PitchBook Analyst Note: The Double Bottom Line: Private Market Impact Investment

This most recent analyst note walks through the sustainable investing landscape, highlighting the terminology, strategies, and standards developing to measure and report both ESG factors and impact outcomes. Sitting beneath the sustainable investing umbrella, impact investments are made with dual goals of achieving financial returns and positive social or environmental results. Impact investments are most commonly made through familiar LP structures such as closed-end PE and VC funds, though debt is a growing avenue for impact investors. While many may conflate impact with ESG, the first is seeking to make a measurable impact with the investments a fund manager buys while the latter is an approach to identifying non-financial risks that may have a material impact on an asset’s value. ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors are part of an investment assessment process, while impact is about the type of investments a manager is targeting.