‘The Bridges Spectrum of Capital’ is our attempt to map out the broad range of risk/return strategies that exist within sustainable and impact investing – and to explain how that relates to the capital markets more generally. Our thesis is that these categories fit into a broader spectrum of capital, ranging from traditional investment on the one hand to philanthropy on the other – and that along this spectrum there are a number of different strategies for investors to adopt, depending on their desired risk, return and impact profile.

We first published a version of this spectrum in 2013, as part of our annual impact report. Since then it has been widely used and referred to across the sector – including in the final report of the G8 Social Investment Taskforce in 2014. This is a  slightly updated version of that original spectrum, revised to reflect our latest thinking.

Since 2002, Bridges has developed a number of different fund types, operating in different areas of this spectrum and targeting different investor profiles (as we also highlight in this report).

You can access the short paper here.