'Impact investing beneficial to Filipinos'
AN official of the Asian Venture Philanthropy Association (AVPN), the largest network of social investors in Asia, said impact investing could build huge opportunities in the Philippines. Impact investing means putting money into ventures that generate beneficial social and environmental effects, as well as financial profit. "Impact investing is all about intentionality, and it's forward-looking. You're investing for the future; you're investing with the intention of doing something positive, and the second is I'm not necessarily looking for going for financial returns. I'm still getting, you know, market returns, which is what the private equity and the private capital owners, you know, will seek," said AVPN Chief of Impact Investing Vikas Arora. AVPN was comprised of over 600 diverse members across 33 markets. "I think as the narrative on impact investing increases and of course, the regulator needs to, and the government bodies need to step in, and you know, talk about impact and the impact and the rationale behind, you know, making investments which are not just philanthropy oriented but more impact and return-oriented.... And I think that's the narrative that needs to come out in the Philippines as well," Arora added. Arora said impact investing is different from environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, which he described as "backward-looking." "It's more compliance-oriented, [which is like] I'm investing in a particular company or a particular project, and does this project meet the standard ESG matrix and does it tick the boxes on the environment, social and governance?" Arora said. Arora said a shift of focus was becoming evident in private equity groups and venture capital funds. "None of these funders were looking to fund organizations that were kind of on the blacklist, so to speak. But now these funds are looking to create an impact sleeve, which effectively means to demonstrate intentionality, you have to have a very succinct theory of change," he added. He said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, being a more progressive central bank, should encourage an impact investing ecosystem in the country. Arora said he was optimistic that impact investing in the Philippines would "evolve and go forward." "There has been a fair amount of investment, I would say so a number of deals have been quite a few which are impact-oriented, but they are very subscale, sub-$100,000 kind of investments," he said. "I think we need to kind of broad-base the ecosystem. We need to kind of bring in more players, more actors. We need to bring in more capital from overseas. But then you need good investors to be, you know, based in the Philippines to, you know, make an impact locally," Arora added.
Tomas Kauer - Moderator 
AN official of the Asian Venture Philanthropy Association (AVPN), the largest network of social investors in Asia, said impact investing could build huge opportunities in the Philippines.
Impact investing means putting money into ventures that generate beneficial social and environmental effects, as well as financial profit.
"Impact investing is all about intentionality, and it's forward-looking. You're investing for the future; you're investing with the intention of doing something positive, and the second is I'm not necessarily looking for going for financial returns. I'm still getting, you know, market returns, which is what the private equity and the private capital owners, you know, will seek," said AVPN Chief of Impact Investing Vikas Arora.
AVPN was comprised of over 600 diverse members across 33 markets.
"I think as the narrative on impact investing increases and of course, the regulator needs to, and the government bodies need to step in, and you know, talk about impact and the impact and the rationale behind, you know, making investments which are not just philanthropy oriented but more impact and return-oriented.... And I think that's the narrative that needs to come out in the Philippines as well," Arora added.
Arora said impact investing is different from environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, which he described as "backward-looking."
"It's more compliance-oriented, [which is like] I'm investing in a particular company or a particular project, and does this project meet the standard ESG matrix and does it tick the boxes on the environment, social and governance?" Arora said.
Arora said a shift of focus was becoming evident in private equity groups and venture capital funds.
"None of these funders were looking to fund organizations that were kind of on the blacklist, so to speak. But now these funds are looking to create an impact sleeve, which effectively means to demonstrate intentionality, you have to have a very succinct theory of change," he added.
He said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, being a more progressive central bank, should encourage an impact investing ecosystem in the country.
Arora said he was optimistic that impact investing in the Philippines would "evolve and go forward."
"There has been a fair amount of investment, I would say so a number of deals have been quite a few which are impact-oriented, but they are very subscale, sub-$100,000 kind of investments," he said.
"I think we need to kind of broad-base the ecosystem. We need to kind of bring in more players, more actors. We need to bring in more capital from overseas. But then you need good investors to be, you know, based in the Philippines to, you know, make an impact locally," Arora added.
