57: Impact The Right Way: No Green Washing

Guest bio

Marie Puaux is Head of Impact Management at Bamboo Capital Partners. She is passionate about social innovation and helping organizations improve their impact. 

Prior to joining Bamboo, she worked in Corporate Social Responsibility within two multinational companies in France and in the U.S. She also worked in Sustainability Consulting, supporting companies in the design of strategies and projects related to social & environmental sustainability, and in Microfinance with an international NGO in France and an MFI in India.

Marie holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from ESSEC Business School, where she majored in Social Entrepreneurship. Her major thesis focused on companies’ ‘Base of the Pyramid’ strategies and their impact on informal economy in low- and middle-income countries. 

Bamboo Capital

Bamboo Capital Partners is an impact investing platform which provides innovative financing solutions to businesses in emerging markets serving the needs of low- and middle income populations, thus catalysing lasting impact. 

We bridge the gap between seed and growth stage funding through a full suite of finance options – from debt to equity – which we activate unilaterally or through strategic partnerships. Bamboo is a partner of Palladium, a global impact firm with operations in 90 countries.

Key Points 

• Investing in best in class impact and more than just from an ESG standpoint.
• Two components when assessing investmentee in funds 
  • Delivers positive impact
  • Prevents negative impact
• Investment focus
  • Financial inclusion
  • Access to clean energy
  • Affordable health care to low income population
  • Care SheTrades Fund for women empowerment
  • ABC Fund for small holder farmers in Africa - Agribusiness Fund as part of International Fund for Agricultural Development
  • Investments of 250k to 3-4 million
• The balance of investments that are high impact but do not to burden investee company on reporting
• Key to managing impact measure - Define impact metrics and defining lists of indicators, have conversations with investee at the start of investment, capturing operational data, eg. having a methodology to estimate CO2 avoided. Measuring impact to end beneficiary using deep dive impact studies and questionnaires
• Advice on designing impact funds - 
  • Define the impact ambition and impact thesis
  • Key barrier is that for investors there is a need for high liquidity, making ticket size smaller. E.g. having flexible note issuance programs
  • Develop blended finance mechanism to derisk private sector investment with faster range of public and philanthropic nature investments

Timestamps
[4:26] What is sustainable and impact investing to you?

[5:50] ESG approach vs impact investing

[9:24] Bamboo Capital and partnership with Palladium Global Impact

[11:30] History of Bamboo Capital and investment thesis

[14:11] Focus on emerging and frontier markets with strong on financial inclusion 

[16:10 ] New Impact Assists, partnering with Care and International Trade Center

[24:00] Marie Puaux’s role at Bamboo Capital

[25:43] Working with UN CDF teams on impact measure and reporting

[26:43] Working with NGOs for technical assistance

[28:57] Investment Management Framework

[29:43] Capturing data for measuring impact from company and end beneficiaries

[34:26] Impact Management Framework

[36:25] Aligning impact breakdown to SDGs

[37:54] How does Bamboo puts it all together

[41:00] First ste