Shanzhai City to become impact partners with SDG Ecotourism Impact Investment Fund to co-launch multi-billion-dollar fund
Hong Kong, June 14, 2019 — Shanzhai City is bringing its expertise in social impact strategy, impact analytics technology, and decentralized development finance in partnership to co-launch Sustainable Development Goals Ecotourism Impact Investment Fund(SDG-EIIF). Other than impact management, the company will also apply iO₂ decentralized ledger technologies for impact measurement and impact auditing, including implementing progressive DID protocol for end-beneficiary due diligence, crowdsourcing validation of local needs and impact data, as well as tracking impact generation with real-time dashboard.
Co-founders Dr. Tat Lam (CEO of Shanzhai City), Dr. Ilex Lam (Senior advisor of UNDP Innovative Finance and CEO of iEnterprise) and other venture partners will bring their resources and experience in impact investment and social development together to kick start SDG-EIIF.
“The formation of SDG-EIIF aims to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We seek to deploy USD$62 trillion by 2030 globally,” said Dr. Tat Lam, who has been appointed Chief Impact Officer of the Fund. Shanzhai City impact research team has been retained as impact measurement and research team. Goods-for-people (GFP) initiated by DVF Impact Holding is the incubation partner for early stage innovative ecotourism and its up-and-downstream ventures.
SDG-EIIF is going to be based in Hong Kong and China. The Fund will have a global reach with a particular focus on investing in China and Southeast Asia, as well as the rest of the world.
“We are excited to advance sustainable tourism as a front-running investment opportunity and solution to bridge the US$35 trillion SDG funding gap while addressing issues such as poverty reduction, environmental protection, and financial inclusion with the creation of SDG-EIIF,” proclaimed Dr. Tat Lam.
Sustainable tourism, or ecotourism, is a unique high-growth industry that spans worldwide markets, bridges the gap between developed and developing countries, and addresses a broad spectrum of problems and solutions articulated by the United Nations’ SDG to solve the world’s most pressing issues.
From decades of experience kickstarting innovative ecotourism models in developing markets at the intersection of social development and social finance, Shanzhai City brings with its impact investment mandates and guidance that support intricate and overarching aspects of social and economic development as well as environmental sustainability, creating a highly relevant and nuanced approach to creating a balanced portfolio that will capture high and steady returns, while at the same time redefining the boundaries of sustainable tourism that are rooted in solving real problems with developing communities. Recently, Shanzhai City has completed its first internal whitepaper for the fund’s impact implementation, portfolio allocation and impact risk management strategies.
To guide the projects through the complexity of working in developing markets that bridge international consumers with deep effects on vulnerable populations and vice versa, the fund management methodology focuses on the following principles:
- Creating Value with Local Communities — The practice of ecotourism gains its commercial power from preserving and bolstering the health and vitality of its surrounding communities and their environments, requiring a sensitive methodology for dialogue, consideration, and value co-creation with local communities. SDG-EIIF prioritizes ventures that begin with the last-mile first that engages local stakeholders at the onset of each project. This strategy not only builds the framework by which projects form alignments with key stakeholders, community buy-in, and government blessings to reduce the risk of the core business processes, but also secures and enriches the conditions by which tourists may participate in authentic and sustainable experiences, products, and services.
- Working across both Private and Public sectors — The ecotourism industry thrives between commercial and government sectors to serve consumer markets, from which SDG-EIIF team leverages their experience to craft investments that can form strong public-private-partnerships; influencing and informing social, economic, and environmental policy and decision-making processes, that can directly benefit vulnerable populations, environmental habitats, and social enterprises. This not only enables heightened responsibility on projects, but also empowers industry leaders and innovators to form long-lasting structures and relationships that help to grow the industry in alignment with government and their constituents, as well as with both upstream and downstream industry partners.
- Embracing Next-Generation Consumer Trends — SDG-EIIF is adapting to capture the major shift in consumer demands as the buying power of younger generations prioritize even more importance on sustainability and meaningful experiences with verifiable impacts that leave the world a better place than they found it, and having access to the data that proves it. Currently, the tourism industry is vastly underdeveloped to service this growing demand, a blue ocean market, driven by a growing base of young consumers that are accustomed to being part of “the-internet-in-its-pocket-generation” that require accessible transparency and data-driven impact reports anywhere, anytime, on demand. To address this, the fund takes a vanguard position by adopting and advancing next-generation technologies such as cloud analytics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, to help provide transparency and actionable data processes that inform investment decisions, assist portfolio ventures to operate more effectively, and engage more holistically with beneficiary communities, which overall decreases risks and maximizes financial gains as well as social returns.
Working within developing communities to build unique experiences that bridge different worlds together, make positive change, and create memories that will last a lifetime, Shanzhai City is proud to co-launch SDG-EIIF, a highly innovative, relevant, and inclusive approach to building sustainable tourism businesses and economies. Guided by the principle that tourism can ultimately become a humanitarian practice that should enrich people’s lives in a deeply personal and spiritual sense with actions and awareness that are enjoyable, meaningful, and value producing, the team endeavors to create highly-crafted opportunities that will bring long-lasting prosperity and empowerment to its stakeholders, ventures, and beneficiaries. Shanzhai City invites impact investors and social ventures to join SDG-EIIF in the movement towards transforming the future of tourism.
