Impact Dispatch - February 2026

As predicted at the top of the year, politicians and pundits across the globe continue to speak a lot about the affordability or cost of living crisis. As we settle into 2026, those headlines – and their underlying realities – remain top of mind. Whether you’re a farmer in France, a nurse in Namibia or a teacher in Thailand, chances are you’re grappling with the rising prices for food, medicine, transportation, housing, energy, childcare, and other everyday essentials, wherever you are in the world.

There’s a lot to discuss when it comes to addressing the affordability crisis, but what I want to focus on in today’s newsletter is the role that pension funds can play here, particularly by tapping into impact investing. Pensions represent the hard-earned savings of working people, and their mandate inherently spans decades — aligning naturally with long-term investments that strengthen economic resilience and household stability.

With approximately $100 trillion under management globally, pensions have a leadership opportunity to help get more solutions into the market that can help stabilize the affordability crisis – more affordable housing, more community health clinics, more economic development in rural and urban areas, more resilient and diversified energy and so on. These are all solutions that will support communities’ wellbeing, workforce stability, wage growth, and ultimately, long-term portfolio performance.

Pensions also hold a unique position in the capital markets ecosystem. As universal owners with diversified, multi-asset portfolios, they’re exposed to systemic risks that cannot be diversified away. This creates a powerful incentive to steward capital toward investments that strengthen the broader economy and the wellbeing of people. When pension capital is mobilized toward impact, it not only seeks competitive returns but also reinforces the economic foundations upon which beneficiaries depend.

So while impact investing is by no means a silver bullet to fixing the pervasive cost of living crisis, there is a natural alignment of impact investors’ thematic focuses (like housing, healthcare, energy) and some of the specific issues that are making life so expensive (like housing shortages, exorbitantly priced healthcare, skyrocketing energy costs and unreliable power grids). And there’s an even more obvious alignment of these issues with pension funds’ mandates to deliver for their beneficiaries. I’m confident this year we’re going to see this happen more and more.

In community, Amit

P.S. This month we’re introducing a new section to the Dispatch called “Money moves” where we’ll share some recent impact investing deals that stood out to us each month.

• Despite a tough fundraising market, major private equity firms like TPG, Brookfield, Apollo and KKR are successfully pulling billions from global pension funds and sovereign wealth platforms to finance massive climate and low carbon transition strategies.
• M&G announced an initiative that will leverage pension capital to invest more than £1bn into affordable housing, regeneration and innovative companies across the U.K. over the next three to five years.
• PIDG successfully exited its $26 million investment in InfraCredit Nigeria. Through its investment, “PIDG estimates it has provided 232 million people with access to new or improved infrastructure by supporting 258 infrastructure projects to financial close across its operations globally.”

• “Renewables are scaling fast because it’s become affordable and quick to deploy,” said Tara Laan, IISD’s renewable energy expert, in an article on why the world is switching to renewables faster than anyone expected.
• In the Impact Investing Institute’s second article in its four-part series on future-proofing institutional investment, it examines how global trends are making impact investing desirable for long-term portfolio resilience and growth.
• Nuveen announced it will acquire London-based Schroders in one of Europe’s largest ever asset management deals.
• Bfinance’s biennial global asset owner survey found that “27% of investors are engaged in impact strategies and a further 26% are planning to enter the space.”
• With global public spending constricted, wealth advisors are helping family offices and individuals rethink how to manage the intersection of impact and legacy, per FT Adviser.
• A recent report, endorsed by more than 150 countries, warns that the global focus on GDP growth has led to a decline in nature and necessitates the inclusion of biodiversity risks in investment decisions.
• European family offices are backing impact-focused startups – albeit quietly. Impact Loop reports on 55 family offices actively investing in climate and sustainability businesses.
• A Working Paper published by CGAP reviews how different countries have designed pension schemes for informal workers. It focuses on contributory schemes for the “missing middle”: informal workers who have sufficiently stable incomes to save for old age but lack access to suitable pension options.

• In the latest episode of Impact Now, Amit Bouri sits down with Erin Harkless Moore of Pivotal Ventures to discuss how to expand access to capital and strengthen innovation through disciplined investment strategies.
• Alonso Ortiz Galan, the GIIN’s director of corporate impact investing, recently published a review of recent trends in corporate impact investing, unpacking the latest data on how companies and corporate foundations have moved beyond corporate social responsibility initiatives to actively investing for impact.
• Asset owners continue to signal commitment to investing in effective and scalable climate solutions. Twenty-eight asset owners have joined the GIIN’s Climate Solutions Practitioner Working Group, which will help asset owners identify the most meaningful and effective climate solutions through framework testing, peer exchanges and real-world use-cases.

• We’re less than six weeks away from the GIIN’s annual gathering in San Francisco: the Investor Training on April 7 focusing on impact measurement and management, and the West Coast Impact Forum on April 8. See the agenda and speakers and register today.
• The GIIN’s annual Impact Investor Survey closes on March 31, 2026. This survey powers much of our research, helping to provide critical insights to the impact investing market. Participants will gain early access to key findings through exclusive webinars in 2026 and optional recognition in survey reports. Learn more and get started today.