30 November, 2021
Investment as a key lever for the transition: we present our 2020 Impact Investment Report
The development of an impact investment policy, a greater commitment to socially responsible investment or the alignment of our portfolio with the transition to low carbon emissions are some of the measures we have been working on for six years to accelerate the transformation towards a greener, more inclusive and fulfilling society. In the face of the worsening climate crisis and the growing need to foster new business models, we are committed to enriching our philanthropic mission of patronage with an ambitious investment policy, in line with our values and objectives. In our second Impact Investment Report, we deepened our commitment through testimonials and concrete examples. In addition, next Thursday, December 2, we will be sharing our experience in a webinar organized together with the Coalition Française des Fondations pour le Climat.
In this second Impact Investment Report, we invite you to take us on a journey through a year of actions in Spain and France. We hope that you will find elements for reflection and, why not, inspiring proposals so that investment becomes a way of acting at the service of the increasingly common impact in our sector.
Impact Investing Report 2020 – Investing for a Green and Inclusive Transformation
Investments and patronage at the service of the transition
In a context of unprecedented crisis, 2020 has highlighted the relevance of our decisions in terms of patronage and investment, decisions that we try to make consistent with the deployment of our philanthropic mission at the service of an ecological and inclusive transformation.
From 2015 onwards, we decided to align our investment portfolio with our convictions and vision, while still taking profitability into account.
“The Foundation’s decisions to sign the DivestInvest initiative, establish social responsibility as a minimum condition for investments in its portfolio, and set the target of 15% impact investing have demonstrated its resilience, with a return of +4.18% in 2020 and +4.75% annual average since the Foundation began to develop its investment portfolio.”
Our commitments to the environment
In perfect coordination with the Foundation’s Financial Committee, the Impact Investment Committee has actively worked on the analysis of opportunities related to the Foundation’s two lines, Sustainable Food and Citizen Art, as well as addressing the new challenge of the ecological transition to fight against climate change and its effects.
“The challenge in the coming years is to maintain this effort and to seek investment opportunities in line with the new European taxonomy, as well as to improve the performance of the climate segment in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.”
Jacques Nahmias, Chairman of the Finance Committee
Beyond the investments made in the sustainable food sector, the Foundation’s entire financial portfolio respects the exclusion criteria established in its Investment Code, in particular through its commitment to the DivestInvest initiative.
This movement, which was born a decade ago on American university campuses, has now become a global network made up of more than 58,000 individuals and 1,485 companies that have decided not to invest (or stop investing) in fossil fuels to invest in investments related to climate-responsible solutions, representing a total of $39.2 million in assets.
Gaspard Verdier, chairman of Simandef, the firm that advises the Foundation on impact investing, talks in this report with Sarah Butler-Sloss, founder of the Ashden Trust in Great Britain, who has taken up the baton of this movement in Europe.
“The more of us there are, the further our message will go. I also believe that collaborations and interactions between NGOs, organizations and institutions will continue to be a critical success factor for the DivestInvest movement in the future. “
Sarah Butler-Sloss, Founder of Ashden Trust
The Foundation supports climate solutions through an ambitious impact investing policy: decarbonised energy, energy efficiency, soil regeneration, circular economy, etc. “Although there is no regulation that requires this to be applied to the Foundation, we have strengthened our work on publishing extra-financial reports in order to measure the environmental impact of the investment portfolio”, says Rafael Reytier, Amadeis consultant, advisor to the Foundation’s Financial Committee. “In addition, we are in full dialogue with suppliers to promote the Foundation’s positioning beyond environmental commitments.”
Closer to innovation
This new report highlights some of the milestones achieved to further refine our impact investment strategy, bringing us closer to the actors of the transition, both in Spain and in France, something that led us to create a Sourcing Committee especially dedicated to these issues.
Throughout this year marked by an unprecedented crisis, we have also wanted to support the actors of the social and solidarity economy through France Active and our Sustainable Food Systems fund, created in collaboration with Quadia and aimed at the most daring companies in the agri-food value chain, whose actions and testimonies are included in the report.
“Despite the covid crisis, investment activity has been maintained, and support has been provided to three new companies, thus consolidating a very resilient portfolio in general terms that has even managed to accelerate its growth in certain segments. With logistics chains cut and borders closed, supporting local and regional actors has been more important than ever.”
Aymeric Jung, Managing Partner Quadia
“Thanks to this support, we have been able to lay solid foundations that have allowed us to accelerate the change of scale initiated this year through a social franchise, in addition to multiplying our impact in the areas of zero waste and responsible food.”
Salomé and Pierre Géraud, founders LE DRIVE TOUT NU
“The Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation is more than a necessary funder, it is a strategic partner that helps us to boost our activity and achieve the ambitious objectives we have set ourselves.”
Tomás Fuentes, co-founder and cooperative member of La Osa
“In addition to sharing a common vision and values with the Foundation’s teams, real synergies are being generated: transmission of knowledge in the field of sustainable food, project financing, project sourcing and collaborators. The best is yet to come.” “
Florian Breton, CEO of MiiMosa
And finally, we cannot fail to mention one of the great achievements of this year 2020, a forward-thinking project that we are particularly excited about: the creation of a collaborative space dedicated to philanthropy and the social and solidarity economy: Casa Carasso (provisional name) in Madrid. “This space does not aim to reproduce any existing model, but to invent new alternatives that respond to the challenges of our society through art, food and philanthropy,” explains Isabelle Le Galo Flores, director for Spain. “This house will be open to those organizations that develop activities of social impact. We want this to be a shared space, in which we can grow together and move towards a systemic transformation. A place conducive to unusual connections, an environment that facilitates the change of scale.”
The Foundation has acquired a building that will be refurbished and is located in the Delicias neighbourhood, in the centre of Madrid. The project, whose value amounts to 12 million euros, has been completely eco-designed and is expected to house gardens, an auditorium, coworking spaces and residencies for artists and researchers in the near future.
A meeting to share experiences
How can your investments contribute to the fight against climate change? What are the proposed solutions? How can you align investments with the patronage policy? We want to continue to feed this debate in a webinar that we will share with the Coalition Française des Fondations pour le Climat on Thursday, December 2. We invite you to attend together with our collaborators from Famae, the Fondation de France and Road2impact.
Registration in: https://forms.office.com/r/WCwuy05FTN
Impact Investment Report 2020
30 Nov. 2021
