David Rouch is a financial services partner at Freshfields with expertise in sustainable investing. He is the author of the “Social Licence For Financial Markets: Reaching For The End And Why It Counts” (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), as well as the co-author of “A Legal Framework For Impact: Sustainability Impact in Investor Decision-making” – a report commissioned by UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Principles for Responsible Investment and The Generation Foundation and published by Freshfields. The report contains ground-breaking analysis on the extent to which legal frameworks enable investors to consider impact in their activities across 11 jurisdictions: the EU, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, UK and the US.

In this episode, David provides an overview of the report. He explains what “investing for sustainability impact” (“IFSI”) means; and how it differs from other forms of sustainable investing, such as ESG. He sets out, in broad terms, the findings in the report.

Resources: You can access the “Legal Framework for Impact” report, here. You can learn more about David’s work, here.