This note introduces some fundamental concepts regarding Indigenous peoples and their relationships to the land in Canada. It revisits injustices experienced by Indigenous peoples since the arrival of European settlers and investigates attempts at addressing those injustices. In the context of this note, “Indigenous” refers to the original inhabitants of North America and their descendants. Indigenous peoples in Canada describes three distinct groups, the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, all of which are individually discussed later in this note. This note is based on a literature review of academic and governmental information sources.
Biodiversity loss threatens enough economic activity to warrant far more private sector investment than it gets. Over half the world’s total GDP is “moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services,” and restoring and conserving nature is widely expected to require annual investment of more than US$700 billion. However, the money currently being spent doesn’t come anywhere close to that. If we’re serious about protecting our ecosystems, we can’t rely on the public sector alone. To help attract the level of private-sector investment required to bridge the biodiversity financing gap before it’s too late, this article argues that governments need to create a conducive investment environment and seed a self-sustaining biodiversity market through a major increase in concessional financing. The authors believe there are three primary factors behind why the biodiversity crisis in developing countries fails to attract more private capital. First is the scarcity of investible deals. Second, the environment in terms of policies and frameworks isn’t conducive. Third, risk perception is significant. To develop biodiversity as an adaptation sector, climate accelerators (cohort-based programs offering early equity that have mentorship and educational components) could facilitate and support the growth of adaptation and biodiversity technologies, particularly in developing countries.
Emaan Modaraba, a Shariah compliant publicly traded modaraba based in Pakistan, made an investment in shares of Indus Motor Company Limited, a listed company assembling Toyota vehicles, in July 2020 – whose shares were designated to be Shariah Compliant and included in the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s KMI-All Share Islamic Index. In August 2020, Indus’ annual report disclosed that the company increased its short-term investments in interest-bearing instruments in order to be financially resilient in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Khan, CEO of Emaan Modaraba, instructs Ms. Amina Ali, an investment manager, to provide her opinion on the annual report and whether Indus would remain Shariah Compliant and be included in the portfolio.
The founder and chief executive officer of impak Finance Inc. had grown his financial technology start-up, based in Montreal, Canada, into a company with two main business lines: an extensive and comprehensive assessment and rating agency that used advanced social impact measurement and scoring software, and an online marketplace platform that used the cryptocurrency impak Coin and connected like-minded consumers, investors, and businesses to support socially sustainable and responsible firms aligned on their economic and financial principles. In case A, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the founder wondered which strategic direction he should take to ensure the long-term sustainability of impak Finance Inc.—invest heavily in developing the rating agency or grow the impak marketplace?
In case B, in late summer 2020, the founder has decided to prioritize the company's rating agency, advocating for robust and standardized impact assessments for all firms. He felt confident about his company's new strategic direction and focus during the pandemic. But how could he ensure impak Finance Inc. grew toward its mission and attained financial sustainability?
This note explains the workings of money and cryptocurrencies and introduces what money is, before briefly reviewing its history. The note elaborates on the workings of money today (i.e., fiat currencies such as the US dollar and the European euro) and the importance of debt in the financial system. It then explains what cryptocurrencies consist of, notably the workings of blockchain technologies and the goals that utopian currencies hope to achieve. The note concludes by describing three major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, Ğ1, and impak Coin.
Verge Capital was a social finance organization in London, Ontario, that connected local aspiring entrepreneurs with funds that would support initiatives with societal or environmental missions that benefited local communities. In 2019, the social finance manager at Verge Capital had to recommend one of two social impact business proposals that the organization should fund a CA$30,000 loan to. The two options were (1) Sri Lankan Foods, which operated a Sri Lankan restaurant, a catering business, and a granola production facility that provided short-term employment opportunities for newcomers to Canada, and (2) Material Impact, which collected and resold used textbooks to fund donations of books and learning materials to South American universities. While both businesses aligned with Verge Capital’s mandate, the social finance manager needed to choose just one. He wondered how sustainable the businesses were and what criteria Verge Capital should consider before investing.
In April 2018, more than one year after the chief executive officer (CEO) of Danby Appliances Inc. launched a private sponsorship program to support Syrian refugees in their integration into Canada, the CEO and others were starting to raise some questions. Although the program seemed to have had an overall positive impact on Syrian refugees, Danby's board of directors wondered about the impact of the program on the appliance business. The settlement program continued to take up a considerable amount of the CEO's time and may have even been a drain on other Danby resources, such as staff time. With competition intensifying in the appliance manufacturing industry, the board asked the CEO to assess the impact of the settlement program on Danby, the refugees, and the community, and to recommend whether the program should continue. The CEO knew it would be difficult to collect precise numbers and wondered how he should start to quantify the true impact of the settlement program.
An impact assessment enables organizations to assess the wider impact of their activities on stakeholders, beyond the financial impacts. By assessing all impacts, managers can make better decisions, leading to a more positive impact; reduce their organizations’ negative impacts; and identify creative ways to capture the social and environmental value their organizations create. Organizations can undertake an impact assessment on themselves or on organizations in which they invest or plan to invest. This note explains the fundamentals of impact assessment, including what an impact assessment is, how to assess impact, and the main frameworks used to assess impact.
Norlha Textiles was a yak wool enterprise located on the Tibetan Plateau in China. Founded in 2007, the company designed and produced yak wool textiles made by Tibetan nomads and sold globally to customers that included such luxury brands as Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2015, the company employed 120 local people, enabling them to adapt to the modern world while preserving their local traditions. Also in 2015, the local government invited the company to expand its model to another nomadic community on the Tibetan Plateau. Although this seemed to be a good opportunity to grow the company’s influence, the chief executive officer hesitated, reflecting on the pros and cons. Was such a partnership the right opportunity to grow the company?
Danone SA (Danone), a multinational food company based in Paris, had a history of social and environmental consciousness and a corporate strategy that focused on economic and social objectives. In 2013, the company was trying to ensure that this social and environmental focus was part of its decision-making process, and wanted to communicate its industry-leading efforts to internal and external stakeholders alike. The company had learned that it was not enough just to have internal systems and data prove its environmental consciousness. The company’s carbon accounting initiative, for example, demonstrated the firm’s progress in reducing its carbon footprint; however, because it did not make use of widely accepted carbon accounting standards, Danone’s sustainability efforts were largely discounted or ignored. Now the company had to decide how to report to its various stakeholders going forward.<br><br>The A case focuses on Danone’s reporting activity in 2013, when it worked with the International Integrated Reporting Council to pilot that organization’s integrated reporting standard. The B case brings the situation forward to 2018 and discusses Danone’s work to launch its own integrated report, its efforts to become certified as a B Corporation, and its support of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The founder of the Access to Medicine Foundation, based in the Netherlands, had a goal to research and publish a biannual, global survey of pharmaceutical companies and their rankings, in terms of their effects in providing needed medicines to people in developing countries. When the first two iterations of the Access to Medicine Index (ATMI) were published in 2008 and 2010 (see case A), the most prominent challenges were engaging stakeholders—government, pharmaceutical firms, nonprofit organizations, investors, and others—and securing funding to support ongoing research and analyses. <br>In 2016, the founder was preparing for the ATMI’s fifth iteration (see case B, 9B17M011), and he had a three-point focus: to improve engagement with pharmaceutical companies in an effort to increase the effect of the ATMI on companies’ practices; to incorporate the views of patients into the ATMI; and to engage with governments and regulators in the developing countries, where citizens were in need of access to medicines.
In 2012, the French government was faced with the challenge of setting the standards for socially responsible investment funds. A broader issue was the set of roles and responsibilities that regulators needed to take to ensure the best interest of society and the retail market. Retail consumers were different from institutional clients because they were numerous, they may not have had access to the same information available to more sophisticated investors, and because their thoughts on the financial markets were most likely to be based on what they had read and heard in the news. The government had to decide how to go about creating standards that could be applied to socially responsible investment funds. Also see supplement 9B16N017.