Позитивные изменения. Том 1, №1 (2021). Positive changes. Volume 1, Issue 1 (2021) - Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения»

Текст подготовила Мария Кригер

Social Impact and Positive Change in Russia. Opinions of Six Experts Regarding the Present and Future of the Impact Approach in Russia

Maria Krieger

Social impact investments, or impact investments, are becoming increasingly prominent in the modern world building. At the same time, the concept itself, which puts classical investment cases on a level with social initiatives, still remains a thing in itself. What means «impact»? How to assess social impact? Do we need universal metrics to evaluate it? We asked people who know about the topic of impact investments to answer these questions on the experience of their own investments or a deep expert immersion in the topic.

The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) defines "impact investment" concept as "an investment made with the intention to make a positive measurable social or environmental impact and obtain a financial return." In practice today there is no common understanding of impact investment term. It allows for many interpretations. However, the venture investor Ksenia Frank, the chairman of the supervisory board of the Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation and a member of the supervisory board of the Zerno Ventures venture impact foundation essentially agrees with the GIIN statement: "These are investments in the projects that resolve and mitigate some important social problem in addition to financial gain for investors." She believes that the very fact of financial returns in this case is a prerequisite, along with a measurable social effect: "These are two components that are the must for impact investing, in comparison with any other effect, even if it is also very necessary and in demand".

IMPACT AS AN APPROACH TO LIFE

It’s not news that impact investing is near to other forms of socially responsible business development. Jioulnar Asfari, director of the SOLj Center for the Promotion of Innovation in the Society, says the same thing. According to the expert, finding place for impact investing among other investment strategies is, in fact, an attempt to separate it from ESG investments (environment-social/sustainability-governance), which began to form a little earlier. There is a steady movement that sees the difference between the first and the second in that the ESG concept, as a rule, arises within already existing business and impact projects are initially created in order to solve certain social or environmental problems.

At the same time, experts have no consentience regarding the equivalence of the two parts of the definition — «transformative» and «repayable» ones. In fact, financial dividends are not a fundamental point for the majority: the main thing is that investments work for a stable social effect. Zero return on social bonds is permissible, says Elena Feoktistova, Deputy Chairman, Managing Director for Corporate Responsibility, Sustainable Development and Social Entrepreneurship of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. "An investor can invest money as a social investments — in fact, as a grant, supporting social entrepreneurs, and that money, even if it doesn’t generate income, can be seen as an impact investment because it helps to solve specific problems," she said.

Jioulnar Asfari

MY FAVORITE IMPACT CASE

Ksenia Frank: Olga Barabanova and KINESIS. While still working as a volunteer, Olga finds out that wheelchairs for children are very heavy and do not provide sufficient mobility and are not individualized. Having set up the production of children's bicycles (Lisoped), Olga realized that the technology of making wheelchairs is not very much different from bicycles. Today Olga is producing light active wheelchairs in Moscow (the company is included in the register of social entrepreneurs): Kinesis is the first in Russia (and so far the only one) that makes personalized wheelchairs for children from 2 years old, adults and for Paralympians.

"A person who has created a successful business understands how to get what he wants with the help of investments. In business, this desire is measured in money. In impact investments — in social changes," Ekaterina Rybakova, President and co-founder of the Rybakov Foundation, supports the idea.

Summarizing, we can say: the definition scope can be wide — would be it useful. Thus, the founder of the Seven Suns Development Group of Companies, entrepreneur and social investor Alexey Ryzhkov believes that impact investing in principle should be understood as the activities of any companies that are somehow related to the positive impact arising. "I see ‘impact’ as a format that sooner or later everyone has to transit to," he says. Perhaps, different versions of the definition will again converge into a single picture at this ‘transition point’. "Impact Managing is the ability to see these aspects all as a whole. And there is an art to do it and now I see it more in terms of governments, that is, building a system of governance," Jioulnar Asfari says.

HOW THE IMPACT CAN BE MEASURED?

In fact, all market participants, which concerned the topic development, agree on one thing: investments should ‘work’, producing a clear and, if possible, measurable positive impact. It is still the second question — whether it will be possible to return funds invested and even more so to make a profit. The main thing is to achieve a measurable social effect… and be able to evaluate it.

"We decided for ourselves that since we want positive changes, they should affect the quality of people’s lives. And we will rely on feedback, on how people themselves evaluate these changes. Tens of thousands of people participate in our activities. We interview them. And we evaluate our impacts by the way they evaluate the impact of our programs, our projects on their lives," Ekaterina Rybakova says.

Venture investor Ksenia Frank is also confident