends for the impact investment market that are being mentioned in media sources from the United Kingdom. For each trend, a description of who is stating it and what it is about will be provided, as well as the names of the media publications that are covering them.
• Identify which U.K. journalists and influencers are dominating the debate about the impact investment market.
• Identify editorial competitors of Trib Impact Capital.
• The overall goal of each of the above points to inform and guide a communication's strategy workshop. The above research will be used to set the scene at the beginning of the workshop and provide context/insights for participants on the status of the impact investment market.

EARLY FINDINGS

trends

• In 2016, the United Nations launched a set of "Global Goals" that are referred to more professionally as the "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs). There are 17 total goals that are being used more and more widely my impact investors and funds alike in order to guide key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring fund successes.
• According to GIINs "Sizing the Impact Investing Market" report that was published in April 2019, there are currently 1,340 organizations managing approximately $502 billion in impact investments around the world. Of those, 58% are managed in the U.S. and 21% are managed throughout Western, Northern, and Southern Europe.
• As per GIINs 2018 Annual Impact Investor Survey, 40% of impact investors are targeting social objectives, 6% are targeting environmental ones, and 72% are working specifically to address climate change.
• GIINs 2018 Annual Impact Investor Survey also states that 46% of organizations that manage impact investments are for-profit fund managers, 13% are non-profit fund managers, and 13% are foundations.
• The importance of the use of analysis and big data for impact investing is expected to remain very important to 56% of investors over the next three years, while blockchain technology (55%) and machine learning/artificial intelligence (52%) are only expected to be somewhat important over the same time period. About 54% of impact investors believe that AR/VR will not be important for impact investing over the next three years.
• As of the end of 2018, only 37% of account managers track the performance of all of their impact investments according to the SDGs. However, 55% track performance for impact investments at least some of the time, and 21% plan to do so in the future.

influencers & journalists

•  Larry Fink, the CEO of the world's largest investment firm Blackrock, made an official statement in the company's most recently published annual report that other investment businesses need to make a greater effort to serve social purposes when choosing what to invest in.
• UBS launched their first impact investment in 2015, which managed to raise $471 million for cancer research. Because of their success, the company is now managing multiple investment funds, pushing for the SDGs to be more commonly followed, and they even published a white paper for the World Economic Forum in 2017 that focuses on having private wealth begin to be used for more impact investments.

PROPOSED NEXT STEPS

• Proceed with the identification of trends that are expected to be seen over the course of the next 3-5 years regarding impact investing (3 hours, $87)
• Proceed with the identification of an additional 3-5 influencers/journalists in the realm of impact investing (3 hours, $87)
• Proceed with the identification of editorial competitors to Trib Impact Capital (3 hours, $87).

clarifications: