Mission Markets’ Exchange to Grow Impact Investing

Mission Markets is looking to mature and grow impact investing with the creation of a centralized marketplace that connects social and environmental stakeholders, says its founder and CEO Michael Van Patten.

Launched in July, the Earth Exchange is the first exchange to support multiple environmental credits and conservation, finance mechanism transactions in one centralized web-based marketplace.

The platform is a more holistic view of impact investing, according to Van Patten, who says the sector is challenged with too many silos.

“Currently, we have social markets and environmental markets, and they tend to be very separate but these are clear impact investment opportunities,” he says. “By putting them together you are enabling investors to have much more diverse portfolio and have access to multiple types of social and environmental investments in many geographic regions in many sectors and sub sectors.”

Investors are able to view each organization’s business model, mission and sustainability or environmental impact, which is verified by a third-party certification. Mission Markets is also facilitating online meetings where an issuer can present their business model to investors to promote greater interest in the enterprise.

The platform currently has 160 members and Mission Markets is looking to market the opportunities to more investors. The New York City-based firm that is B Corp. certified is also developing new products and will support various pilot programs within the environmental markets including tradable biomass units, natural resource damage credits and fisheries bycatch credits.

Bringing together the many streams of impact investing is one of several ways to contribute to the effectiveness of the social finance sector. Van Patten adds that developing a common measurement tool to assess impact investments is also needed.

“Just because it is a different segment doesn’t mean that the underlying impact cannot be measured by a fairly standard baseline,” he says.

Mission Markets is also working with other organizations to “think through” how to create more investment opportunities for social enterprise. This includes enabling companies to underwrite their own public offering that could be listed on platforms like Mission Markets.

Participation from a number of different firms will be key to growing the sector to its fullest potential, says Van Patten, who points to a recent J.P. Morgan report that estimates the sector’s investment potential to be a large as $1 trillion over the next decade.

“We believe we can scale these markets and take it to the next level but we can’t do it alone, we need collaboration from other parties,” says Van Patten.

To learn more about Mission Markets, click here.

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