The UK - A Centre of Excellence in Impact Investing

Clear mission

The UK is a well-established one-stop shop for green finance: London ranks first in the Global Green Finance Index; and the UK was the first G20 country to make Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TFCD) aligned reporting mandatory across the economy, amongst many other commitments to sustainability during the COP27 presidency. In parallel, the UK has been nurturing impact finance, with a clear mission to develop and grow a robust impact investing market.

Knowledge and expertise

According to an academic database of over 406 million papers, there are nearly 30,000 articles on impact investing published by UK institutions and authors across the database. This is the largest number of articles compared to other European countries, speaking to the powerhouse of knowledge the UK is on impact investing.

The UK has leading institutes on philanthropy, social impact, sustainability, policy units and research centres dedicated to the study of social investment, impact investing and the impact economy.

Scale

Metrics such as assets under management, breadth of investors and number of stakeholders involved illustrate the scale of the market.

The UK is a well-established finance centre, with a sophisticated and large pool of investors. This creates an enabling environment which can allow innovative investment practice, such as impact investment, to thrive.

Leading talent

Impact VC’s community was founded in the UK and has grown to 800+ impact orientated venture capital investors globally, with a majority based in the UK. 

The UK has a range of well-respected and collaborative initiatives looking to disseminate information and best practice to enable broader market growth. The Oxford Impact Investing Programme was the first global impact investing executive education programme in the world and was developed in 2013, highlighting the UK’s expertise in developing high calibre impact talent.

Capacity building

In disseminating information for broader market growth, the UK has a range of well-respected and collaborative initiatives..

London is a leading financial centre which people look to for expertise and professional development, thus further enabling capacity-building platforms and resources for impact investing to exist.