Well, the global impact investing community now represents over $1.5 trillion in assets from shifting political ties to extreme weather, the challenges we face are urgent and complex.
So how can capital be mobilized to drive real scalable solutions for people and the planet?
Joining me here at the exchange.
Is Justin Conway, chief product and partnerships officer at Calva Impact.
Great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you, Rey.
Well, first and foremost, many people are familiar with Impact Investing, so where does Calver fit in in the picture?
Sure, so Calvertact is an impact investing firm.
Uh, where we're really trying to help investors and their financial professionals allocate their capital to social and environmental solutions.
So we have now a growing product platform.
We're celebrating 30 years next month, and it's, you know, offers a range of whether it's retail fixed income to institutional private. equity and credit strategies and so we've so far channeled over 5 billion to all types of impact sectors from affordable housing, community development, small business, to more climate sectors like renewable energy and sustainable agriculture, and all of those, both the US and globally really focus on creating measurable social and environmental factor.
Yeah, I think measurable is the key word here because we're here at the New York Stock Exchange and we know there's a lot of data that is streaming below us and also above us as well.
So when it comes to the uncertainty out there, whether we're talking about politics or economics, give us an understanding of how your portfolio companies are holding up.
Yeah, well, it certainly hasn't gotten easier this year, right?
So whether it was the challenges to international aid, challenges domestically to affordable housing and community development, the real pullback in the US on climate, though we're not seeing that pullback internationally and globally.
So all of these are affecting impact sectors and markets, but also families, communities, lower income communities, that much of impact investing world, and we are very focused on serving.
But the portfolio companies are adapting quickly.
I think the first thing to say is that many of them were created, many impact firms were created at a time of extreme challenge, right?
And so they were, you know, trying to address systemic inequities and funding gaps, and so they're built tough.
And when we saw things like the financial crisis, the housing crisis, or the pandemic.
They didn't have the downturns in their portfolios right that we saw in kind of the macro economy.
They were able to you know change and adapt to be there for their communities and so so far in 2025 we're seeing a lot of that nimbleness, ability to adapt to the changing market and the new realities and um.
You know, I think while there will be some bumps in the road, some portfolio projects are certainly challenged with the changing political and economic headwinds, I think we'll see continued resiliency across the board.
And I do want to shift our focus on over to investors.
When it comes to impact investors, what are you seeing in terms of trends?
Yeah, so when we look at first of all, the impact investor network is really broad, right?
You have everyone from the kind of mission oriented churches, faith based institutions, foundations that really kind of started this type of investing to now corporations and pension funds and Insurance companies that are putting larger allocations in so it's really broad and when we survey our investors and advisors, they now are consistently saying the climate sectors like environmental sustainability and renewable energy are really top of mind for them, followed closely by the more social sectors affordable housing and community development.
And so, you know, the data that we see and as well as kind of the global impact investing network and US CIF and all are really showing this kind of, you know, rise to growth to a more than a $1.5 trillion dollar market and more investors and certainly more advisors each year are saying, hey, we're happy with the returns, we're happy with the impact of meeting our expectations.
We want to allocate more, but 2025 is like no other year and so I'd be. to say that certainly in the earlier part of the year, I mean it was hard for anyone to allocate to anything, right, not just impact investing, but now we're starting to see how some of the dedicated impact investors are increasing their allocations and we're also starting to see some investors finally come off the sidelines.
They might have looked at impact investing for a while.
They never made their first investments, but now they and their investment committees are like, we have to be part of the solution.
We've got to meet the moment.
And why do you think that is?
I think that you know some of it is just the, you know, the market's matured, the data speaks for itself.
They're hearing from other investors and advisors about, hey, how this was really, you know, valuable to them and their portfolios, kind of whatever their missions or interests might be.
We're seeing more mainstream financial institutions really embrace this.
We're seeing again the bigger investors, you know, allocate hundreds of millions right to this.
So it's just an overall market. the things happening and then you have the value speech right where there are just more folks saying all right you know we can't do the traditional anymore that's been done.
We really need to do more interesting impact investments that are going to create real tangible impact in the communities or on the issues we care about.
OK, Justin, we will have to leave it there as we are approaching the market opening here at the New York Stock Exchange, but thank you so much for joining me and thank you so much for the conversation.
Thank you for having me.
My pleasure.
