Impact investing – allocating capital to generate measurable social or environmental benefits alongside financial returns – has become a strategic choice for UHNWIs. Far from a passing trend, it aligns with their goals of creating lasting legacies while addressing pressing global challenges. This article explores five key reasons why.

For many wealthy families, philanthropy is a core value. Impact investing fulfills this mission while offering opportunities to grow wealth. Beyond these obvious benefits, impact investing addresses equally compelling but less apparent drivers: enhancing public reputation, aligning family values across generations, and strengthening portfolio resilience.

Together, these five reasons form a powerful framework for UHNWIs to achieve both personal and financial objectives in the 21st century:

1. Social returns

Impact investing allows UHNWIs to deliver measurable societal benefits while fulfilling their philanthropic aspirations. For example, investments in renewable energy projects can reduce carbon emissions by millions of tons. 

According to BloombergNEF’s Energy Transition Investment Trends 2025, investment in the low-carbon energy transition worldwide grew 11% to hit a record US$2.1 trillion in 2024. This massive capital deployment is fundamentally reshaping the global energy landscape. When US$728 billion flows into renewable energy and US$747 billion into electrified transport in a single year, the cumulative effect creates substantial emissions reductions. The sheer scale of this investment replaces carbon-intensive infrastructure with clean alternatives at unprecedented pace, creating measurable progress toward a cleaner, greener global economy.

2. Financial returns

Contrary to the misconception that social good compromises profit, impact investments can deliver competitive financial returns. Research published by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) at the end of 2024 showed that 88% of impact-focused investors in Asia were satisfied with their financial returns.

The numbers speak clearly: private equity impact investments averaged 20% returns in 2024, exactly meeting expectations. Impact investments in equity like debt and private debt actually exceeded expectations, respectively delivering 12% versus 10% expected and 10% versus 9% expected.

3. Public reputation

Impact investing can enhance the public image of wealthy families. By aligning their portfolios with global priorities like sustainability or social equity, UHNWIs gain recognition as forward-thinking philanthropists.

Younger philanthropists particularly embrace using technology and social media platforms to find, support, and promote causes aligned with their efforts to advance the greater good. This trend to publicise impact investing — alongside a growing focus on impact investing itself — was identified as one of four key philanthropic trends to watch in 2025 according to UBS.

4. Intergenerational alignment

According to PwC’s guide to impact investing for family offices, allocating capital according to social conscience is not a temporary trend that younger generations will abandon. Therefore, aligning with heirs on defining the greater good and how to work toward it is becoming essential for ensuring family legacy continuity — especially as portfolios are rebalanced and philanthropic strategies come under new leadership.

Impact investing can create a shared language and common purpose that bridges generational differences, ensuring family wealth serves consistent values across decades.

5. Risk mitigation

Impact investments often focus on sectors like renewable energy that tend to offset volatility in other sectors according to many analysts. Goldman Sachs research from 2024 identified advancing sustainable growth as a multi-decade megatrend. Goldman pointed to the rising volume of green, social, and sustainability (GSS) bond issuance — which reached just under US$1 trillion in 2024 — as evidence.

Government moves to promote sustainability remain consistently in the spotlight. Safeguarding the planet is a common theme at World Economic Forum meetings. As of 2025, publicly listed companies in the EU and USA must comply with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements. Such regulations create structural demand for sustainable investments.

Time: the essential foundation of successful impact investing

Without adequate time devoted to impact investing, wealthy families cannot deliver on its potential. Success requires dedicated time investment in three critical areas:

• Defining and measuring social returns takes extensive research and reflection. Investments that genuinely create meaningful change — from reducing carbon emissions to improving education access — require careful evaluation and measurement. Some degree of introspection is often necessary, as assessments of social good can be subjective and highly personal to each family.

• Ensuring competitive financial returns demands rigorous analysis. Impact investments must be measured according to objective criteria just like any other investment, requiring thorough due diligence and ongoing monitoring.

• Building family alignment requires ongoing dialogue. Whether or not families publicise their impact investing efforts, aligning all members — particularly those taking or inheriting decision-making responsibilities — around impact investing’s role in the family legacy is essential. Finding this alignment takes time through multiple conversations and often formal documentation.

Altoo: creating time for what matters most

The Altoo Wealth Platform automatically consolidates, analyses, and visualises data on all of a wealthy family’s assets — including impact investments in whatever form they take, such as public equities, private equity, or debt.

This automation creates significant time savings. Family decision-makers and their trusted advisers can save time on financial reporting through streamlined operational processes and intuitive dashboards. More importantly, they can spend increased time on the human aspects of impact investing as they are freed from copying data from statements, checking spreadsheet formulas, and handling other manual processes.

The platform also features secure digital messaging to ensure the right people have easy access to objective financial information when aligning around the aspects of impact investing that truly define a family’s legacy.

Ready to enhance your impact investing strategy? Schedule a demo today by reaching out to us at hello@altoo.io

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