Responsible Investing hits the Mainstream in Australia

It’s exciting times at World’s Biggest Garage Sale as we progress on our journey to secure Seed Investment for our triple bottom line company. Seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments.

London Tech Week was amazing and I was really encouraged to see how mature the impact investing market is and how terms like profit for purpose, impact investing and the sustainable development goals are just a normal part of their investment vernacular. Britain has recently launched the Impact Investing Institute with a vision “that more people’s lives improve, as more people choose to use their savings and investments to help solve social challenges, as well as seeking a financial return.”

As Nigel Kershaw, chairman of the Big Issue Group and a member of the NAB and the task force, said “You can invest in things that create social value which [are] not about charity,”.(1) Investors there now look vigorously at businesses through an impact and sustainable development goals lens, with healthy and robust seed investment in impact businesses.

So, as a triple bottom line company, we were really encouraged to see the recent report by the Responsible Investment Association Australia (RIAA) that highlighted that there had been a rise of 13 per cent on the previous year, with $980 billion in assets under management in 2018.

It would seem that impact investing, or responsible investing as the RIAA terms it, is really on the rise in Australia moving into the financial mainstream. Which is fantastic to see in Australia and for Australia. Responsible investing as defined by the RIAA is

one that systematically considers environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) and/or ethical factors across the entire portfolio.

Simon O’Connor, RIAA CEO, commented that “More and more Australians are expressing a desire to ensure that where they put their money in a bank or where they put their retirement savings in a super fund is in fact aligned with their values and even better than that, actually creating some good in society.”

Being profit for purpose, we have a triple bottom line focus, with community and sustainability (including the Sustainable Development Goals….aka theSDGs) equal measures (we’re actively working on the brightest one’s below) in the success of our scaling journey.

We will be announcing our seed round this month (July 2019) and want to partner with investors who are passionate about more than just making money....because on the way to making money, it's actually impact that enables the biggest growth.

As Blackrock CEO Larry Fink made clear in his recent annual letter to CEOs:

To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.

We are ready to enable amazing events to the many regions who are looking to Host World’s Biggest Garage Sale’s themselves — delivering social and environmental impact and financial returns. Looking forward to updating you on our Seed Investment Round.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more.

1. https://www.ft.com/content/256f3d29-7762-37e0-86cf-7810eb527504