Maaike Veen is an experienced financial journalist and active fundraiser for impact ventures. Together with Het Financieele Dagblad, she recently launched Impact Investor: a weekly newsletter for the impact investing sector.

In this introductory interview, Maaike explains how journalism and impact investing go hand in hand. 

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing impact investing today? 
I am optimistic about the possibilities of impact investing, but I also believe we need to be critical. I think we need to be wary of 'greenwashing' and 'impact washing', and be transparent about everything. That means not only focusing on what works, but also on what doesn’t work, so we can learn from our failures. For example, if we invest in wind turbines, solar parks, or large agricultural producers in an emerging market, does the local community benefit and are their rights taken into account? 

Another problem in the impact world is the hundreds of methodologies and measurement standards. I always tell my journalists that they should first find out how someone actually defines their impact, because different definitions can lead to huge misunderstandings. I think it is absolutely essential that we as a sector find some universally accepted terms, which will enable more clarity, better measurement tools, and transparent benchmarks.

What are the key elements for change? 
For me, change is not a black-and-white exercise. As a journalist, I want to look at all perspectives. It is an ongoing conversation in which we must keep both the small story and the bigger picture in mind. For example, organic food is great, but can you feed the world’s population with organic farming? And plastic packaging in supermarkets may seem pointless, but plastic can also help keep fruit and vegetables fresh longer, reducing food waste and honoring the precious resources needed to produce them.

I don’t believe that the acute and complex problem of climate change will be solved by simply telling people to eat organic, get rid of their cars, fly less, become vegetarian, and so on. There need to be more positive alternatives and a reconsideration of what is important to us. How can we consume less but better, how can we invest differently? And then there is the problem of elitism. People with low incomes may not be able to afford shopping at farmers’ markets or solar panels on their roofs. So we need to think bigger and more inclusively: large companies need to do business differently and governments need to set new rules. Only then can we ensure a sustainable future for our planet and its people. In the meantime, we must continue to investigate and explore, and refrain from too much preaching and judging. We can encourage everyone to make better choices, based on positive incentives rather than negative fearmongering. 

Which 'world problem' would you like to solve?
Personally, I am an advocate for nature conservation. Plants, trees, and animals have no voice, so I want to give them a voice by supporting great conservation projects. That’s why I served on the board of the Jane Goodall Institute in the Netherlands and am currently still working with the Black Jaguar Foundation, one of Brazil’s most ambitious reforestation projects, which is restoring the 2,600 km long Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor (between the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savannah). The very dedicated but small team has been working tirelessly on this for more than 8 years now, and I am in awe of them, their professionalism, the growing group of partners they attract, and their impact. They are now planting the first million native trees in collaboration with local landowners and are ready to scale up quickly. 

How do you see the future of impact?
Brave entrepreneurs and pioneering investors are showing us that we can go beyond no-damage and actually create positive impact. However, I believe the future of impact lies entirely in the hands of institutional funds, such as large pension funds. Once they (are able to) invest in impact, we can close the funding gap needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. 

What makes the Impact Investor Newsletter unique?
The more I work in this sector, the more I realize how niche the impact market still is within the world of investing, despite the growing attention. For example, there are still very few journalists specializing in this field and even fewer publications dedicated to this new expertise. There is Impact Alpha, but it is very financial and US-oriented. We are more European, and broader than just finance. So even though we are a trade publication, we steer clear of high-level strategic talk and exclusive jargon. We write from the perspective of the impact investor and try to bring the sector together by connecting people outside the financial world and the ‘deal’ with each other. This means we highlight the problems investors are trying to solve, focus on concrete investment examples, spot trends, and profile groundbreaking companies and investors.

What is the next step for 'Impact Investor'? 
What I love about this field is how open-minded people are, and how motivated they are to help each other. We bring this energy into our publication. Our curated information not only connects people to a larger community, but also to a bigger vision than just their area of focus. That’s why we recently decided to include links to external sources; we want to offer our readers more information, more depth than just the story in front of us, and continue to do so in the future. We want to give our readers a window into the field of impact investing. In some ways, I see it as a Google for impact; the first place to start your search! 

How did you become an (impact) journalist and start working with PYM? 
My journalistic journey began at the age of 13, during a visit to Berlin. I had learned about the Iron Curtain at school, but when I saw it in real life, I wanted to explore the world! So as soon as I got home, I subscribed to Newsweek and decided to become a journalist. After studying Economics and Journalism, I worked as a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal in the Netherlands. Between 2004 and 2013, I lived in London, where I swapped my job on Fleet Street for freelancing as the UK & Ireland correspondent for various Dutch media. Here, I also worked as an investment writer for a Financial Times publication aimed at institutional investors, where I first became acquainted with socially responsible investing.

Back in Amsterdam, I soon started using my journalistic skills in the impact investing world, from helping NGOs apply for institutional funds to working with small accelerators, startups, and business angels. After a while, I realized that there is a lot of information, but very few stories are published by independent media, and there is also no platform that provides a general overview of the sector as a whole. This led me to pitch Impact Investor to Het Financieele Dagblad (FD). During our first market research, I then met Frank van Beuningen and Edwin Backes. They were in the process of founding PYM and approached me to help launch the new foundation.