Four leading impact investors - Rockefeller Foundation Managing Director and GIIN Board Chairman Antony Bugg-Levine, Triodos Investment Management Managing Director James Vaccaro, E+Co Chief Executive Officer Christine Eibs-Singer, and Acumen Fund Director Varun Sahni - the opportunities and challenges in the growing impact investing field.

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With the formation of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) last September, impact investing - for-profit investment to solve social or environmental problems - now has a recognised international platform. Four of the leading figures in the field debate where the sector currently stands and where it is headed.

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Antony Bugg-Levine (AB-L): Impact investors are much more concerned with the multiple returns they can generate with the capital available. We want to use our assets in the most effective way to achieve a wide range of social and financial returns. The assumption that impact investment returns are automatically below market rate is no longer valid. It's important for us to become sophisticated in thinking about how to deploy capital and recognise that it can create multiple returns, rather than seeing it as a trade-off between financial or social returns.

Christine Eibs-Singer (CE-S): E+Co provides loans to clients at the market rate and in most of the countries in which we're active, E+Co is their only source of access to finance. But as a financial intermediary, we also provide business development services that are covered through both concessional funds to E+Co and interest earned from the client.

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