By Lionella Pezza, Director of Impact Research and Mary Beth Gallagher, Director of Engagement. Excerpted from Second Quarter 2025 Impact Update.
Universal human dignity is one of the fundamental goals of our Impact Investment Standards, and we believe supporting access to essential products and services—especially for vulnerable segments of the population—is crucial to achieving that goal.
The Domini Funds broadly seek to invest in companies and other issuers that provide products and services designed to help meet people’s basic needs, such as housing, medicine, clean energy, and communication technologies. We have established universal key performance indicators (KPIs), which we apply across all our evaluations, to help identify investments that can help fill gaps in access to these needs. These KPIs also help us avoid investments that contribute to institutionalized discrimination or disproportionately harm low-income or marginalized groups, such as companies with predatory lending practices or that provide surveillance and facial recognition technologies linked to discrimination.
KPIs around access are especially relevant within certain industries. For example, we seek to invest in banks that support access to capital and financial inclusion through responsible lending for affordable housing, small businesses, and segments of the population that have been historically underserved by traditional financial institutions. We also favor pharmaceutical companies that develop drugs for rare and acute conditions, including neglected tropical diseases, and that score well on the Access to Medicine Index, which evaluates and ranks companies based on their efforts to improve access to medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics in in low-and middle-income countries.
Fixed-income investing, in particular, provides many opportunities for investors to help fill access gaps and support the provision of public goods, which provide a foundation for healthy communities. The Domini Impact Bond Fund has a long history of promoting access through investments in affordable housing, non-profit hospitals and universities, public transportation, water and sanitation services, and much more.
While access is essential to our goal of universal human dignity, we also view it as a strategic advantage for business and for the economy overall. By expanding access to their goods and services, companies can reach new customers and gain access to new markets and resources, including potential new business partners. This helps fuel innovation in the development of new products and services, which can in turn attract more new customers. Such diversification of customers and products reduces business risks and increases long-term growth potential. Furthermore, by committing to access and centering principles of equity and non-discrimination in their business models, companies can better avoid potential controversies around discrimination and associated legal, financial, and reputational risks. Finally, by expanding access, companies can also help create more economic opportunity for broader segments of the population, which fosters more inclusive and sustainable economic growth to the benefit all.
As active owners, when we do identify barriers to access caused by challenges around affordability or discrimination, we view it as an opportunity for engagement. We recognize that, for many companies, there may be inherent tensions in their business models between the goals of maximizing profit and providing universal access. However, if companies proactively work to develop solutions to these challenges, they will be more likely to thrive in the long term. This is especially paramount for companies that provide products and services that are essential to basic human needs.
With the Domini Impact Bond FundSM, you can help build strong, sustainable communities by directing capital to where it’s needed most. The Fund seeks to lend money to borrowers and projects that create public goods for those most in need, fill capital gaps left by current financial practices, and increase access to capital for communities historically underserved by the mainstream financial community.
Therefore, many of our engagements focus on access to medicine, water, housing, and financial services. We seek explicit policies and commitments, as well as reporting that demonstrates how companies are actively working to meet them. By supporting efforts to expand access to essential products and services, companies and investors can play an important role in building a more inclusive and sustainable economy, one in which human dignity is universal.