Innovations in Social Finance

Our world is experiencing increasingly complex social and environmental challenges. The prevailing business models and, to some extent, capitalism per se, are frequently blamed for these problems due to their neglect of social and environmental values in favour of financial returns. Within this context, social finance has attracted the attention of governments, organizations, entrepreneurs, and researchers as a means of mobilizing resources and innovation with the goal of establishing effective long-term solutions. This edited collection summarizes, discusses, and analyzes new innovative trends in social finance. It features contributions that aim to highlight emerging trends (products, tools, and processes) in social finance, present a series of case studies related to the development, deployment, and scaling of social finance innovations, offer an understanding of how non-economic externalities are being incorporated, managed, and assessed in recent innovations, reveal the disruptive potential of social finance innovations by analyzing how they are redefining mainstream finance, analyze the scales – of operation and impact – of different innovations, and explore the complex relationship between social finance and social innovation. Featuring contributions from both the research and practitioner community as well as policy actors, the book provides more than a snapshot of the current social finance field by specifically highlighting the major challenges and difficulties that require the urgent attention of policymakers and social entrepreneurs. Thomas Walker is a full professor of finance at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He previously served as an associate dean, department chair, and director of Concordia’s David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise. Prior to his academic career, he worked for firms such as Mercedes Benz, KPMG, and Utility Consultants International. He has published over 70 journal articles and books. Jane McGaughey is an associate professor of diaspora studies at Concordia University’s School of Irish Studies, holding a PhD in Irish history from the University of London. Her research focuses on the intersections of historical and contemporary migration, gender, and ethnic discrimination. Sherif Goubran is an instructor in the Department of Architecture (School of Sciences and Engineering) at the American University in Cairo. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Individualized Program (INDI) at Concordia University, where he is conducting interdisciplinary research on sustainability in the built environment within the fields of design, building engineering, and real estate finance. Nadra Wagdy is an associate consultant at CID Consulting in Egypt. She is contributing to the development and scaling of an Extended Producer Responsibility program, working with the informal waste sector. She has extensive experience supporting cooperatives and not-for-profit organizations across their development phases: starting from validating their business plan and governance model to scaling-up their operations.