While companies that have a positive environmental or social impact are critical to driving sustainable growth, many of these companies, and particularly the smaller ones, face difficulties in accessing and attracting funding. Where more common financing channels (such as bank loans and bonds issued by large corporations with steady cashflows and deep balance sheets) may not be available, PE/VC could provide at-risk capital for many of these young, often innovative companies.

This IFC paper focuses on key aspects of sustainable PE/VC market development and deployment.3 It discusses (1) why sustainable PE/VC is a useful tool to catalyze other types of capital to achieve sustainability objectives, (2) best practices and lessons learned from the experiences of knowledge partners, (3) the main barriers to further developing the sustainable PE/VC market, and (4) options for countries to voluntarily consider or adopt to overcome these barriers.