From November 25 to 29, a European forum in Bilbao will bring together the main economic agents; a market that in 2022 mobilized 80,000 million euros in Europe.

Impact Week

In recent years, social impact investment has emerged as an innovative response to addressing certain current challenges, such as inequality, climate change, social inclusion or environmental degradation. This type of practice consists of investing capital in companies or projects that have a positive social or environmental impact in addition to financial performance.

Impact Europe, a European reference network for promoting social and environmental impact investment, has chosen Bizkaia as the venue for Impact Week 2024, an international forum organized in collaboration with the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and Seed Capital Bizkaia. Bilbao-Bizkaia will take over from Turin as the main venue for this year's edition of Impact Week, due to its outstanding track record in promoting inclusive economic growth.

The event will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in the Basque Country and will transform Bilbao-Bizkaia from 25 to 29 November into an international meeting point that will bring together the main European economic agents dedicated to mobilising capital for the development of a sustainable economy.

The financial event will feature the participation of leading figures in the field of social impact philanthropy, including Leslie Johnston (Laudes Foundation), María Ángeles León (Global Social Impact Investments and Open Value Foundation), Shiva Dustdar (European Investment Bank Institute) and Gilles Vermot-Desroches (Schneider Electric Foundation).

This event aims to promote investment in the development of projects that lead to real social transformation, addressing issues such as sustainability, the reduction of inequalities or the promotion of the social economy.

Capital to transform the Planet

‘Madness’, ‘boldness’ and ‘intelligence’. These are the three guiding threads on which Impact Europe has developed the thematic planning for this edition of Impact Week. During the first day of the event, the focus will be on ‘Madness’ to analyse the current world and overcome divisions between social and environmental impact in order to achieve a more coherent future.

Meanwhile, the second day will be the turn of ‘Boldness’, which will bring together professionals related to social impact philanthropy to debate and promote disruptive ideas, while encouraging participation and networking.

And finally, on the third day, the focus will be on ‘Brightness’, necessary to be able to plan the next steps for the year 2025 through interactive workshops and mobilisation of collective capital, with a focus on collaboration and practical impact work.

Top-level economic-financial players

Impact Europe brings together more than 300 organisations from 35 countries, including foundations, impact funds, corporate impact players, financial institutions, public funders, universities, business and startup incubators and accelerators, including Seed Capital Bizkaia, which will play a leading role as host of the twentieth edition of the conference.

The event will also host a series of activities organised by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia through Seed Capital Bizkaia and leading entities of the Basque and state economic-financial ecosystem such as Fundación ONCE, SPAIN NAB, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Social Nest Foundation, Fundación BBK, or the Basque Institute of Finance (IVF-FEI), as well as European entities such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF), among other leading players.

Registration to attend Impact Week 2024 is now open through the following link. The final programme with all the activities will be announced in the coming months.

Bizkaia, a pioneer in investment in social transformation

Hosting Impact Week represents a major boost to Bizkaia's strategy of positioning itself as a benchmark ecosystem at European level in the investment of projects with social and environmental impact with economic returns. The Provincial Council of Bizkaia is a public administration that is a pioneer at European level in the promotion of projects with social impact, positioning itself in recent years as a transformative agent that redefines the creation of value through public initiatives.

For its part, Seed Capital Bizkaia has been managing financial instruments for 35 years to promote innovation and the regeneration of the business fabric of the territory. In this line, it supports innovative and sustainable projects in areas such as health, circular economy, education, culture, integration and labour inclusion.

Since the launch of the Entrepreneurship and Social Impact Fund in 2014, it has promoted the development and growth of companies such as Koiki, a company dedicated to last-mile delivery aimed at providing employment to vulnerable groups and which represented the first investment of the Impact Fund (December 2016); Evolv, a manufacturer of medical devices specialising in the development of technological solutions for rehabilitation; or Aplanet, a developer of technological solutions (software) to manage and respect the activity of companies around sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR-CSR), among other success stories.