Despite the efforts made by public and private actors throughout its recent history, Latin America continues to face significant social and environmental challenges. Evidence of this is the gap that separates it from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. This situation has created a broad opportunity for impact investing, an investment strategy whose objective is precisely to contribute to solving these challenges, while seeking financial returns and measuring and managing the impact on people and the planet.
With that motivation, IDB Invest, Latimpacto, and Esade Center for Social Impact joined forces to conduct a study on the current reality of the impact investing market in Latin America.
The study describes the trends observed throughout the research and the opportunities this market offers investors. It also proposes ways to enhance market development while maintaining the rigor surrounding the concept of impact investing.
Given the region's size and heterogeneity, this study represented a worthwhile challenge to contribute to generating a Latin American narrative around impact investing and boosting this market in the region. It aims to serve as a guide and invitation to those who want to consider this investment strategy and to those who have already successfully pursued this path.
As part of the study, 27 interviews were conducted with key market players and the existing literature on the topic in the region was thoroughly reviewed.
This executive summary presents the main conclusions of the research, preceded by a useful reflection on the definition of impact investing and how this investment strategy relates to others, such as sustainable, responsible, or ESG investing.
