ESG vs Impact vs BAM investing

Hello, I’m Stewart, CEO of Harvard Grace

Happy Wednesday! Usually, I talk about real estate investing topics on Wednesday, but today I want to start out with something a little bit broader. The wider range of investing in general receives a lot of talk and a lot of buzz. I want to talk about the differences between ESG investing and impact investing. We’ll also talk about a subset of impact investing that’s near and dear to my heart called bam investing, which stands for, businesses as missions. 

First ESG investing is similar in nature. ESG stands for environmental, sustainability, and governance. Obviously, the environment is worried about climate care and a good stewardship of planetary resources. Sustainability is similar, but it’s meant to do things in an efficient and sustainable way. That also applies to people and not wearing people out as many businesses tend to do. Governance, an ESG business is one that has a representative from all stakeholders of a business in the governing positions of that operation. 

Conversationally, impact investing  has been around a little bit longer than the buzzwords of ESG. Although ESG is a combination of a lot of issues and concerns that have been around for a long time, impact investing can be more specific impact.

Investing can be putting money into a nonprofit. Wikipedia says impact investors actively seek to place capital in businesses, nonprofits, and funds in industries, such as renewable industry, basic services, including housing, healthcare, education, microfinance, and sustainable agriculture. Their impact investor is trying to use their capital to solve a social wrong that concerns them. Whether microbiome is the perfect example, it’s giving access to people who generally don’t have access to banking by giving them access to loans so that they can use that capital to build a business and make their lives better through capitalism.

Now, near and dear to my heart, as I said, is bam investing. And it’s certainly a form of impact investing, but bam investing is generally governed by the four P’s.

Bam stands for business as missions. It is a Christian movement in which the four P’s stand for each organization. Those are the quadruple bottom line and the four bottom lines are represented by the P’s. First one is God’s purpose. The second one is God’s people. The third is God’s planet. The fourth is God’s prophet. Bam investing recognizes that all we have belongs to God and that we are called into leadership of organizations and to be employers. We  are to steward every single bit of that from our customers to our suppliers, our employees, to the natural resources that we consume in that business. We’re to steward those as if they belong to God, which of course that they do.

If you have  any questions, I would love to engage with you on these topics. Please share your thoughts! Let’s have a discussion. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you around.