Impact Quotes

“Social impact’ refers to the improvement in the well-being of individuals and communities, and the enhancement in their ability to lead productive lives.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“The Business Roundtable is a powerful and conservative representative of big business that since 1997 has reinforced the idea that ‘corporations exist principally to serve shareholders’ – in other words, that business exists to make money. The 2019 statement upended that principle, suggesting that businesses have responsibilities not just to shareholders but to customers, employees, suppliers and communities. ‘Each of our stakeholders is essential,’ the statement read. ‘We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“This is relevant because impact can be measured even more dependably than risk and because, I believe, we are about to see it measured systematically in impact-weighted financial accounts, which will reflect a company’s impact and its financial performance at the same time. Once such accounts start to take hold, impact thinking will have a momentous effect, just as risk thinking did previously: investment portfolios will change to deliver measurable social and environmental impact alongside financial returns.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“As we saw in our discussion of impact ventures earlier, when we view the world through an impact lens, we discover opportunities to achieve higher growth and returns that we would otherwise pass by. In short, doing good can be excellent business.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“But impact can do more than reduce risk”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“Firstly, we avoid the risks that accompany investments that do harm: the risk of future regulation, taxation and even the prohibition of activities that could put a halt to business altogether.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“How can this be?”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“As impact investment managers show that they can deliver a desirable combination of impact and financial return, impact investment will become more than a moral choice – it will become a smart business decision. Investors will come to realize that we are able to increase returns not in spite of impact, but because of it.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“Our current system encourages decisions that are based on how to make as much money as possible with the lowest level of risk; we need to shift to a system that encourages making as much money as possible but in a way that is consistent with achieving the highest impact and with the lowest level of risk.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“Social impact’ refers to the improvement in the well-being of individuals and communities, and the enhancement in their ability to lead productive lives.1 It represents genuine social progress: educating the young, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, creating employment and providing livelihoods for the poor. ‘Environmental impact’ is just what it sounds like – the positive consequences that business activity and investment have on our planet. Put simply, are we preserving the planet and passing it on to future generations, so they can benefit from it and do the same?”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change

“In its simplest terms, impact is the measure of an action’s benefit to people and the planet. It goes beyond minimizing harmful outcomes to actively creating good ones by creating positive impact. It has social and environmental dimensions.”
― Ronald Cohen, Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change