Bridges’ CEO and co-founder Michele Giddens has been awarded the Hall of Fame award at the 2026 Real Deals Sustainable Investment Awards.

The award recognises Michele’s contribution to the growth of sustainable and impact investing since she co-founded Bridges in 2002. When Bridges launched, the idea that an investor could target both financial returns and positive outcomes for people and planet was still a niche view. Over the following two decades, Bridges helped shape how the industry thinks about sustainability and impact, including through the creation of the Spectrum of Capital and the Impact Management Project, and through its work on UK and G7 task forces.

Accepting the award this week at The Tower Hotel in London, Michele said she was doing so on behalf of the whole Bridges Group team, as well as the wider community that has driven the sector’s growth over the years. She thanked the private equity firms that supported Bridges in its early days and the LPs who have backed the firm over the years, some of them since day one.

Michele acknowledged that sustainable and impact investing faces a more challenging political climate today. But, she argued, since factors like climate risk, energy usage and resilience demonstrably affect the financial value of companies – and are therefore central to good investing – she remains very positive about the future of the sector.

“Some may see this as a time to step back. We think it’s a time for investors to step up,” she said. “The next 25 years matter even more than the last.”