Meet the Impact 20: Impact returns are ‘not based on speculation’

Bobby Turner of Turner Impact Capital believes the private markets industry will benefit from having a clearer definition of investing to make an impact.

One of the main challenges facing the impact investing space is private fund managers’ ability to demonstrate how capital is being used for social good, according to Bobby Turner, founder of Turner Impact Capital.

“There has been a tsunami of capital that’s entered the social impact space, and there is still an equal amount of scepticism and confusion about how to define it,” Turner told New Private Markets in an interview.

According to Turner, impact investing is a “risk filter that is based on the premise that organisations incorporating socially responsible practices […] will outperform those that don’t”. Turner said his firm seeks to explain to investors three metrics of how their investments are making an impact: the upside financial return, the environmental footprint and the social impact.

Turner Impact Capital, which ranked 7th in our inaugural Impact 20 ranking with $1.12 billion raised over a five-year period, invests in themes covering healthcare, housing and education. A portion of our conversation with Turner is highlighted in the video above and features him explaining how Turner Impact Capital approaches the challenge of defining impact as a good opportunity for investors.

The Impact 20 ranking measured final or official interim fundraising closes held between January 2016 and March 2021. The ranking uses the GIIN’s definition of impact, which considers investments that are made “with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return”.

This article is part of our Meet the Impact 20 series profiling the managers featured in the ranking. View our previous post here to learn how Nino Tronchetti Provera has applied his environmental thesis to investing at Ambienta.