Leading by example: how Heading for Change and its portfolio funds are focused on impact at the climate-gender nexus
From top left: Samantha Anderson (Heading for Change), Camilla Nestor (MCE Social Capital/MESA Fund), Zuleyma Bebell (ImpactAlpha), David Bank (ImpactAlpha), Shally Shanker (AiiM Partners), Rose Maizer (Heading for Change), Noramay Cadena (Supply Change Capital)
“To lean into the future a bit, we’d like to say that when we have met the climate challenge, any reverse engineering at that point would show that women were a key factor. And we’ve seen that for years at ImpactAlpha, across all of our coverage and hundreds of deals and dozens of funds.” This was how ImpactAlpha’s Founder David Bank kicked off the Agents of Impact call with Heading for Change on 15 November 2023, acknowledging the late Suzanne Biegel’s leadership in revealing material connections between the two impact themes.
“We’ve got to have aggressive, bold targets and actions’, Suzanne had said at a previous Agents of Impact Call on the same subject, held (like this one) shortly before COP. “Now is the moment. And we are so lucky that anybody coming into this now gets to benefit from all the examples, all the fund managers, the intermediaries and advisors [already doing this work']. “
“Suzanne knew better than anyone that to rise to the occasion of tackling climate change with the efficacy and the urgency that we so desperately need, we have to fully utilize women’s insights and intelligence and experiences’”
Giving investors the benefit of those funds and examples - and the investment thesis behind them - was the focus of the Heading for Change call, in service of Suzanne’s vision and commitment to build a demonstration portfolio bold and inspirational enough to shift the wider market. “Suzanne knew better than anyone that to rise to the occasion of tackling climate change with the efficacy and the urgency that we so desperately need, we have to fully utilize women's insights and intelligence and experiences’, said Director of Investments Rose Maizer. “And so we created an investment strategy, and a thesis that really centered women as the ones who are developing and activating and scaling climate solutions.”
Thesis in action: The funds
Noramay Cadena (Supply Change Capital) talked about their "full stack diversity" approach - across investors, team, services providers, and portfolio companies, which focus on culture, climate and food systems. "Women are really the backbone of the food and agricultural system,' said Cadena. "In the US specifically, they account for 38% of agricultural sales and 43% of foreign land. So down to the root, women are deeply involved." Cadena then introduced women-founded investee Compound Foods, which is disrupting the coffee industry with its beanless coffee alternative Minus.
MCE's Camilla Nestor - of MESA fund, which provides debt capital to agribusinesses with a focus on rural economies - talked about investee Uncommon Cacao. The company meets all 2X Criteria and promotes female participation throughout the value chain and transparent supply chain. And across the MCE portfolio, they have noticed "a handful of really amazing female-founded and female-led companies in our small and growing agribusiness portfolio. And those are some of the strongest companies in terms of adopting climate-smart agricultural approaches."
“Women are really the backbone of the food and agricultural system”
Finally, Shally Shanker spoke about AiiM Partners, a climate change fund investing in high impact solutions across traditionally-overlooked climate sectors. One opportunity area the fund has identified with a dual climate and gender lens is in innovative textiles: the sector accounts for 7% of GHG emissions. Investee NFW has developed the world's first plastic-free leather alternative, which has outsized negative impacts on women's health and safety (much of the dyeing happens in the Global South and produces toxic runoff). Shally confessed that their gender and social equity lens was not originally intentional. “A couple of years ago, somebody casually asked me what percentage of our portfolio had women founders, people of color, or women in senior positions. I was honestly surprised it was 60% because we were just looking for the best possible companies. So we took a step back and decided to make it a very intentional part of the process.”
Looking ahead
Over the coming months, the Heading for Change investment team will be working with portfolio funds to deepen the integration of climate and gender, as well as investing in further funds that align with their investment criteria and thesis.
“Suzanne wanted nothing more than to move the money’, echoed Heading for Change’s Samantha Anderson. “So I invite you today to do just that. If you're not yet a Donor-Partner, please join us to learn and get a front row seat into our methodology and our process. Co-invest in the funds we’re investing in and really accelerate the change that we need to see in the world.”