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What If Canada’s Capital Actually Matched Its Values?
- Indra Sarju
- May 13
- 3 min read
Updated: 15 minutes ago
If we told you that over two-thirds of Canadian impact investments are meeting or exceeding market returns, would you still think impact comes at a cost?
A new report from SVX offers a rare look under the hood of Canada’s impact investing landscape, and the takeaway is clear: We’re not short on capital, we’re short on alignment, data, and shared purpose.
This post breaks down what the Spring 2025 SVX Impact Investing Market Performance Report tells us, why it matters for those shaping Canada’s economy, and what’s next if we want to truly match our dollars with our values.
The Tension: A Market Ready to Grow, But Still Fragmented
Despite decades of work, Canada's impact investing market is still flying partially blind. While $15B in assets under management is no small feat, the SVX report points to underreported geographies, fragmented impact measurement, and a disconnect between capital availability and capital accessibility, especially for equity-deserving groups.
There’s a foundational tension at play: Impact investing is growing but without a shared infrastructure it risks reinforcing existing silos and capital gaps.
A Case in Point: The Duality of Canada's Impact Market
SVX’s analysis reveals a split personality in the Canadian impact investing space:
On one side, community bonds and fixed-income instruments are flourishing—safe, steady, and highly localized.
On the other, large, institutional funds dominate the capital pool, focusing on scalable ventures like climate tech and infrastructure.
This dual-track ecosystem serves both grassroots and growth—but begs the question: who’s still being left out?
One telling stat: Just 21% of products explicitly prioritize racial equity, and only 11% name Indigenous inclusion as a mandate. In a country where reconciliation is supposed to be a national priority, these numbers underscore a critical gap in intent vs. action.
Insight + Analysis: The Patterns Behind the Data
This report challenges some persistent myths:
Impact ≠ charity: The majority (64%) of products are achieving market-rate or better returns which challenges the belief that doing good means earning less.
Impact doesn’t have to be high risk: Conservative products like community bonds and loan funds make up the majority—proving that stable, lower-risk investments can still generate real impact.
Climate isn’t the whole story: While climate and infrastructure dominate, sectors like education, employment, and social equity remain underfunded—suggesting a need to broaden the scope of what gets counted as impactful.
But it also reveals systemic design flaws. Internally developed IMM frameworks outpace any single standard which hampers cross-product comparison. Diversity is inconsistently reported and many returns are still self-reported which creates trust gaps for new entrants and cautious investors.
What This Means for Canada (and for Us)
For SecondMuse Capital, this report is both a validation and a challenge. It affirms the need for:
Place-based investing across Canada, and beyond Ontario and BC.
Consistent impact measurement that respects nuance but enables comparability.
New funds, products, and partnerships that prioritize equity not just in narrative but in governance, allocation, and outcomes.
It also pushes us to think even harder and intentionally about: How do we shape capital ecosystems that reflect community wisdom and lived experience—not just risk-adjusted returns?
Closing the Loop
The 2025 SVX Impact Investment Report is a call to act with intention and not just a temperature check. It's long overdue, given this is the first report of its kind in Canada, but we wish a huge congrats to the SVX team on its delivery. It tells us that Canada’s impact investing market is growing but asks: Will it grow in the right direction?
If capital really is a design tool, then we have the opportunity (and responsibility) to redesign it for trust, relationship, and long-term transformation. This is not just for a more robust impact market but for a more equitable Canada.
