During the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in collaboration with SK Group and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, unveiled a new initiative for deploying capital to maximize social impact: “Redefining Value: From Outcome-Based Finance to Tradeable Impact.” The paper introduces the concept of “tradeable impact” as an alternative to traditional funding models, which have struggled to address today’s pressing social and environmental challenges.
Anchored within the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, the concept of tradeable impact seeks to bridge the gaps in existing financing models by enabling more dynamic, scalable, and transparent deployment of funding to social ventures and ecosystems. Drawing on lessons from pay-for-success contracts and outcome-based financing, the framework extends them into fully tradeable instruments, allowing impact outcomes to be packaged, bought, sold, and underwritten, thus aligning financial return with measurable social outcomes.
The paper features profiles and case studies of several companies building and designing models around tradeable impact, including ImpactScope’s
Decentralized Impact Outcomes Marketplace.
Read the full case study here.
