ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund presents “the True Value of Impact Investing” report

The ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund invests in North-West European companies, active in Energy, Built Environment and Sustainable Consumption, that seek both profit and positive and scalable impact. The Fund targets both young growth companies as well as more mature impact scale-ups. While the fund’s primary focus is on climate, threats to our natural environment and social conditions are also taken into consideration as these impact areas are interconnected. The fund makes investments of around EUR 5 to 30 million to support companies in their growth and to help them to realise impact by contributing to the sustainable transition of the economy. In the report an update is provided on the realised impact of 14 portfolio companies in 2023. “We are very proud of the results” says Tanja Kramer, head of the Sustainable Impact Fund, “the companies all demonstrate how you can achieve impact with innovative products or pioneering business models”.

The results are presented in euros, on basis of the value-based impact measurement approach that aims to make hidden societal costs and benefits visible, whether these occur in the production process, the value chain or in the wider ecosystem. Expressing impact in euros, based on the estimated (hidden) societal costs and benefits, makes impact more tangible for entrepreneurs and investors. It provides them with a simple and familiar metric to steer on. Taking into account that the methodology is still in development, expressing impact in euros will progressively increase the comparability between companies as well as between different impact areas such as avoided carbon emissions, waste reduction or improved well-being.

Aggregated to fund level, the portfolio companies facilitated an estimated EUR 325 million in impact in 2023. This is also called positive marginal impact, as it is mainly realised by reducing negative impact, in other words, by reducing societal costs.

Contact information and background

The ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund is a 100% subsidiary of ABN AMRO, but operates separately from the bank's operations, separated by a Public/Private Information Wall. With Euro 500mln investable capital, the fund is one of the largest private impact funds in the Netherlands. It makes investments in impact companies based in North-West Europe. Its primary focus is on climate and decarbonisation, i.e. helping to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. In doing so, it invests in three main areas: Energy, the built environment and sustainable consumption. In addition to CO2, other impact indicators are also looked at. In the first place because of the interdependency between climate and other important impact areas such as living environment, biodiversity and social issues, but also to bring impact risks into focus and to prevent that, for example, a too narrow focus on CO2 reduction leads to new risks in other areas.

ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund

Emily Santschi, emily.santschi@abnamro-privateequity.nl

Eric Buckens, eric.buckens@abnamro-privateequity.nl

Read “The True Value of Impact Investing”, edition 2024