57: Impact The Right Way: No Green Washing

Guest bio

Marie Puaux is Head of Impact Management at Bamboo Capital Partners. She is passionate about social innovation and helping organizations improve their impact. 

Prior to joining Bamboo, she worked in Corporate Social Responsibility within two multinational companies in France and in the U.S. She also worked in Sustainability Consulting, supporting companies in the design of strategies and projects related to social & environmental sustainability, and in Microfinance with an international NGO in France and an MFI in India.

Marie holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from ESSEC Business School, where she majored in Social Entrepreneurship. Her major thesis focused on companies’ ‘Base of the Pyramid’ strategies and their impact on informal economy in low- and middle-income countries. 

Bamboo Capital

Bamboo Capital Partners is an impact investing platform which provides innovative financing solutions to businesses in emerging markets serving the needs of low- and middle income populations, thus catalysing lasting impact. 

We bridge the gap between seed and growth stage funding through a full suite of finance options – from debt to equity – which we activate unilaterally or through strategic partnerships. Bamboo is a partner of Palladium, a global impact firm with operations in 90 countries.

Key Points 

• Investing in best in class impact and more than just from an ESG standpoint.
• Two components when assessing investmentee in funds 
  • Delivers positive impact
  • Prevents negative impact
• Investment focus
  • Financial inclusion
  • Access to clean energy
  • Affordable health care to low income population
  • Care SheTrades Fund for women empowerment
  • ABC Fund for small holder farmers in Africa - Agribusiness Fund as part of International Fund for Agricultural Development
  • Investments of 250k to 3-4 million
• The balance of investments that are high impact but do not to burden investee company on reporting
• Key to managing impact measure - Define impact metrics and defining lists of indicators, have conversations with investee at the start of investment, capturing operational data, eg. having a methodology to estimate CO2 avoided. Measuring impact to end beneficiary using deep dive impact studies and questionnaires
• Advice on designing impact funds - 
  • Define the impact ambition and impact thesis
  • Key barrier is that for investors there is a need for high liquidity, making ticket size smaller. E.g. having flexible note issuance programs
  • Develop blended finance mechanism to derisk private sector investment with faster range of public and philanthropic nature investments

Timestamps
[4:26] What is sustainable and impact investing to you?

[5:50] ESG approach vs impact investing

[9:24] Bamboo Capital and partnership with Palladium Global Impact

[11:30] History of Bamboo Capital and investment thesis

[14:11] Focus on emerging and frontier markets with strong on financial inclusion 

[16:10 ] New Impact Assists, partnering with Care and International Trade Center

[24:00] Marie Puaux’s role at Bamboo Capital

[25:43] Working with UN CDF teams on impact measure and reporting

[26:43] Working with NGOs for technical assistance

[28:57] Investment Management Framework

[29:43] Capturing data for measuring impact from company and end beneficiaries

[34:26] Impact Management Framework

[36:25] Aligning impact breakdown to SDGs

[37:54] How does Bamboo puts it all together

[41:00] First step to move into sustainable impact investing as investors

[44:08] Investing during the Covid times and the impact to SMEs during Covid

[47:10] Ambitious vision and target of Bamboo Capital 

[48:36] What is green washing and impact investing 

[53:10] Net Impact. Have you been missold impact investing?

[54:35] How did Marie Puaux ended up having a career in impact investing? 

[56:20] What makes an impact leader?

[57:20] Call-to-action for the impact industry

Useful links
Marie Puaux’s Linkedin  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariepuaux/

Bamboo Capital https://bamboocp.com/

Bamboo Capital Impact Report https://bamboocp.com/impact/

Bamboo ESG Risk Managament https://bamboocp.com/esg-risk-management/

Listen to Bamboo Capital Impact Leaders podcast episode with Florian Kemmerich https://audioboom.com/posts/7641232-florian-kemmerich-of-bamboo-capital-partners-leveraging-capital-as-a-force-for-good

John Phillippe de Scherevel https://bamboocp.com/team_members/jean-philippe-de-schrevel/

Blue Orchard https://www.blueorchard.com/

Care SheTrades Impact Fund https://www.intracen.org/news/The-International-Trade-Centre-CARE-Enterprises-and-Bamboo-Capital-Partners-join-forces-to-boost-gender-justice-with-the-CARE-SheTrades-Impact-Fund/

ABC Fund http://agri-business-capital.com/about.html

AgriTerra.org https://www.agriterra.org/

UN CDF https://www.uncdf.org/

IRIS Plus impact metrics https://iris.thegiin.org/

Gogla Grid Energy Association https://www.gogla.org/

IMP Framework https://impactmanagementproject.com/

IFC https://www.impactprinciples.org/

Palladium Group  https://thepalladiumgroup.com/about 

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