Legal and business insights for impact-driven changemakers
May 28, 2019 - Funding - Financing, Resources

Impact Links: Generation IM closes $1B fund; Nasdaq launches ESG guide; Catalyst Opportunity Zone Fund; Vanguard’s newest ESG fund; S&P 500 ESG Index

  • Generation Investment Management announced a newly closed $1 billion Sustainable Solutions Fund for growth investments. The fund will focus on investments in growth-stage businesses in three areas: 1) planetary health; 2) people health; and 3) financial inclusion.
  • Nasdaq launched a new voluntary global environmental, social and governance reporting guide for public and private companies, which includes the latest third-party reporting methodologies widely adopted by the industry and aims to help companies navigate the evolving standards on ESG data disclosure.
  • Robert Eccles, a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, recently appeared on the Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast podcast to discuss why it’s time to finally worry about ESG.
  • Catalyst, a double-bottom-line private equity firm co-founded by Jim Sorenson, announced the launch of their inaugural real estate Opportunity Zone fund, which aims to raise $150 million to invest in high-potential but historically overlooked small and mid-market U.S. Opportunity Zone communities.
  • Vanguard launched its first actively managed ESG fund, the Global ESG Select Stock Fund, which will begin trading in early June.
  • The S&P Dow Jones Indices recently launched the S&P 500 ESG Index, which takes the benchmark 500 index and excludes companies that fail to meet certain ESG criteria.