Assets under management in the impact and ESG space are close to an all-time high, somewhere between $1.5 and $1.6 trillion. So why is capital actually leaving the sector? In this episode of the State of Sustainability, host Saif Hameed takes a detour from resilience and volatility to dig into what's going wrong, and where the genuine opportunities still exist.

The short answer: the industry has an identity problem. ESG labels get applied to mainstream tech stocks on the basis that they carry low environmental risk. Returns across impact funds are wildly inconsistent and the gap between what the sector promises and what it can actually deliver has become impossible to ignore.

Saif traces how impact investing developed along two tracks. Private markets had early pioneers like the Acumen Fund building something genuinely mission-led. Public markets then borrowed the language through ESG frameworks, with rather looser results.

Three lessons from that history:
ESG was never designed to do this job. It emerged in the 1990s as a risk-assessment tool, not as a valid basis for investment inclusion. Retrofitting it into a mainstream strategy was always going to cause problems.

The trade-off question needs an honest answer. You cannot simultaneously maximise financial returns and social impact without giving something up. The industry has spent years avoiding that conversation.

Measurement doesn't scale. Comparing affordable housing projects with renewable energy infrastructure under a single performance framework produces numbers that mean very little.

Where does that leave things? Saif argues the sector needs a significant rebrand and a serious recalibration of financial expectations. But there are three areas where impact investing still has real potential: generating brand equity and strategic value for corporate venture capital; venture philanthropy, where charitable capital gets recycled for compounding impact rather than disappearing into operational costs; and catalytic first-loss capital inside blended finance structures run by multilateral development institutions.

The through-line: accepting below-market returns might be the only way to preserve what impact investing was actually supposed to be.

What are your thoughts on this? I'd love to hear from you. Email Saif@altruistiq.com

Ready to transform your sustainability reporting? Start your journey at Altruistiq.com

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

What if the secret to unbreakable supply chain resilience isn't squeezing your suppliers for the lowest price, but actively paying them to heal the planet?

In this episode of the State of Sustainability, host Saif Hameed is joined by David Croft, former sustainability lead at Reckitt, Diageo, Waitrose, and Cadbury, to explore the critical shift from short-term agility to long-term resilience in global supply chains.

David shares his extensive experience in building sustainable procurement strategies, emphasising the 'triple win' concept: an approach that delivers value for the business, the supplier, and the planet.

A core focus of their discussion is the changing dynamic between large organisations and primary producers, such as farmers in the cocoa and latex industries. By rewarding sustainable land management, such as nature-based solutions that sequester carbon or prevent downstream flooding, companies can secure reliable, high-quality resources while mitigating significant ecological and financial risks.

Ultimately, this episode offers a compelling look at how addressing environmental externalities head-on is no longer just a compliance exercise, but a fundamental driver of future business growth and resilience.

What are your thoughts on this? I'd love to hear from you. Email Saif@altruistiq.com

Ready to transform your sustainability reporting? Start your journey at Altruistiq.com

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

Just 25% of industry experts believe the standalone sustainability function will exist in five years. So what is the next great frontier for sustainability leaders?

In this episode, host Saif Hameed asks a provocative question fresh from hosting the Chicago State of Sustainability Summit: Will corporate sustainability functions still exist in five years? To help answer, Saif breaks down the three massive shifts currently challenging the sustainability professional's day-to-day workflow.

First, integrating green goals into mainstream roles means CFOs, procurement officers, and supply chain teams are absorbing sustainability tasks - a double-edged sign of success.

Second, rapid advancements in automation and agentic AI is likely to completely overtake routine tasks like carbon accounting, data aggregation, and stakeholder reporting in the coming years.

Finally, a macro backlash against corporate sustainability has stifled the ambitious blue sky thinking that characterised the late 2010s, leaving behind more mundane compliance work.

The good news, as Saif explains, is an exciting new horizon for the profession: Volatility Management. Driven by geopolitical conflicts and the terrifying reality that seven of our nine planetary boundaries are now breached, businesses face unprecedented high price variability in crucial commodities like rice, wheat, and cocoa. True business resilience now requires constant transformation and stabilisation to survive these shocks.

Saif explains how sustainability professionals can secure their future by repositioning themselves as volatility managers. By leveraging their three bedrock skills - systems thinking, data insight, and storytelling - and combining them with deep business context, sustainability experts can build the crucial playbooks CEOs need to navigate an increasingly unpredictable world.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you already pivoting towards volatility management as a way of insulating yourself from these developments in the sustainability space? I'd love to hear from you. Email Saif@altruistiq.com

Ready to transform your sustainability reporting? Start your journey at Altruistiq.com

This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.