UK social investors can ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’ | EU sustainability laws suffer another blow | What are social outcomes contracts?
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This week’s headlines from the pioneers of social entrepreneurship, impact investing and mission-driven business around the world
17 OCTOBER 2025
UK social investors can make Westminster’s money go further, argues Big Issue Invest’s new boss
OPINION: As one of the UK's pioneer social investors, Big Issue Invest, celebrates its 20th birthday, new managing director Holger Westphely and original co-founder Nigel Kershaw say the concept is proven – but prepare for uncharted waters ahead.
What are social outcomes partnerships?
Explainer: ‘Social outcomes partnerships’ is the new term – at least in some countries – for ‘social impact bonds’. But what are they exactly? And what are outcomes funds? The experts at GO Lab have the answers.
Connecting isolated enterprises to unlock development
The Rural Social Enterprise Gathering 2025 will take place in Malaysia at the end of October, bringing together hundreds of social entrepreneurs to focus on the distinct challenges faced by communities outside the world’s urban areas.
THE IMPACT WORLD THIS WEEK
Your quick guide to the most interesting news snippets about social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business around the world from the Pioneers Post team. This week:
Skoll Foundation to relocate to Washington DC and 'reshape team'
Business leaders campaign for sustainable economy ahead of COP30
US$500m ethical AI initiative launched
And more…
THE EDITOR’S POST
In February this year, the European Commission unveiled a plan, the so-called ‘Sustainability Omnibus’, which it said would simplify the bloc’s flagship corporate sustainability laws and make the EU more competitive to attract business and investment.
Back then, campaigners said the EU parliament “must not agree” to the Commission's proposals, which they argued would water down the rules and open the door to “rampant greenwashing”. Now, eight months later, the EU parliament hasn’t just agreed with the Commission: it presented a plan to go even further.
Following weeks of negotiations between the different political forces in parliament, the parliamentary committee in charge of reviewing the laws eventually passed a proposal that would reduce further the number of businesses covered by the rules; remove some legal provisions to hold companies accountable for the harm they create; and limit how much they need to investigate their supply chains – read our story for a step-by-step breakdown of what happened and what it means.
The results of the committee vote are telling: 17 in favour, six against, two abstentions. The MEP who led the negotiations said the vote reflected a “big support for simplification”. Proponents of corporate accountability would say that’s a clear vote against sustainability.
That’s yet another departure from the ambitious social and environmental initiatives adopted by the bloc during the early 2020s – arguably a golden age of European sustainability policymaking – including the withdrawal of a key anti-greenwashing law and the scrapping of the social economy unit from a key department.
There are clear causes for it: in last year’s EU parliament elections, the assembly shifted to the right, with anti-sustainability politicians gaining more clout and providing a more attentive ear to corporate lobbies. The world has also become a ruthless place where it’s harder to compete for business and investment, and the EU has decided that deregulation is the way forward.
So, back to the campaigners calling on the parliament to reject the Omnibus proposal in February: was it wishful thinking? Like our European expert Toby Gazeley said in his latest column: the social impact community needs to face political reality, and find a new narrative that will speak to that. The old arguments no longer work.
SOC, SOP, SIB… what?
I managed the first half of my editorial without using any technical acronyms, because at Pioneers Post we strive to make our articles understandable to the non-experts and cut the jargon as much as possible. That’s the main purpose of our Impact 101 explainers, and the topic of the latest one is both current and important.
In recent months, you may have read about the UK government’s half-a-billion pound commitment to a social outcomes fund, which will establish social outcomes partnerships and pay for social outcomes contracts (also called social impact bonds). But what are those things? In our latest explainer, top experts go through what social outcomes partnerships are, how they work, and why they matter. I encourage you to read it – it clarifies quite a few things even for those who already know about the topic – and share it: the better informed people are, the better the solutions we’ll find.
LAURA JOFFRE
Senior journalist
MORE HIGHLIGHTS
BAD NEWS FROM BRUSSELS: EU corporate sustainability laws suffer another blow from lawmakers
GET READY FOR TAIWAN: How SEWF 2025 can be an ‘engine for change’ in delegates’ home countries
JUST UPDATED: Our listing of social enterprise and impact investing events
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GOOD PODCASTS
Essential listening for impact pioneers
Gentrification or regeneration? The Edinburgh social enterprise helping a community navigate transformational investment
Regeneration and gentrification are often two sides of the same coin. With £1.3bn being pumped into one of Scotland's poorest areas, social enterprise The Granton Project is ensuring that local communities truly benefit.
SAVE THE DATE
3 November – Online
Impact Storytelling Workshop
Join Pioneers Post editors, Anna Patton and Julie Pybus, for this new workshop designed especially for social impact organisations: hosted in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs, this half-day session will offer practical tips and inspiration to help you uncover, shape and share the stories that drive action.
SEEN ONLINE
“The reality is that philanthropic dollars have a place, at least in North America, to fill the gap left by government pull back and to role model and showcase approaches and deals that currently do not attract private and corporate capital. If these deals were already investable then we would not need blended finance deals.”
Keith Ippel, co-lead of Spring Impact Capital, reacts on LinkedIn to Naina Subberwal Batra saying that blended finance deals are not the best
use of philanthropic capital.
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