Building the Impact Economy

This book develops a comprehensive framework for creating sustainable new business approaches on a massive scale. It relates the power of entrepreneurship, investment and technology to four areas in which progress is urgently needed to get out of the world’s current impasse. These are: game-changing innovations in companies; a way forward for the global fashion industry that reconciles competitiveness and worker dignity; turning around the energy crisis; and restoring capital markets to being the funders of human progress and prosperity that they once were—the pieces of the puzzle that is our future. Numerous case studies and actionable guidelines show how to concretely get the job done.

Maximilian Martin is the Founder and CEO of Impact Economy. His investment and advisory work as well as more than one hundred articles have helped define the trajectory of market-based solutions and the impact revolution in finance, business and philanthropy. He created Europe’s first global philanthropic services and impact investing department for UBS and the UBS Philanthropy Forum, as well as the first university course on social entrepreneurship in Europe at the University of Geneva. In 2013, he was invited to write the primer on impact investing “Status of the Social Impact Investing Market” for the UK G8 policy makers’ conference, which considered the potential and development options for this new branch of the financial industry. He holds an MA in anthropology from Indiana University, a MPA from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in economic anthropology from the University of Hamburg.