Climate

Impact Investment Exchange Closes First ‘Orange Bond’ at US$50m to Invest in Women in Asia and Africa – Pioneers Post

Singapore’s IIX closes the latest in its Women’s Livelihood Bonds series which invest in high-impact enterprises focused on advancing gender equality.

Singapore-based Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has raised US$50m for its fifth Women’s Livelihood Bond, set to improve the livelihoods of 300,000 women and girls in Asia and Africa.

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IIX Raises $50 Million for Fifth Women’s Livelihood Bond – Impact Alpha

ImpactAlpha, December 14 – Singapore-based IIX has raised $50 million for the fifth bond in its Women’s Livelihood Bond series. The bond will support 300,000 low-income women and girls in Asia and Africa. The bond is the first in the series to finance women-centric initiatives outside of Asia.

It is also the first designated under the Orange Bond Principles, which IIX spearheaded to shift capital in the $130 trillion global bond market to support women and girls. (Orange is the color used for Sustainable Development Goal No. 5, achieving gender equality.) The bond “will set the momentum for many Orange Bond transactions to come in the near future, making it a game changer for the sustainable financing market,” said Stephen Liberatore of Nuveen, an investor in the bond.

IIX is a pioneer of gender-focused listed bonds, launching its first Women’s Livelihood Bond in 2017. It raised $8 million.

The impact investment firm closed its fourth bond in the series, which invests in women’s climate resilience, earlier this year.

A portion of the fifth bond’s proceeds will also be used to “empower women to advance climate action,” the firm said.

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IIX raises $50m with ‘world first’ green & orange bond – Environmental Finance

The Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has raised $50 million with what it said is the first ‘green and orange’ bond, with proceeds targeted to empower women to advance climate action.

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IIX raises US$50 million with first ‘orange bond’ for women’s livelihoods – Business Times

SINGAPORE-BASED Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has closed a US$50 million, four-year bond to uplift women, in what is touted as the world’s first “orange bond” based on gender lens investing principles.

Called the Women’s Livelihood Bond 5 (WLB5), it securitises a portfolio of loans to high-impact enterprises that cannot usually access international capital markets, lead placement agent ANZ said in a Tuesday (Dec 13) press release.

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Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) Closes the Women’s Livelihood Bond™ 5 – the Fifth Issuance in the Women’s Livelihood Bond™ Series and the World’s First Orange Bond

The US$50 million IIX Women’s Livelihood Bond™ 5 is the first sustainable debt security in the market issued in compliance with the Orange Bond Principles and is expected to empower ~300,000 women and girls across Asia and Africa.

December 8, 2022 – SINGAPORE – Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has successfully closed the Women’s Livelihood Bond™ 5 (WLB5), the fifth issuance in the award-winning Women’s Livelihood Bond™ Series (WLB™ Series), raising US$50 million. The WLB5 will create livelihood and empower ~300,000 women and girls in emerging markets across Asia and Africa, making it the first multi-continent bond in the Series.

IIX’s WLB™ Series are listed innovative financial instruments that use a blended capital structure to pool together a multi-country, multi-sector portfolio of high-impact enterprises focused on advancing gender equality. To date, the Series has mobilized US$128 million, empowering over 1 million women across Asia and Africa to transition to more sustainable, climate-resilient livelihoods, advancing 12 of the 17 United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and accelerating socio-economic recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic. Continuing on the success of previous issuances, the WLB5 makes history as the first sustainable debt issuance to align with the Orange Bond Principles™. Orange Bonds – drawing their name from the orange hue of SDG5: Gender Equality – is the world’s first asset class built by both the Global South and Global North with a mission to build a gender-empowered financial system, particularly for the 99%.

The WLB5 brings in both “orange” and “green” with a portion of the proceeds allocated to empower women to advance climate action. IIX recognizes that the transition to a net-zero future and improved adaptive capacity of emerging markets cannot be achieved with half of humanity – women and girls – left out of the solution. IIX is one of the only women-led Sustainability Bond issuers based in the Global South, with women and people of color comprising the majority of the staff working on the WLB5 issuance to ensure high gender-lens capacity and commitment to inclusion and diversity.

IIX’s CEO and Founder Professor Durreen Shahnaz stated, “As the fifth bond of the WLB™ Series, the WLB5 continues IIX’s mission of transforming the financial system by empowering women throughout communities in emerging markets. The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis have aggravated gender disparity, and women in the Global South are left to bear the brunt of it. The WLB™ Series was created to eliminate these inequalities, and the WLB5 continues this mission while embracing shades of both orange and green.”

The proceeds of the WLB5 will be used to make loans to high-impact enterprises in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, and the Philippines that operate across six sectors: microfinance, SME lending, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, water and sanitation, and affordable housing. The WLB5 also complies with the ICMA Sustainability Bond Guidelines, the ASEAN Social Bond Standards, and the UN SDG Impact Standards. The WLB™ Series measures and verifies impact both pre and post-investment using IIX Values™, a digital tool that collects impact data from women at the last mile to ensure they have a value and a voice in the investment and reporting process.

This strong commitment to transparency helps IIX to magnify impact, stabilize returns, and mitigate risks. Previous issuances in the WLB™ Series have had no defaults or delays to coupon payments, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. WLB5 has successfully mobilized capital from a range of institutional and impact-focused investors from across the world including anchor investor, Nuveen (a TIAA-CREF company), Laerdal Finans, Pathfinder New Zealand, and Ceniarth, among others.

Nuveen’s Head of ESG/Impact – Fixed Income Stephen M. Liberatore, CFA, said, “As the first Orange Bond in the market, the WLB5 will set the momentum for many Orange Bond transactions to come in the near future, making it a game changer for the sustainable financing market. IIX’s commitment to achieving meaningful impact and verifying results directly with women at the last mile makes the WLBTM Series the ‘gold standard’ in a market that is facing concerns over rising impact-washing.”

IIX’s WLB5 brings together a number of ecosystem partners from both the public sector and the private sector with an aligned mission to build gender-equal and green capital markets. Partners include United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays, Shearman & Sterling, Clifford Chance, Paul Hastings, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, TSMP Law Corporation, Chapman Tripp, Vinge, and NetRoadShow.

James Polan, DFC Vice President for Development Credit shared, “IIX has pioneered a unique financial structure that effectively balances risk, returns, and impact. The DFC anticipates the WLB5 will revolutionize capital markets by placing women at the forefront of solutions to achieve a more inclusive, climate-resilient future for all.”

The WLB5 exemplifies how the Orange Bond Initiative™ aims to transition the gender-lens investing space from strategy to action. There is a critical need to go beyond conferences and commitments to mobilizing capital through new and innovative structures that create transformative impact on women and girls. To join the movement, individuals and institutions are invited to sign the Orange Bond pledge available online here. Signatories will be invited to participate in upcoming events, transactions, and other ecosystem engagement opportunities including joining the Advisory Council and applying to be an Approved Certifier.

Why impact investing needs to be ‘decolonized’ to help the people most affected by climate change and inequity – Business Insider

 by Durreen Shahnaz

Right before the pandemic, I spoke at an impact investing conference in New York.

As the founder and CEO of Impact Investment Exchange, I’ve seen how much actual impact impact investing can have — and how it can reinforce old, problematic norms.

As usual, I was among the few women of color invited to speak alongside an otherwise white male panel. And as is typical for women of color at these conferences, I had to endure input on my choice of attire — being asked to avoid wearing an ethnic dress (a saree in my instance) — as well as the casual dismissals of my remarks and the general fawning over “distinguished white men.”

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Indonesia’s waste management start-ups make waves in just two years

Did you know that waste mismanagement poses a higher risk to oceans and rivers? Well-managed waste streams eliminate almost all risks of plastic waste ending up in the ocean.This means that when considering pollution from waste, per capita waste generation numbers are not the most effective metric to consider. 

Historically, Asia Pacific is one of the top generators of plastic waste, with China and Indonesia being the top two contributors worldwide, producing 8.82 million metric tons per year and 3.22 million metric tons per year respectively.

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OPINION: To build sustainable ocean economies, start by investing in women – Thomson Reuters Foundation

Some 60 million women work in the fishing industry, making up nearly half that global workforce. But women often do the least recognized and lowest paid jobs – collecting fish on the beach or working side-by-side in processing plants – and have little access to capital to start or grow their own businesses.

They face discrimination, hold few management positions and are underrepresented in decision-making groups about investments for sustainable fisheries. And yet evidence shows that when we invest in women, they are empowered to conserve and manage natural resources like our oceans, which yields better results than when they are excluded. READ MORE

IIX Foundation partners with Green Cross to bring women to the forefront of climate action

August 18, 2020 – SINGAPORE AND PANAMA –  IIX Foundation (IIX), a registered 501(c)3 organization dedicated to building a more inclusive world, has partnered with Green Cross (GC), a global non-governmental organization addressing the combined challenges of environmental security, poverty and environmental degradation, to bring women to the forefront of climate action.

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Bangladesh-based clean energy firm SOLshare successfully closes US$1.1M financing round with support from IIX Impact Partners 

SINGAPORE, 3 July 2020 – IIX Impact Partners – the world’s most successful debt and equity crowdfunding platform for impact investing – has supported Bangladesh-based off-grid solar energy firm SOLshare in closing a US$1.1 million financing round. Investors include innogy New Ventures LLC – the venture capital investment arm of the German utility firm innogy SE— the investment arm of Portuguese utility firm EDP Ventures, as well as new angel investors from around the world. Funding will be used to bring smart solar microgrids to off-grid, underserved communities in Bangladesh, putting SOLshare on track to positively impact 2.5 million people by 2023.

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