#9 Alice Chapple on Impact Investing, Measuring What Matters, and Why the System Is Broken

Alice Chapple is an economist, chartered accountant, and the founder of Impact Value. She has spent over three decades working in sustainable finance, long before ESG became a boardroom talking point. 

She developed the sustainable finance online course for the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership and served as its head tutor. Her work focuses on the systems, incentives, and frameworks that shape behaviour in financial markets, helping funds, institutions, and investors think more rigorously about what impact actually means, how to measure it, and how to embed it into decision-making rather than bolt it on afterwards.

In this conversation, Philippa and Alice explore what it really takes to align capital with outcomes that matter, and what responsible leadership looks like when the financial system is still pulling in the opposite direction.

In this conversation, you'll hear about:

• How a trip to India at 17, volunteering in remote rural communities, planted the seed for a 35-year career spent chasing a single question: how do you get capital to flow where it's needed most?
• Why the word "impact" is used in so many different ways that it has lost precision, and what the UK's new Sustainability Disclosure Regulations have done to sharpen it
• The measurement problem: from monetising the value of a forest to tracking megawatts and litres of water, why there is no clean universal answer and why listed equity strategies make it particularly thorny
• Why the financial system keeps rewarding misaligned choices even when individuals want to do better, and the uncomfortable truth about the Magnificent Seven and what investors would have missed by avoiding them
• What Alice would change about finance if she could wave a magic wand, and why embedding social and environmental value into financial models is harder than it sounds
• The two things CEOs who genuinely want to do the right thing consistently underestimate, and why the consumer behaviour data is more complicated than the surveys suggest
• What the Global Good Awards looks for when separating real-world impact from a compelling story, including what Paradigm Norton was recognised for and why Alice sees it as a system-changing piece of work
• Why 82% of people say they want their money to do good, but what happens when they follow them into the supermarket
• Her advice for young people entering finance who want their career to mean something, including why working on individual funds and pushing for system change are not either/or choices

Key takeaway

Alice Chapple has spent 35 years working on the gap between what capital could do and what it actually does. The conversation she is most interested in is not whether impact investing works. It is why the default option is still so rarely set to good.

Disclaimer: 

Investing places your capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may not get back the amount you originally invested. Sustainable investments carry additional uncertainty - the environmental or social benefits expected may not be achieved. The information and opinions we share in this podcast are based on sources believed to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee they are accurate or complete, so they should not be relied upon as the sole basis for making investment decisions.

The following podcast is intended to be of a general nature, will not be suitable for everyone, and should not be treated as a specific recommendation. We recommend taking professional advice before entering into any obligation or transaction.

Paradigm Norton Financial Planning Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our FCA Register number is 455083. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

I'm Kimba Hamm, CEO of Paradise Norton. And this is Life Matters More, where we explore ESG, sustainability, and the future of business. Hello and welcome to Life Matters More, where we explore how people are using their money, work and influence to build a life and a world that truly matters. Today I'm joined by someone who has spent her career working in the midst of money, systems, and impact. Her work has often been behind the scenes, shaping how capital actually flows and what it ultimately achieves in the real world. Alice Chappell is an economist, chartered accountant, and the founder of Impact Value. She's been working in sustainable finance for over three decades, long before ESG became a mainstream conversation. She also developed the Sustainable Finance Online course for the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership and was the head tutor on the course. She's become one of the architects of impact investing, helping funds, institutions, and investors think much more rigorously about what they mean by impact, how they measure it, and crucially how they embed it into decision making rather than simply reporting on it after the fact. She focuses on the systems, incentives and frameworks that shape behaviour and financial markets. Because as we know, it's not enough for individuals to want to do the right thing. The environment they operate in matters enormously. So today we're going to explore what it really takes to align capital with outcomes that genuinely matter and what responsible leadership looks like when you're trying to do that in practice. Alice, I'm so pleased to have you with us.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Thank you very much for having me, Philippa.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

It's great to be here. So, in the words of Julie Andrews, let's start at the very beginning. You spent over 30 years in sustainable finance. When you look back, what first made you care about the impact of money and not just the return?

SPEAKER_02 2:16

I think it started perhaps on a visit to India when I just left school at age 17 or so. Went round India with an organization at the time it was called the International Voluntary Service. So it took me to some fairly remote rural places, made me realise how very lucky I was to be born in a rich country, and made me realize how people manage to be resilient, to have um good lives, even without very much. But it made me realise that uh life really isn't fair and that there ought to be more that we do to try and spread capital to the places that need it. And so I guess that was the start of where um of my journey, if you like, um, of of trying to find ways to drive capital towards places that need it most.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Okay, so you came back from India at how old were you when you came back from India?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

I was 17 when I came back from India, yeah. Okay. Yes, so it was uh just about to be 18, just about to start university.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Fully. And uh what did you do then? So you'd have this amazing experience, you had this life-changing experience. Yes. And you came back as a as a young 17, 18-year-old. What happened? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Well, I I started university then, um, and I thought that doing economics would be a really good way to sort of work out where how the ills of the world could be could be addressed. Actually, economics perhaps it's still the same, but certainly in my day it was very theoretical. And so uh the you learned a lot about graphs and about the maths behind it, but not really so much about how you properly drive change. And so my economics was a good grounding, but it wasn't really the answer that I was looking for about getting, you know, how do we really make the world a better place? And so my my career since then has been learning all the time about that, building on that foundation.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah, so I want to move on to this word impact. So, you know, you started impact value. So impact's a really important word, and it's a word actually that until I heard it used in the world of sort of sustainable investing, etc., I didn't think too deeply about. Yes. Okay, so I want to understand a little bit about how impact entered your world after you left university, after you studied um uh economics. Um, and when you hear impact used, for I'm not sure it's as mainstream as as people who who live in this world think it is. Yes. You know, how is it misunderstood?

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yes, it's such a good question because it is used a lot and it's used in so many different ways, I think. Um I think what's been quite helpful is some sort of clearer definitions of impact that have come through in the recent past, particularly with the UK has got a new set of labelling, uh the sustainability disclosure regulations, where they've kind of gone down a very particular definition of impact and have said it has to be intentional, you have to have a clear way in which your organization or your fund actually drives impact, and you have to have a plausible way in which your interventions actually do create real change on the ground. So, that I would say was what we all mean by impact, what should be considered to be impact. It's real change on the ground intentionally delivered. So, you know, you are having a very specific strategy, you've seen that the assumptions behind your strategy are reasonable and that you are likely to deliver change. I think the other way that it's often used is a much broader way, isn't it? Where you've got, are you making positive impact or are you making negative impact? And a lot of investment strategies are talking about what is the the uh harm you're avoiding, how are you avoiding negative impact? And a lot of the traditional environmental social governance strategies, ESG strategies, are designed around let's try and make sure we're not making any negative impact. But that is a very different thing.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Yeah, right. Okay, so because you're wanting to make actual impact on the ground, as you say, how on earth do you go about um measuring that impact or lack of impact, if you like?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

It's such an enormously difficult thing to do. Um, and there are different answers to that question depending on uh on who you're talking to. There are some who try to monetize that impact, so try and translate all of the different types of impact into monetary equivalents. So, you know, how do you try and work out what the value of a forest that's being being uh conserved would be? How do you make sure you value the fact that your healthcare solution is reaching people who have a life which is a much better life? So people try to bring those into financial terms, which is extremely challenging. Um, that none of these things uh are very easily monetizable. The other way to measure impact is to have um specific um metrics that you you you measure alongside the financial return. So for your own particular investment strategy, it might be in energy, you might be measuring very particular real-world outcomes around the amount of megawatts you've it you've you've brought on or the number of people you've reached with a new energy distribution strategy. For water, you might be looking at how many um litres of water you've saved through a particular water management. So metrics which are not financial but which are very, very closely related to the strategy, and you can track. Um of the things I think we struggle with in the financial world is that a lot of strategies are about listed equities. And so the measurement of how a listed equity strategy has actually created impact is a bit challenging because what happens obviously with a listed equity strategy is you're simply buying the stock off somebody else. So, what actual impact on the ground does it have? Um, you've got some uh funds that try and say, well, the equivalent that we have invested in these particular companies, they are having this real world strategy because they are putting in place various different things in the real world. So we will take a share of that. We we will sort of measure our impact as a fund by reference to that underlying company. And that's tricky because you've not actually changed what the company is doing. So I think those are sort of some things that everybody's grappling with at the moment around how do we measure it in a way that's comparable across different strategies? How do we take into account that a potentially a listed strategy doesn't have real-world impact unless you're engaging, changing things on the ground, or actually unless perhaps you're such a um a well-known fund that you're signalling to other people that this is a really important um place to go and other people uh pile in. So uh yes, a relatively long answer, but it's a really complicated question.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

It is, and it is, and I've I have grappled with the same thoughts around secondary markets and primary markets and how much, you know, is it really impact? Are we really making a difference? It's it's a really hard thing, but I think it's a great question to be challenging ourselves with.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah. Hi, I'm Karen Sutton, founder of the Global Good Awards, and we're thrilled to be partnering with Paradigm Norton to bring you this podcast. We exist to celebrate the people and organisations out there creating real lasting change in the world, and we'd love you to be part of it. If you think you've delivered something special, then find Global Good Awards online and consider putting in an entry or two. Now enjoy the rest of the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Moving on to I'm always interested in motivation. Um, and you know, you spend a lot of your career designing frameworks and measurement systems, but at the end of the day, we've got humans at the middle of this, and I'm always really interested in that um the balance between people and profits and purpose, etc. Um, so I would be really interested in understanding where you feel the motivation for this impact work comes from. Is it driven, but particularly finance, is it driven by individual values? Is it just really good people who were seeded in companies, or is it the system that they're operating in?

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yes. So so I think that we know that there are many people who want to make a uh make a difference through their investments, and we know that there are many people who are who are trying to invest in in alignment with their values. I think the system does prevent that. I think that there are many, many reasons why the system constrains that and that behavior. Um we know that you can make more money often by doing things that are not aligned with the social and environmental value. Um we know that after the Ukraine war, as the Iraq war comes in, oil companies are going to be valued much more highly, that people who are not investing in those things are going to, in the short term, have a lower return. We know that, for example, investing in uh some of the social media companies uh would, if you hadn't been in those, the the Magnificent Seven over the last seven years, over the last few years, you would have found that you would have missed out on returns, even though we know that there are pretty devastating consequences for society from those. We know that they are not helpful in terms of carbon emissions, in terms of water, and so on. So we know that there are lots of things in the system which encourage the status quo, really, encourage people who are looking quite sensibly for good financial returns, are taken down a route that is not necessarily in line with social and environmental values and not necessarily going to deliver the best outcomes for society or the environment. Um, how does that change is the biggest question, isn't it? So the motivations of individuals, I think people can select strategies that don't fall into that trap, but in the short term, they may not, they probably will not outperform. Um so thinking long term is one thing, knowing that actually the system has to correct over the long term. It's a sort of tautology that these investments that will address climate change, will address water problems, will be part of the circular economy, will all have to be the answers ultimately, because we don't have enough world to deal with things otherwise. But in the short term, we know that the system does not deliver financial returns for those in a in a in an outperforming way. So I think that we we we are trapped in a system that doesn't, I mean it's the point of your podcast, that doesn't value the things that matter, it doesn't value life as much as it values those short-term financial returns.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Which begs the question if you could change one thing about the financial system as it currently operates, what what would you change?

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So assuming that I can really wave my magic wand, and it's uh and it's something that uh that we know we've all worked on and we're trying to change, but it's very, very hard to do, it would be about trying to find that that clever way of embedding social and environmental value into the financial models that we all use. So it's it's recognizing that we miss out on so many parts of true value in the financial models we're using in the system. Whether it's you know how people are dealing with with their carbon emissions, whether it's how people are dealing with people. There's so many elements of how people value a company that are simply uh the financial and not these other elements. So my wish would be we would identify some way without just thinking we have to monetize these things because money is not a very good way to measure that we could somehow bet take these things properly into account, so that, for example, a company that does cut down forests is paying the cost of that in in a way that prevents it because there's an opportunity cost of using the forests in a different way, or genuinely is trying to find a way to pay for the ecosystem services that those forests provide rather than cutting them down. So if it it there are so many different ways in which we can value things better, that would be my my wish that we would be able to embed that in our way of the financial system operating.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Yeah. I mean, I I think we are starting to see the companies who are able to future proof um come good. And there's some really interesting uh funds out in America at the moment that sort of um uh property funds who are looking at builders or um companies where they're building buildings uh to take account of heat waves, to take account of earthquakes, to take account of floods. And sadly that that does appear to be creeping into how well a company performs if they are future-proofing.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I and I think there is there's something about needing to be future-proofed. So that there are absolutely some strategies where we know that the the world around us is changing. I mean, it's it's changing because of the climate, it's aging. So a lot of strategies will be more resilient in the face of those those macroeconomic trends, those global geopolitical trends, and so on. So you've you've put your finger on a really good example of where a strategy is going to outperform because these events that are coming from um whether it's climate events or um conflict events, are going to be uh uh affecting the value of that business. Um, and I think that's really important that people recognize that any organization that looks at those things carefully is likely to be better future-proofed. So that that's I 100% agree that that is going to be a way to outperform in the future. Um I think that what is not necessarily going to happen unless we find ways to value it better, is that some of the things that aren't immediately going to impact on people's profits are not taken into account. So a food company, for example, with its supply chain into places which are affected by drought or affected by flood is going to have to adapt in the same way that the construction company that you talk about is going to have to adapt. A company, for example, that is could move its supply chain or could be much more flexible about where it uh where it gets its raw materials, can exploit one area and then move on to a different area, knowing that it can kind of move around, uh move around the world to uh depending on where climate is is happening. So I think there's a what a difference in my mind between the companies that have to future proof and then ones that are trying to find a way to improve the situation and trying to find a way to create conservation opportunities or create opportunities for people, which aren't necessarily going to be part of their resilience. They're just part of trying to create impact. And there is a difference between those two things.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Okay, so I think most of our listeners are probably not the CEOs of the big social media companies. Uh, they may well be CEOs of smaller companies who are listening to this because um they genuinely want to do the right thing. Um what do you think that um you know CEOs of companies who genuinely want to do the right thing might be um underestimating? Um and and you know, how hard is it in practice to actually do the right thing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

I think I'd say there are two things particularly, and they're part there the two things that I think have been challenges for the the the ESG investment strategies too, which are on the the first is how do you um try to build in all of the things that you want to do around uh managing social and environmental um harm and ensuring you don't create harm, and at the same time making short-term returns for your shareholders. So this is this is a challenge that all of your CEOs, all of the CEOs that I engage with are going to be really struggling with. Um and it's the same thing that political leaders are struggling with, the cost of living, they know that they have to address climate change, they have to address um various um elements of social unrest, but the cost of addressing these things and the cost of living implications are something that are really hard to embrace. So I think it's the same at the political level as it is at the company level, really, sort of having that challenge of short term, we know that these things are not going to be uh easy to sell, if you like. Um, and and I think going back to the point you made before, I think some CEOs will be managing supply chains or products that need to be thinking about this now because they aren't resilient otherwise. Um, others will be needing to think about well, what on earth can I do to try and build a product that is trying to make a positive impact, but potentially isn't um it has has that has cost implications. So if I can get away with cutting a forest down because it's cheaper, because that's going to be mean that the furniture that I build is that much easier to sell, would I do that? Um I think in the past we used to think that consumers would be the driver of behavior. So the CEOs could sort of say, thank goodness for that, I can do the right thing because my consumers are going to ask for things which are sustainably produced or ask for things that are um managed with a workforce that's that's uh well looked after. Um I'm not sure we can trust that at the moment, partly because people feel very constrained, they feel like they're not their cost of living is increasing. So whether it's food, whether it's furniture, whether it's clothes, people tend to go for the cheaper options. And that's often because they feel that that it's uh it it's it's too expensive to go for the more sustainable ones. Um so CEOs I think have to make that choice of whether you can brand a product in a way that uh appeals to consumers and it it as something that does have these values at its heart. There are obviously good examples of products that have managed to do that. Patagonia is often cited as as one but there are there are many others and I I think that's one option. The other is to is there are some very clear things that can be done energy efficiency, more efficient use of materials, which automatically have a benefit in terms of cost. So at one level there's going to be a a benefit to uh to to to the cost of products through being more sustainable. But I think at if one looks at most of the interventions that one might make, it's possible to make cheaper products by being unsustainable and the consumers may not may not pay the extra. So this is where the biggest challenge I think lies. I think this the second one if I may Philippa is is sort of almost the opposite which is that if a if a business decides they are really going to be standing on this brand, this values proposition it's then demonstrating to the consumer how they have done that and what that actually has has meant. Going back to the point we discussed about measurement sometimes it's really hard to prove that your product is better than others. And there's a lot of skepticism out there about the um about greenwashing about companies just pretending that they're doing something when they're not or overstating it. So that's the secondary challenge. So navigating between the first challenge of um you know it's cheaper not to and the second challenge of even if you do it it's hard to measure it and prove it is is a hard a hard sell is a hard channel to to navigate I would say there are people are doing it and and I think they do get their reward in often but it's not that easy to not that easy to do. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Okay so one of the ways that a company might do it is to apply for something like the Global Good Awards. Yes. You are a judge on the Global Good Awards um and I guess you see a lot of companies put those really great companies that you're talking about there who are really trying to be the same on the inside as they are on the outside and do good in the world. What in your opinion separates those who are genuinely creating impact from those that you spoke about there who were just creating a compelling story?

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yes I mean and then that as you say is is really what the Global Good Awards tries to unpick. You know we try to get to the bottom of what is the what is the real change that a that an organization would would would be making on the ground. And I think what we're trying to do through the Global Good Awards and the Global Good Finance Awards had its inaugural year last year as you as you well know Paradigm Norton did very very well in those awards but um trying to really get to the real world outcomes. So for example the two um finance trailblazers that that won in in uh in 2025 on the investment side so setting aside the the sort of the system side but this the investment side were for example Octopus Energy which had a collective platform enabling people um any anybody to invest in renewable energy community energy so it's actually you could see that this was a not just an investment proposition but also a a kind of way to get people more engaged a mindset proposition as well in we can be investing in these community platforms we can put our money to work in a way that really does have a different make a difference and you know that's that was a to us a really good example of of you know real world change. Another one that we um awarded was Natagal which is a a a natural fine natural capital provider what they're trying to do is make nature investable effectively so um it's it's difficult for all the reasons we we've discussed around how do you value the the the benefits that nature brings but what Natigal are trying to do is to get investment into nature in a way that actually could be part of an investment portfolio um which again is a really good example I think of of real world impact. So what we're trying to do is is identify organizations and initiatives that are great on their own but also actually have a bigger impact on the system. So the fact that Octopus Energy can illustrate you can make money from community energy you can be part of the solution is a great replicable scalable idea similarly with Natigal that nature finance thing. And for Paradigm Norton the reason why we felt so strongly about the work that Paradigm Norton is doing is I think that there is such real-world implications from being able to give clients that transparency over the choice they can make on their investments. So so many investors are not asked are you what would you like your values to deliver in terms of your investment strategy? And so of course the investment strategy does not follow them. And so the default option which goes to the short-term financial returns is what's delivered. What I think financial advisors that are doing great job like Paradigm Norton are doing is saying actually there's something more that we should be talking to our clients about so that whatever choice they decide to make is entirely up to them. And there are lots of different ways in which they can decide to do impact to to deliver impact in their in their strategies but we provide them with that information and that's an enormously system changing piece of of work I think. So it's it's um I think reaching retail investors with those choices and making sure that they are aware of those choices is a way to break into the system we talked about earlier and sort of say how do you want your values to be aligned with your investment?

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Yeah I'm I am incredibly proud of what we're doing here and honestly we have so many exciting conversations people want to talk about this they want to invest in line with their values and so they don't just put their pension in a little box and say well I'm that you know I'm gonna cycle to work and recycle my my plastic bottles but I I I have to forget about that because that's about long-term survival it doesn't it doesn't have to be that way and we can and we should be having better conversations with our clients absolutely yeah yeah and and it's such a big part of the system to try and give people that choice I think um it it it's it's uh yeah it's it's a could be a real game changer I think especially if people are asked um you know where along that spectrum of impact are you wanting to be because because if if people are deliberately wanting to allocate some part of their portfolio to that very deliberate intentional impact then that can be very powerful as well as obviously with some of their investment wanting to avoid harm.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

So it's giving people sort of vision of that of that spectrum and how far they want to go down each part of it.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah yeah I mean I don't know if you saw the FCA survey where they said 82% of the people that responded to the survey said they wanted their money to do some good.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

So you know let's it's incredible isn't it when you ask people how much of a of a response you get absolutely yeah absolutely I guess there is there is also something around I don't know if you remember uh some years ago Hugh Fernley Whittingstall did that did a sort of thing about free range chickens so outside the supermarket everybody was showed pictures of uh battery farm chickens and they uh they said no no no I'd never buy one of those you know and so it was sort of similar percentage um and then you go they they followed them into the supermarket and when they looked at the different prices they were like oh I know I said outside that I wasn't going to ever buy battery chicken but you know I've just you know it is a lot cheaper so I actually am so I think that gap between say and do is is still there we need to be really clear don't we about capturing those people who say we really want to invest in line with our values and then being really clear about the how as well um so that so that they're given uh what they need in terms of being able to deliver on that which is I think exactly what you're you're doing at Paradigm Norton you're you're offering them those choices.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

Yes yes and it isn't actually our responsible portfolio has performed in exactly the same way as as the traditional so there isn't there isn't that gap um between returns which is which is great. Exactly at Paradigm Norton we believe money matters but life matters more that's why we put people purpose and long-term impact at the heart of financial planning as an employee owned B Corp business sustainability is central to how we think about wealth helping you invest in ways that support responsible business practices so by working with us you can feel confident that your money is working for your future and the world you want to live in. Not all of our listeners are CEOs. Some of our listeners are uh young people who are just uh as you were when you came back from India um embarking on their career and I kind of want to spend a few minutes talking to them um you know particularly those who are early in their career coming into finance they want to make a positive difference what would you encourage them to hold on to so I I think that finance is is the the thing that underpins everything.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

So that's why I went into finance. I went into finance because I could see that it was what would be most likely to change the world if we could get it right because everything depends on it. So I would say that if people are interested in finance there's a good reason for it to be an agent of change. I would say that there are so many great people working on trying to find solutions to some of the problems that we have been talking about whether it's climate change or it's biodiversity loss or it's poverty in Africa and lots of people doing it in quite a specific fund a way that's in individual funds. So some of that would be funded through family offices and foundations um some of it would be financed by institutional investors in particularly in particular vehicles but individual funds whether they're working on healthcare renewable energy water plastics are doing phenomenal things um and so that you would be able to find really exciting places to work which are directly delivering change. I would say there's a sort of second part of that which is at the same time we can't ignore the fact that the system is broken and needs to be mended much more fundamentally than just doing individual funds which are great but need to be scaled up and really won't scale up with the urgency we need. So I would say to people do those things and this is sort of how I manage my day which is spend some time on things you can really see happening and then some time on thinking what are the bigger system change pieces that need to be happening. So policy and regulation needs to change pension funds need to be kind of talked to brought into a conversation about allocating at least some of their um the investments to impact um that is going to be you know with the wall of institutional investor money that is available that is going to create a massive change so we need to keep working on how that makes sense for those institutional investors what are they going to move um what's going to make them change the the way that they invest and and it's partly about the resilience that we talked about earlier you know it's it's it's how do you have at least some investments that are trying to prevent the damage that will otherwise affect all of our investments. And it's partly about just wanting to be able to show that that they have a positive impact on on people or the environment. So lots of institutional investment money needs to move and so while working on the funds at the grassroots level is is great there's also some parallel conversations that have to happen at the um at the institutional investor level. And then I would say also just thinking about how engaging retail investors is a big part of the of the story as well. So I think I wouldn't discourage people from going into finance um I think it's definitely worth worth going into but aware that the system change needs to happen in parallel with these great individual activities and initiatives one of the one of the things that comes out repeatedly on my podcasts is the power of asking good questions.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Because if people aren't asking good questions then the board aren't hearing that people are asking good questions. Yeah so uh would you would you add to that advice for our young people or even our CEOs and encourage people just to ask the question what are you doing on Net Zero? What are you doing with your supply chains?

SPEAKER_02 36:48

I would like to see some evidence, some demonstration it's such a good point yes absolutely absolutely and I think that if somebody who who really wants to be working in an area aligned with their values um doesn't ask those questions at the interview stage then they could be surprised and caught short when they are in an organization that actually doesn't follow through. And I I I think that's it's such good advice to ask the right questions at that point and to continue asking them while you're in an organization too because it's not that you know we you one wants to keep on on um making sure that it's the right place to be so yeah no I think that's really good advice as as well sort of challenge your organization to come up with the real world impacts that they're trying to make um and and and and the the the motivation behind it.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

I I mean for me as a CEO it's really powerful when my people say Philippa what are we doing about this? Why aren't we doing this? I'm interested in this can we do this? Yeah and it's I mean often it will be stuff that I just don't know about. Yeah and I'm delighted that they've asked questions so I'm a big fan of encouraging people to ask questions.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Okay we've uh had a great conversation uh I want to finish on a on a positive note so when you think about all the work that you've done um and what still needs to change what gives you hope I think all the people that are working in this space who are doing awesome things um it is is definitely what gives me hope. I think what I've seen there's it's been a bumpy ride over the last 35 years to be honest. It was very slow to get to a point where one thought I was having any traction at all on climate or on biodiversity loss or on um even you know poverty uh reduction and and we've still got a lot of of difficulties of getting people's attention but I think it's not so much now the why I think the why has sort of been up been answered. People understand the why around climate and around biodiversity loss um but it's more the how. So it it what gives me hope is that people are really trying to find those practical solutions. So I think there's there's a lot of headwinds as we know and it's the the world is a difficult place but we we we have um even in the states we have individual states that are very busily doing um work on climate work on the the the sort of the woke agenda that has become um i inappropriate at the at the um the the the US government level is still being done in this in the individual states. Companies are still behind the scenes doing a lot of work on the environmental and social impacts even though it's now become less of a of something that governments are seen to support them on. So I think that momentum is still there even if the visibility for the time being is is is lower. So that gives me me great hope. And I think that to be to be honest there's a lot of the work that's going on behind the scenes will scale up and will so the pension funds that are allocating to impact will find that that's a really good way to explore new opportunities. They'll find that there are growth opportunities in a lot of these impactful areas that will provide outperformance. When we talk about the system not combining returns and impact there are lots of good examples and you you you you provided examples too but there are lots of good examples where you can see impact and financial return working in in parallel um and the more that we can highlight those and and emphasize those the better we'll be I think at the same time there are plenty of places where risk of risk money that is prepared to take risk needs to go to de-risk um the the the the people who can't afford to take that risk. So for example we're seeing a lot of really good co-investments by either family offices and standard investors or government and standard investors which are sharing the risk in a way that drives more capital towards these things. And I think that in clever ways to combine different pots of capital where some people go well I I really need to see the impact and I'm prepared to de-risk the bulk of the money that that has to be financial returns that are market driven that can combine a whole bunch of new um flows as well so I think you're seeing innovation you're seeing certainly awareness there you're seeing products and you're seeing brilliant people doing brilliant things.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Wonderful thank you Alice Chappell uh economist chartered accountant founder of Impact Value judge for the Global Good Awards I have much appreciated our conversation today it's difficult stuff isn't it it's hard stuff but I love the fact that you're you're rolling up your sleeves and and grappling with it. So uh thank you so much for being a guest on my podcast.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Thank you very much for having me Philippa I've really enjoyed our conversation.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

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SPEAKER_00 42:46

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