ABOUT

The planetary climate crisis and the deepening of global poverty are arguably two of the greatest challenges of the contemporary world. Among critics, new forms of financial capitalism have been widely blamed for both. In contrast, a wide array of actors across the public and private sectors argue that innovative financial solutions can, in fact, reverse such trends.

As part of this turn towards financial solutions to global problems, impact investing has become one of the fastest growing categories of "ethical and responsible investment". It is driven by a movement among investors, entrepreneurs, and civil society actors who are increasingly seeking to "leverage" and "scale-up" sustainable development with private capital. 

At IMPACT HAU, we use fine-grained ethnographic research to assess how, and to what extent, impact investing is bringing about the widespread change needed to increase social and environmental sustainability. We work across a wide array of field sites and a diversity of professional and popular domains: from the offices of African investment banks to the rural villages of Eastern Europe, IMPACT HAU examines the moral turn in finance at a global scale. You'll find our research in the pages of academic journals, in various experimental formats, and throughout 2023 we'll be hosting an online seminar series.