New York investment firm Cornerstone Capital Group has launched an impact fund to help investors drive forward the UN’S sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The Cornerstone Capital Access Impact Fund (CCIIX) is an all-cap, global thematic fund which allocates its assets among multiple investment managers whose strategies employ ESG criteria.
Focussed on long-term capital appreciation, the fund’s assets are allocated across six critical themes including health, wellness and education, climate and clean energy, innovation and economic opportunity, reduced inequalities and social justice, and data-driven solutions. The minimum investment for the fund is $1,000.
The fund’s team said these themes were chosen to advance the SDGs laid out by the United Nations in 2015.
“The Access Impact Fund democratizes impact investing by giving all investors access to investment strategies that have traditionally been the domain of institutions and wealthy individuals,” Erika Karp, founder and CEO of Cornerstone Capital Group and portfolio co-manager of CCIIX said.
“We were driven to launch this fund by the urgency of the challenges we face ahead and the vast human, environmental, and financial costs of inaction. We are very excited to be launching this fund, which we consider unique in the market in terms of its structure, quality and creative blend of diversification and thematic focus,” Karp added.
The impact fund follows the launch of Cornerstone’s Access Impact Framework earlier this year which measures and reports on how investments facilitate access to the systems and resources required to achieve the SDGs.
According to Cornerstone, the issue of access represents the single common denominator to moving capital to achieve the SDGs.
“Measurement is a critical aspect of impact investing and yet, historically, investors have struggled to understand the societal implications of their investments,” Karp said at the time. “We created the Access Impact Framework to provide clients with a way to understand how their investments align with the issues that matter most to them.”
