EEA Live YouTube Show Sept. 3—Impact Investing—Alpha or Trade-Off?

This 30-minute show with experts in impact investing will go beyond the hype to discuss whether impact investors should expect decreased returns in favor of supporting organizations that believe shareholders are best served by addressing the interests of all stakeholders.

This Enterprise Engagement Alliance live YouTube show is for investors, portfolio managers and business leaders interested in a more concrete view of the results of impact investing. Does consideration of environmental, social, or governance (ESG) issues represent an opportunity or a trade-off?

Panelists are:

Jason Britton, a senior financial services executive, adjunct college Professor of Finance at Charleson College, and Chief Executive Officer of Charleston, SC-based Reflection Analytics Co., which provides investors with a “focused rating that scores companies across 18 ESG sub-themes and offers asset managers the ability to ensure continuous compliance.” He is also a Professor of Finance at the College of Charleston.

Brian Potts, Partner, Husch Blackwell, a corporate law firm “with a people focus”; Founder of InsightsAlign.com, an application that tracks corporate political spending by candidate and causes, and of a related company that creates ETFs (exchange-traded funds) based on political leanings and causes. (See ESM: Goods Unite Us App Exposes Where Public Corporations, Executives Put Their Political Contributions.)

At least 20 investments funds now have a human capital focus, and another 34 asset managers have incorporated workforce-related criteria into their portfolio management, according to a recent paper “Dark Accounting Matter,” a paper by Colleen Honigsburg, Associate Dean of Curriculum and Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She is also Co-Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Human Capital Investor Advisory Board.

In the paper, she explains, “Despite this growing interest in human capital, it seems unlikely that its value is fully priced into the market. For example, recent work found that an investment strategy built on firms’ human capital investments yields abnormal returns from 3.5 to 7.8%. Given the value of this ‘ESG’ information, it is no surprise that investors increasingly demand that issuers provide them with human capital disclosure.”

This session explores the frontier of impact investing with a financial services and impact investing expert and an attorney who has created the first application enabling anyone to track political contributions by public companies. Is impact investing about seeking alpha by better understanding the underlying return of what stakeholders contribute to value creation, or does it represent a trade-off to appease one’s conscience?