The average house paint is linked to cancer, asthma and Sick Building Syndrome — not to mention multiple environmental issues. So why do people keep using it?
“They have no idea what’s in it,” says Michael Aiken. “At the end of the day, if it doesn’t smell too terrible, they think it’s probably OK.”
Aiken’s start-up, Romabio, has created an alternative to acrylics that don’t stir up health risks or additional problems for the planet. Its mineral paints and plasters are free of toxins. They’re odorless and mold-resistant. They’re even made from natural raw materials.
“When you hear something’s made with a synthetic chemical, you have to believe there’s a better solution in nature,” Aiken says.
He didn’t grow up planning to revolutionize the paint world. As an undergrad at Randolph-Macon College, Aiken loved science but “just did OK” in chemistry. Medical school didn’t pan out. “Since I’m a pretty big talker, people kept saying, ‘You should go into sales,’” Aiken recalls. He found his entrepreneurial spirit a good fit for the commercial real estate and finance industries.
Flash ahead to 2009. Married with three kids, Aiken was preparing to paint his Decatur, Georgia, house. A friend told him about an unusual, all-natural paint. It wasn’t sold at a big-box store but only available in a 1,000-square-foot shop tucked behind an architect’s office. Curious, Michael checked it out.
The store wasn’t impressive — there were only a few racks and a tint machine. But Aiken’s conversation with the owner, Chris Lewis, was. The two men talked acrylic paint and its devastating effect on the environment. Lewis explained how the nontoxic, solvent-free paint he sold had been created by an Italian chemist, Patrizio Betti, based on ancient methods that date back to the Etruscans.
Aiken left with enough natural paint to cover the interior of his home — and a gut instinct that more people needed to know about it.
He and Lewis went into business together. Over the next few years, they kept encouraging Betti to create more durable and even cleaner paint formulations. Then Aiken used his business acumen to introduce their products to the building trade.
This year, Romabio supplied interior paint for one of Google’s recent developments in Sunnyvale, California, and a skyscraper in Beijing. Cans of its products are sold in home-improvement stores across Europe, as well as Benjamin Moore dealers and Home Depots throughout the U.S.
In the meantime, Aiken’s mission is to go even greener. Romabio has plans to ship its products in biodegradable plastic buckets. Leftover paint may no longer need to be treated like hazardous waste but will instead biodegrade through a new technology the company has been working on for the past year.
Aiken is, after all, a big picture guy. The best part of his job? Being part of a venture that “drives humanity forward,” he says.
Tag: sustainability
Creating Food Out of Thin Air
Lisa Dyson is on a journey to revolutionize the way protein is made. “We have a lot of work to do,” she says.
By 2050, the world’s population is estimated to hit 10 billion. Food production will need to increase by 70 percent. Traditional farming won’t be able to keep up.
Dyson knows the answer. It’s literally all around us: carbon dioxide.
An odorless, colorless gas, CO2 is used to carbonate drinks, make dry ice and helps smother flames when put in fire extinguishers. It’s also a byproduct of burning fossil fuels — and a known culprit of climate change.
Producing food from thin air? Sounds too good to be true. That is, until you consider that Dyson holds three degrees in physics, including a Ph.D. from M.I.T., where she studied string theory. “My dream growing up was to become a scientist,” she says.
Several years ago, Dyson and a colleague, John Reed, began searching for technical solutions for climate change. They stumbled across NASA reports written in the 1960s and ’70s that discussed using powerful microbes to recycle carbon dioxide aboard spacecraft.
“We were fascinated by their research,” Dyson recalls. “We wondered if we could develop a similar technology that would enable us to recycle carbon dioxide into valuable products here on Earth.”
The answer is yes. Today, Dyson and Reed’s startup, Kiverdi, uses those microbes to transform carbon into bio-based products. The magic happens in special bio-reactors, similar to the giant urns used to brew beer.
This year, they’re commercializing a new process to transform CO2 into protein powder. The end product, called Planet+Protein, is packed with essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and contains over 50 percent more protein than many other non-animal-based proteins, like soy-based foods.
“Think of it like the flour you have in your kitchen,” says Dyson. “It can be mixed with other ingredients to make flavorful foods.” Burgers, pastas, smoothies … the possibilities are endless.
Not surprisingly, Planet+Protein has “an amazingly low environmental footprint,” Dyson says. “To produce it uses significantly less land and less water than most other proteins.”
By the time Planet+Protein is for sale at your local supermarket, Dyson’s hope is that it will be one of the most sustainable protein options up for grabs — but not the only one.
“A change is necessary and inevitable, given the increasing demand for protein and our continuously growing population,” she says. In the future, Dyson predicts we’ll see numerous products on store shelves that follow the same conscientious credo: an earth-friendly process that inevitably helps reduce greenhouse gases.
You don’t have to be a scientist to help stop climate change, Dyson adds. “If you have your own idea that you believe will have an impact, then jump in with both feet. You’ll discover there are so many people willing to help you.”
A New Answer to the ‘Paper or Plastic’ Question
“You can’t just throw it into the trash!”
Eight years ago, that’s how Daphna Nissenbaum’s arguments with her teenage son began. He’d finish a water bottle, then absentmindedly toss it into the garbage. The scoldings she gave him for not recycling made the Israeli mother of five think about what else was being thrown away.
“I realized plastic bottles weren’t the main issue,” Nissenbaum says.
After all, they could be recycled, when people remembered to do so. But what about all the flexible packaging — chip bags, candy wrappers and go-to containers — Nissenbaum also saw crammed into the trash?
She did some research. What she found shocked her: Most flexible packaging isn’t recycled and ends up in landfills, oceans or other places.
Unless an alternative could be found, “our children will find themselves facing mountains of plastic,” says Nissenbaum. She thought of an orange peel or apple. Once discarded, it disintegrates biologically and turns to compost. Why couldn’t packaging be engineered to do the same?
Most people would consider that a rhetorical question. Nissenbaum made it a personal challenge.
Before earning an M.B.A. in marketing and entrepreneurship, Nissenbaum graduated from the Israeli Army’s elite software engineering program. “Part of our education was thinking out of the box,” she explains. “We were trained to create something from nothing.”
In the basement of her home, Daphna began the Tipa Corporation. Funds raised from friends and family allowed her to hire bioplastic experts. Their job: to source flexible packaging materials that are biodegradable.
Nothing existed. Instead, Tipa had to develop its own. What it came up with looks like plastic. It acts like plastic. Yet when composted, the material naturally breaks down in 180 days or less.
“Plastic that turns into compost,” says Nissenbaum. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
Yet her extensive business and management background said that wasn’t enough to be successful. “If we want the mass market to cooperate and adopt compostable solutions, we have to make it easy to do,” she says.
For instance, Nissenbaum’s team engineered their patented bioplastic to meet manufacturers’ requirements and to adapt to production practices already in place. That way, there’s no need for companies to invest in new equipment.
Today, Tipa makes zippered bags, stand-up pouches and packaging for coffee, snacks and produce. Clients range from a London-based fruit-jerky company to fashion designer Stella McCartney, who’s replacing all her plastic packaging with Tipa products and recruited the company to make invitations for her 2018 runway show in Paris. Individual products like compostable sandwich bags and biodegradable garbage bags are also sold online through eco-conscious retailers like Reuseit.com.
No longer headquartered in Nissenbaum’s basement, Tipa’s 25 employees have offices in the U.S., U.K. and Israel.
Coming up with a solution to landfill waste that the world will want to adopt has been a challenge, Nissenbaum admits, but she believes compostable plastics are the answer. So do her kids. Nissenbaum has even visited their schools to share Tipa’s mission. “They’re very proud,” she says.
Fashioning Clothing in a Circular Economy
Through give-back programs, The Renewal Workshop partners with brands to source returned, damaged, defective, out-of-season or post-consumer clothing. In its own facility, these garments are cleaned, sorted and repaired — giving them new life and creating the new product category “Renewed Apparel.”
The Renewal Workshop sells all renewed apparel back to partner retailers or other merchandisers.
Laying the Ground Work for Street Solar
After seeing former Vice President Al Gore’s climate change documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” in 2006, Scott and Julie Brusaw wanted to do their part to help the planet. Yet they hesitated at the idea of getting solar panels.
“I pictured them on our roof and knew I wouldn’t like the look of them,” admits Julie.
Plus, the solar panels would have to be taken down anytime the roof needed to be repaired. And they’d be a pain to clean. Julie wasn’t about to climb onto the roof. She worried that Scott would fall and hurt himself if he did.
They also worried the panels would be hampered by weather troubles. The couple lives in Idaho. Every winter, wouldn’t the panels get buried under snow?
Glancing down their long driveway one day, Julie mused, “Couldn’t solar panels be on driveways and roads instead of roofs?”
“Scott laughed and said they’d be crushed, so I let the idea go,” she recalls.
But Scott couldn’t. As a kid, he’d loved playing with slot cars. Maybe the idea of electric roadways could work in real life?
A week later, the electrical engineer was thinking about how to design a protective case that could protect solar panels from the weight of cars and trucks.
“I come up with dreams, ideas, concepts and designs,” says Julie, a former counselor retired from private practice. “Scott makes them tangible and real.”
Neither of them had built a tech company from the ground up. People cautioned that their idea would never get off the ground, but Julie and Scott had a feeling they were onto something.
In 2009, their start-up company, Solar Roadways, won a contract from the U.S. Department of Transportation. A 12-foot-by-12-foot prototype was created. Next came a 108-panel parking lot on Julie and Scott’s property and a 30-panel pilot project — a pedestrian plaza — in Sandpoint, Idaho. (Another is slated for Baltimore’s Inner Harbor this spring and will be open to the public.) Civil engineering labs continue to test samples for traction, load stress and impact resistance.
The idea has come a lot farther than Julie’s initial brainstorm of solar panels on roads. “Our panels have solar cells for energy collection, heating elements to prevent snow and ice accumulation and LEDs to illuminate roads lines and provide graphics,” says Scott. They have the potential to charge in-transit electric vehicles, welcome energy from other renewable sources into the nation’s power grid and create an “intelligent road” that can actually steer, accelerate and brake autonomous vehicles.
“Imagine getting into your car and telling it to take you to the store,” says Julie. “You could take a nap while the road guides your vehicle to the store, finds a parking spot, and wakes you up.”
So far, Solar Roadways has interest from all 50 states and virtually every country in the world. Eventually, Julie and Scott hope to have manufacturing facilities throughout the globe as well.
They want to sell panels not only for roads and driveways, but for patios, bike paths, playgrounds, sidewalks, pool decks and parking lots.
The possibilities of the panels are only limited by the imagination: Flexible parking lot lines could shrink to fit motorcycles or widen to fit RVs. Handicapped spots could be created dynamically instead of dedicated by the use of paint. LED lights could illuminate lots for nighttime safety.
And imagine airport runways built with solar panels — Scott and Julie have. “We don’t know if actual runways are possible,” acknowledges Scott, “but we expect that by keeping surfaces snow and ice-free and eliminating most of the plowing needs for airports, Solar Roadways could greatly reduce flight delays due to snowy, icy conditions.”
Scott estimates there are nearly 33,000 miles of impervious surfaces in the U.S. Transform them into solar facades, and they could generate three times the electricity the nation needs. Greenhouses gases could be slashed by 75 percent.
“We honestly believe Solar Roadways is the most viable plan to help halt climate change before it’s too late,” says Julie. “We want to make this world a safer and greener place.”
Saving the Earth By Dying
Situated just south of San Francisco, the small town of Colma, Calif., has become famous, or perhaps infamous, for its motto: “It’s Great to Be Alive in Colma.” Which is ironic, given that the town’s population of dead people far outnumbers its living residents by nearly 1,000 to one.
Among the living is Joe Stinson, 72, a funeral director and owner of Colma Cremation and Funeral Services. Over the course of his decades-long career caring for the dead, he’s seen a lot of changes the industry. The latest? A growing movement toward eco-friendly burials.
“Green burials are changing how we, as a society, look at burying our dead,” says Stinson, who believes that just as our own deaths are imminent, so too is the widespread adoption of environmentally friendly deathcare options.
In the past few years, a wave of eco-friendly startups have focused on how humans can continue to be good stewards of the earth even in our afterlife. At its core, a green, or natural, burial minimizes environmental impact by reducing carbon emissions and making sure no harmful substances leach into the ground. This can include biodegradable caskets, like those made from handwoven willow or seagrass, or simple cotton shrouds. And the use of the toxin formaldehyde to preserve a corpse is a definite no-no. After an unpreserved body is lowered into the ground, it eventually decomposes, mixing and nourishing the earth around it.
According to the Green Burial Council, which provides eco-certifications for burial practitioners and products, the number of GBC-approved providers in North America has grown from one in 2006 to more than 300 today. (To be sure, that number is certainly higher, as deathcare providers don’t have to be GBC-certified to offer green and eco-friendly options.)
The arguments for a more environmentally conscious burial are mounting, literally, as the concrete, steel and wood we bury along with our dead piles up. (According to one estimate, there’s 115 million tons of casket steel underground in North America, or enough to build almost all the high rises in Tokyo.) What’s more, the formaldehyde used in embalming is a known carcinogenic, putting funeral directors at a higher risk for cancer. Then there’s the pollutants — from embalming fluid to the toxic chemicals used in casket varnishes and sealants — that can seep into the groundwater. As for cremation, that takes an environmental toll too, as the burning of fossil fuels emits harmful carbon dioxide into the air.
“This, by no means, should be at the top of our environmental priority list, but it is something that can be easily dealt with,” says Phil Olson, associate professor at Virginia Tech who specializes in death studies. “What we need to be worried about is the crap we put in the ground with the body. We need to talk about the environmental impact of forestry and all the energy it takes to manufacture the metals in coffins.”
Most green deathcare providers are hybrid operations, offering both conventional and natural burial options, but there are a few in the U.S. that specialize solely in green funerals and burials. One such operation is Fernwood Cemetery, located in Marin County, Calif., about an hour’s drive north of Stinson’s funeral home in Colma. On any given day at the bucolic cemetery, which sits above the rolling hills above Sausalito, you’ll find people walking their dogs, riding bikes or just lounging about. The only clue that it’s a burial ground is the occasional boulder engraved with someone’s name.
“We had some people coming through who were lost and asked what park we were in,” jokes Cindy Barath, the funeral director for Fernwood.
As for costs, well, that depends on where you live — or, rather, where you die.
Anyone in the cemetery business will say that death is like buying a house; it’s all about location. And in cities such as San Francisco, where there is more space devoted to housing and mixed-use buildings, creating an affordable option for a green burial is still a ways off. Fernwood, for example, charges between $10,000 to $15,000 for a full funeral, with a large chunk of that money going toward buying a plot of land. Compare that to the national average for a traditional funeral and burial, which is about $8,500.
Still, the costs for a green burial can be significantly less than a traditional internment, since you’re not paying for body preservation, an expensive casket made of steel or exotic wood, or a concrete grave vault. And some in the green-burial movement are working toward a model where a separate plot for each grave isn’t even necessary.
In Seattle, Recompose — formerly known as the Urban Death Project — is designing a three-story human-compost facility that turns dead bodies into reusable soil. The ambitious project, started in 2014, is still years from completion. If it succeeds, though, the company plans to replicate the model all over the world.
“Things in this industry happen slowly,” says Olson, referring to the snail’s pace of getting conventional cemeteries onboard with green burials.
In this regard, both Olson and Stinson point to cremation, which was introduced in the U.S. in the late 19th century. But it wasn’t until almost a hundred years later that cremations became more popular than burials.
Stinson, for one, is ready for the sea change he believes will eventually sweep the entire industry. Noticing the uptick in people requesting greener options, he’s begun offering more eco-friendly options, such as caskets made of seagrass and biodegradable urns.
For years, Stinson says, burials have always been fairly black and white: Either you’re cremated, or you’re put into the ground.
Looks like now we’re finally seeing shades of green.
Bringing the Good Stuff
Hannah Dehradunwala moved with her family from New Jersey to Pakistan when she was 11. “Almost nothing here goes to waste,” she thought.
At her grandmother’s house in Karachi, every item had an alternate purpose. Furniture, electronics and clothes were re-used or given away. Throwing out prepared food was unheard of, says Dehradunwala, now 24. “It wasn’t difficult to find someone who wanted your extra.”
When Dehradunwala moved back to the U.S. to attend New York University, she took that mentality with her. Seeing homeless people eating from trash cans shocked her. Compared to what she’d seen in Pakistan, throwing away excess edible food seemed “an insult to people who can’t afford to eat,” she says.
In 2013, Samir Goel, a classmate, asked Dehradunwala to help pitch a business idea for a school competition. Almost immediately, she thought of her time in Pakistan and knew the question she wanted to answer: How could people with extra food share with others who needed it?
“I thought, ‘What if I could pick it up for you? What if I could take it to a shelter for you? Would that incentivize you not to throw it away?’ Hunger isn’t a food problem, it’s a logistics problem,” says Dehradunwala, “and logistics can be solved for.”
Dehradunwala solved for the logistics issue by creating Transfernation (think Uber for food.) She and Goel didn’t win the contest, but kept pitching the idea at different competitions. A year later, they finally won their first round of funding from the Resolution Project (disclosure: The Resolution Project is a paid partner of NationSwell).
From there, Dehradunwala and Goel created an app that allows corporate cafeterias and caterers to schedule a pickup of leftover, unused food. Within an hour, a driver transfers the leftover food (Wagyu beef steak! Wedding cake!) to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen.
“The same food a corporate executive was eating less than an hour earlier is now being eaten by someone from a drastically different walk of life,” Dehradunwala says. “When the food reaches the shelter, it’s usually still hot.”
Transfernation first relied on volunteers. Now, they’re a fee-based service. Clients pay a small monthly or one-time cost per pickup. That’s used to compensate delivery people, who aren’t always behind the wheel of a car. They ride bikes. Sometimes, they walk.
“We’re looking to change the way that people view acts of ‘charity’ and attempting to create a model that benefits the people doing the actual transporting of the food instead of relying solely on their goodwill,” says Dehradunwala. “Volunteering is a privilege that many people can’t afford to partake in. With our model, the pickup becomes more than just an opportunity to do good, it becomes an opportunity for part-time employment.”
And yet, “it costs us under 20 cents to redistribute a pound of food and less than 25 cents to make a meal,” says Dehradunwala.
Since October 2016, Transfernation’s rescued over 210,000 pounds of food. It serves nine shelters in the NYC area, and its donations fill the bellies of 4,000 people each week. Three of these food programs rely completely on Transfernation’s deliveries.
While dropping off food at a shelter on a recent day, a woman waiting for the doors to open recognized Dehradunwala – and the Transfernation bounty in her arms. “You’re the people who bring the good stuff!” she exclaimed.
“It’s one of my favorite moments,” Dehradunwala admits.
The entrepreneur (who only graduated college in 2016) will have many more moments to come. Next up: Expanding Transfernation to communities outside the New York City area. “The way people view their extra food,” says Dehradunwala, “is changing.”
The Creator of Forest Guardians
Topher White used to work as a software engineer at a power plant. “A nerd on a computer,” he jokes. And now? “I’m still a nerd on a computer,” he says, “but I’m up in a tree.”
White, 35, is the founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Rainforest Connection (RFCx) that transforms old smartphones into tools that fight illegal deforestation in real-time. Thanks to the organization, 110,000 hectares of rainforest — the size of more than 200,000 soccer fields — are being protected.
The idea came to White in 2011. As a volunteer at an ape sanctuary on the island of Borneo, he watched rangers spend the brunt of their time chasing away illegal loggers.
It made White think about the implications of worldwide deforestation. According to the U.N., up to 90 percent of logging in tropical rainforests is unlawful. Disappearing forests are a leading cause of climate change. Their vanishing act puts thousands of animal species in jeopardy, not to mention indigenous people who rely on them for their livelihood.
When a problem is so large, how can you stop it?
Enter: Rainforest Connection.
White’s solution starts with recycled smartphones. (“Even in a remote forest, you can often find good cell service, especially on the periphery, which are the areas most under threat,” he says.) Sound detection software is installed on the devices. Then, they’re hidden high up in trees, where they become “forest guardians,” able to detect a chainsaw or truck engine up to two-thirds of a mile away. A text, e-mail or mobile push alert pings rangers on the ground, who can quickly intervene.
To keep the phones running, White wanted to use solar power. The question was how. Trees under the rainforest canopy don’t get bright sunlight. Traditional solar panels wouldn’t work. Instead, White designed special solar panels with unique petal-shaped arrays and circuitry to harness the power of fleeting sun flecks.
Within the first few days after Rainforest Connection’s pilot project launched on Sumatra, an island in Indonesia, the growl of a chainsaw was detected. Just as planned, rangers came to the rescue.
In the years since, Rainforest Connection has branched out across the globe. White now spends up to nine months each year in the rainforests of Ecuador, Peru, Cameroon and Brazil. He’s gotten used to checking devices while 200 feet up in a tree — and for an occasional laptop to plunge to the ground. He’s not complaining.
Saving forests is only the start.
White’s forest guardians also hinder illegal animal poaching in protected spaces. The sounds they record 24/7 are an acoustic treasure trove of data. Every monkey howl and parrot call can help scientists track changes in some of the world’s most endangered areas.
RFCx’s free app invites the general public to listen to the sounds of a rainforest in real-time.
“I want to make nature interesting and compelling to the world,” White says. “I want people to be involved — not because they feel guilty about deforestation, but because they find nature so irresistible that they can’t look away.”
10 Outstanding Solutions of 2017
Across the country, changemakers are operating behind the scenes, working to solve some of America’s most daunting problems. They do so humbly, without seeking praise or notoriety. At NationSwell, we’ve always sought to elevate the innovation and tenacity of their efforts in the hopes of inspiring more people to action. Here, a celebration of the top work in 2017.
My Final Act of Service
Before Marine Corps veteran Anthony Egan dies, he has several lessons he wants to teach his son.
Disarmed: The Reclaiming of a City From Epic Gun Violence
In a community that’s experienced a 200 percent increase in the number of shootings in the past three years alone, ordinary residents are becoming peacekeepers.
The Rx for Better Birth Control
Colorado attempts to end the cycle of poverty by preventing unplanned pregnancy.
When Liberals and Conservatives Came Together on the Environment
Today’s politicians should look to the past for inspiration on how to achieve bipartisan legislation for the good of the planet.
From Blight to Beauty in the Motor City
It started with a dad protecting his family from drug dealers. Thirty years later, his revitalization efforts are still going strong.
3 Ways to Show Empathy When Talking About Sexual Assault
The words used when speaking about sexual assault can have an impact on what others view as acceptable.
Neo-Nazi Music Is on the Rise. These Companies and People Are Taking It On
A former white supremacist fights back against the alt-right’s use of music to spread a message of hate.
A Prison With No Walls
Can a facility that relies on strict discipline instead of barbed wire and bars result in lower recidivism rates?
6 Stunning Art Projects That Are Making Cities Healthier
Cities across the nation recognize the revitalizing powers of beautiful community art.
The School Where Only Addicts Roam the Hallways
A cohort of sober youth confronts the realities of living drug free.
Build Your Nest Egg, Support an Organic Farm
Making money and doing good aren’t mutually exclusive.
When it comes to investing, earning a significant profit is typically the No. 1 goal. For stockholders looking to do more than simply earn financial returns, impact investing can allow them to generate social and environmental impact while increasing the balance of their portfolio.
With 85 percent of Millennials stating that it’s important for their values to align to their investment decisions, impact investing is growing in popularity. A recent poll finds that more than half of Americans ages 18 to 34 plan to put money towards socially responsible and impact investments in the future but haven’t done so yet, while 24 percent already own socially responsible investments.
Here’s how to sink some cash into the companies, organizations and funds that are doing good and providing a financial return for their efforts.
1. Know your values.
Investors can make a difference in a number of different areas.
Some of the most common sectors for investing include sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, conservation, microfinance, and affordable basic services including housing, healthcare and education, according to the Global Impact Investing Network, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing around the world.
Nonprofits are also open for investment dollars. “The nonprofit sector has [previously] been excluded from impact investing where the focus is investing in for-profit social enterprises or rebranding past investments with an impact lens,” says Catarina Schwab, NationSwell Council member and co-founder and co-CEO of NPX, a company that partners with clients to pioneer new ways of financing impact. “Until recently, the financial products that enabled investment in a nonprofit organization were largely limited to loans.”
2. Understand potential returns.
Impact investments aren’t more volatile than traditional investments — but there are inherent financial risks involved. As with all portfolio holdings, diversifying is the best way to minimize your exposure.
According to GIIN, most investors pursue competitive market-rate returns, although some intentionally invest in causes that align with their values but will likely deliver returns below market rate.
Impact investors also have access to another type of return not available with traditional holdings: the social performance and progress of their investments. Values-based investments measure these in several ways, including the setting of performance metrics and targets, monitoring and managing the performance of investees against those targets and reporting on the social and environmental accomplishments that stakeholders establish as relevant to their goals.
3. Choose your investments
In the U.S., responsible investing assets have more than doubled to 8.72 trillion from 2012 to 2016, reports the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.
Because of this, investment options are plentiful.
You can opt to invest in a socially responsible mutual fund or an ETF sold by an investment firm, such as Fidelity, Vanguard or Merrill Lynch. Or you could purchase individual stock in, say, a sustainable farm or a wind power project. The app Stash allows investors to choose from more than 30 ETFs to create a portfolio that reflects their beliefs.
Tools like NPX’s Impact Security, as well as Social and Development Impact Bonds, provide new ways to invest in nonprofit organizations.
Impact investments can also be made through specific companies that specialize in socially responsible investing. One such organization, Wunder Capital, connects individuals, institutional and corporate investors with commercial scale solar energy projects across the U.S. To date, it’s completed more than 120 financings in 18 states.
“In most cases, the businesses who are transitioning to solar have in the past exclusively bought their energy from the local utility,” said Ilyas Frenkel, director of growth for Wunder Capital. “The local utility in most cases burns fossil fuels — natural gas or coal — to create that power. When a business is able to add solar to their energy mix, they’re reducing their reliance upon fossil fuels.”
For investors, this means their money is helping small businesses transition off fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all while making up to 7.5 percent annually on their investment.
If you’re not sure where to start, check out GIIN’s ImpactBase. Potential impact investors can use the searchable, online database to learn more about the businesses and organizations working to create a better future.