IMAP Lunch Seminar: Measuring Impact to Unlock Capital for Energy Access

More than 700 million people worldwide – primarily in rural regions of developing nations – remain unserved by electricity grids, thus impeding their ability to climb up from the bottom of the economic pyramid.

While innovative business models can viably deliver off-grid solar products to low-income households excluded from traditional utility grids, the deployment of these models is hampered by financing challenges. More than just a scarcity of capital, there is a misalignment between the conventional financial metrics used by traditional investors and the social value created by solar enterprises – the outcomes of greatest interest to impact investors, but far less well-measured. Questrom Lecturer Richard Stuebi and MBA student Jesse Colman investigated Soluz Honduras – a pioneering off-grid solar company with decades of experience – which has developed innovative financing mechanisms for their off-grid solar solutions to bridge the social investment gap. The notion of “impact return” may be the conceptual link needed to unlock more social investment. By advancing measurement frameworks that more fully and clearly incorporate educational, health, and community gains alongside financial performance, we hope that greater magnitudes of impact-driven capital can be attracted to enterprises that aim towards ending energy poverty and supporting other forms of sustainable development.

In this IMAP seminar, Richard Stuebi and Jesse Colman will discuss their recent fieldwork with Soluz and the implications of the impact return concept on the field of social impact investing.