S2-E5 Financing the FairTrade System with Christoph Gosdenoz

In this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Christoph Gosdenoz, partner and chairman of FairCapital. FairCapital is an impact investor based in Switzerland that specializes in financing solutions for Fairtrade cooperatives in the global south. My favorite insights from this conversation were: It’s the specific design and timing rather than just the interest rate that determines whether a loan helps a cooperative.  One of FairCapital’s innovations is to use existing purchase agreements from reliable buyers as collateral. FairCapital is open to retail impact investors at a minimum commitment of CHF 5’000. However, there is a plan for a token that would allow retail investors to become impact investors with very small amounts.

Om Podcasten

Sustainable Finance has become an important phenomenon in financial markets but is still a new field. That means, there are new things happening every day. It is important to keep innovating in this field, and to critically evaluate what is going on. In this podcast, Julian Kölbel discusses ideas in sustainable finance. New ideas, good ideas, even dangerous ideas. He invites guests who are doing something novel, something interesting, something different that is worth discussing. His goal is to learn from them, to connect their ideas to academic insights, and contribute to the future development of the field of sustainable finance. Julian Kölbel works as an Assistant Professor in Sustainable Finance at the Center for Financial Services Innovation at the University of St.Gallen (FSI-HSG). https://www.unisg.ch/ https://fsi.unisg.ch/