Ecosa Capital

When leading firms in many sectors can quantitatively demonstrate their environmental strategies have made significant contributions to their operating margins and net profits, they will be rewarded by the financial markets, and pressure will build for environmental laggards to improve. A report by the Environmental Capital Markets Committee, an ad hoc committee of the U.S. National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology, formed to examine the nature of the relationship between a firm’s environmental performance and its financial performance.

A report from the UK Environment Agency based on an extensive literature review and 15 case studies.  Its conclusion is clear: good environmental governance can benefit financial performance and, conversely, poor environmental perfomance can have damaging financial consequences.

Prepared by Community Wealth Ventures this paper provides a good overview of capital markets and a framework for understanding social enterprise investment -- examining the similarities and differences with the traditional for-profit capital markets, outlining the criteria used to evaluate a social enterprise investment, detailing a range of potential investment instruments, examining the stages of venture development, and categorizing the various types of social enterprise investors.