In accordance with Blue like an Orange’s different responsible investment engagements, Blue like an Orange is committed to promoting acceptance and implementation of the principles of impact investing and sustainability within the financial community. Therefore, Blue like an Orange’s managers, in particular, Bertrand Badré , Managing Partner and Founder, dedicate part of their time to share their expertise and are active as board members or advisors of organizations committed to that agenda. These organizations include among others the International Water Bank, the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Infrastructure.
Interview
In conversation with Rashad Kaldany, Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital
As sustainable finance continues to evolve, a critical challenge persists: how can private capital be effectively mobilized to advance inclusive growth and resilience, particularly in emerging markets?
To further explore this question, we spoke with Rashad Kaldany, Managing Partner and Co-founder of Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital. Founded in 2017, the firm aims to address the growing need for investment strategies that deliver both measurable impact and competitive returns in alignment with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on decades of experience at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Kaldany offers a comprehensive perspective on structuring investments that align long-term financial value with sustainable and resilience performance. He is also a member of the FAST-Infra Label Executive Advisory Committee.
What was the founding vision behind Blue Like an Orange, and how does its investment approach differ from traditional models?
Blue Like an Orange was established to demonstrate that financial performance and positive social impact are not mutually exclusive. The firm focuses on sectors where both dimensions can be achieved—such as financial inclusion, infrastructure, healthcare, and sustainable agriculture.
Rather than emphasizing equity, the firm deploys structured credit, — providing flexible, growth-oriented capital while maintaining strong risk-adjusted returns. This approach addresses a capital gap that remains acute in many emerging markets: the space between traditional lenders and equity investors.
“Our name of the organisation comes from a surrealist poem that starts, ‘The Earth is blue like an orange.’ No one really knows what it means. But to us, it represents the idea that two things that seem incompatible—financial performance and social impact—can, in fact, coexist.”
The investment process emphasizes values alignment, supporting companies where impact is integrated into the business model from the outset. Capital is directed toward scaling solutions that drive local development, economic resilience, and climate adaptation.
How does the firm embed sustainability and manage risk throughout the investment process, and where does it see the greatest opportunity?
Every investment is screened for environmental and social risk, as well as its contribution to SDG outcomes. Monitoring continues throughout the investment lifecycle with regular reporting and independent verification when required. An annual impact report provides transparency and accountability to investors and stakeholders.
This level of rigor is increasingly expected across the institutional landscape. Investors are seeking solutions that integrate financial discipline with measurable sustainability outcomes—not as parallel goals, but as part of a holistic strategy.
In Latin America, the firm sees high-impact opportunities in several key sectors:
Financial services for underserved SMEs
Infrastructure across energy, mobility, and social sectors
Climate-smart agriculture that supports both adaptation and livelihoods
Infrastructure is set to play a growing role in the firm’s third fund, with 50–70% of capital to be allocated toward climate-aligned and socially relevant real assets. The need for resilient infrastructure is matched by investor demand for long-term assets that contribute to global sustainability targets.
What role do frameworks like the FAST-Infra Label play in accelerating capital flows and building investor trust?
The sustainable infrastructure market is expanding, but investors continue to face barriers related to complexity, risk, and a lack of consistent definitions. Standards and tools that offer clarity are essential to accelerating the flow of private capital.
The FAST-Infra Label, a global labelling framework designed to evaluate the sustainability and resilience performance of infrastructure projects, addresses this need by establishing a clear and robust framework for project quality and sustainability performance. This enables better alignment between investors and developers.
“For investors focused on environmental, social and governance risks in infrastructure investment, the FAST-Infra Label creates the standardization and data availability to help manage those risks and inform decisions accordingly, in turn unlocking private investment to deliver positive impact globally.”
Blue Like an Orange has introduced the FAST-Infra Label to one of its clients in the renewable energy sector, where adoption is already underway.The firm believes that broader adoption of such frameworks by infrastructure investors and project developers could significantly reduce transaction costs, strengthen trust, and unlock capital at scale.
As demands grow for capital to deliver both strong financial returns and measurable social and environmental benefits, Blue Like an Orange Sustainable Capital offers a compelling model for structuring private investment to achieve both. Through disciplined credit strategies, embedded impact, and alignment with globally recognized frameworks, the firm is exemplifying how emerging markets can attract meaningful capital flows—while delivering competitive returns and socially impactful, environmentally resilient results.
Article
We are glad to share that Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital’s practice to embed learning into its Impact strategies and processes was highlighted by Impact Principles in its 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴 series.
In line with 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝟖: 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 of the Impact Principles, we believe that structured and intentional learning and improvement, backed by leadership commitment, is key to scaling high-impact solutions and addressing systemic challenges while mitigating unintended impacts.
Thanks to Better Way for the latest independent evaluation performed on our impact approach, and congratulations to the Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital team for being always willing to learn, whereas though external case studies or internal sharing!
The full report is available here: https://www.impactprinciples.org/commonpractices_principle8
Event
Impact Investor Summit | May 14/15th, 2024
How to make impact reporting a valuable process?
Thank you, New Private Markets, for inviting Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital’s Sustainability Director Jocelyne Ozdoba on stage to discuss this topic together with fellow panelists Anja Gräf Diane Kulju Manuela Cedarmas Natasha Franks and Mike McCreless during the Impact Investor Global Summit in London last month.
💡Good reporting practices recommended by Impact Frontiers reporting norms also drive good managerial practices
💡The aim is not only to measure, but also to manage and improve impact in collaboration with portfolio companies
💡Right sizing reporting and being thoughtful with the resources invested - compared to the actual usefulness of information - remain an ongoing concern
💡“Reporting for reporting sake” is definitively behind us!
Impact Capital Managers
Impact Principles
EVENT
Blue like an Orange Day | May 27th, 2021
Blue like an Orange held a virtual meeting on 27 May, 2021 which gathered its Limited Partners, General Partners, Key Advisors and some of its clients to share with them the Company’s achievements to date, the strategy and fundraising process for the second Sub-Fund (Latin America Fund II) and to provide a Sustainability and impact update (SFDR regulations and implications for Blue like an Orange / SDG Blue 18 months later).
The event started with an overview of Latin America and IDBi perspectives (interview from James Scriven, CEO of IDB Invest). We also were pleased to interview Pedro Burelli (founder and managing partner of B&V CA), Nicolas Mariscal (Chairman of Marhnos), Ambassador Cliff Sobel (Managing Partner of Valor Capital Group) and Alejandro Santo Domingo (Managing Director at Quadrant Capital Advisors) to have their views respectively on Latin America, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia (interviews are available below).
We were honored to welcome two prominent guest speakers: Angel Gurria (Secretary General of OECD) interviewed by Bertrand Badré (interview available below) and Jean Todt who gave his view on road safety which is one target of the 17 SDGs (SDG 3).
In addition, discussion covered sustainability and impact and updates were provided on the SFDR regulation and the implication for Blue like an Orange. Furthermore, Ray Chambers (Wesray Capital Corporation), Sir Ronald Cohen (Chairman of The Global Steering Group for Impact Investment - GSG) and Bernard de Longevialle (Global Head of Sustainable Finance and Managing Director at S&P Global Ratings) also discussed about impact and how Blue like an Orange can help to fill the gap.
Isabelle Autissier (French Sailor) subsequently spoke about the main challenges the world is facing and may face going forward (interview available below).
Lastly, the CEO’s of 3 investee companies (Hernando Rubio of Movii, Carlos Chiesa (CEO) and Gustavo Dal Bello (CFO) of Placi, Nana Baffour (CEO) of Qintess) interviewed by Cristina Penteado (Managing Director and Head of Brazil – Blue like an Orange) spoke about their respective activities, the impact of the pandemics and the reasons for having chosen Blue like an Orange has lender/financial sponsor.
ARTICLE
Impact investing in the time of COVID-19 - Co-ed written by Philippe Le Houeroux, IFC CEO | May 6, 2020
With the world now in the throes of a deep recession, one thing is clear: helping countries recover from #COVID19 will require billions of dollars to revive jobs and value chains, tackle systemic inequalities and promote a greener reconstruction.
This will present significant opportunities for investors to innovate, financing projects that contribute to sustainable and inclusive long-term growth. Many investors are interested in doing just that, and a movement is taking root.
A year ago 60 asset managers and institutional investors including Blue like an Orange adopted the Operating Principles for Impact Management: a set of clear market standards for how to manage investments to achieve positive impact alongside financial returns. In a year that number has grown to 94, including 16 since January.
News
Operating Principles for Impact Management
At Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital, we are committed to investing in measurable positive impact, to make a difference in the world. That is why we join @IFC_org to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Operating Principles for Impact Management – a framework for #Investors4Impact. http://wrld.bg/tocV50z1eHz
ARTICLE
Financial inclusion: a huge social debt and a great opportunity in this digital age
Of the top 10 countries with the highest inequality in the world, 8 are Latin American, with Colombia being the fourth in the list.
"I am sure that in the next 10 years more things will happen to achieve the long-awaited financial inclusion than in the last 100 years" says Hernando Rubio, CEO at Movii.
(the above has been translated from Spanish by Blue like an Orange)
Article
Bertrand Badré nos explica cómo lograremos que el sistema financiero se convierta al impacto | February 19, 2020
Ya llegó 2020. Esto significa que nos quedan 10 años para lograr los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la Agenda 2030 de la ONU. Por otro lado, nos queda aún menos tiempo para cumplir con los Acuerdos de París sobre el clima. Nuestra visita en ChangeNOW – la cumbre internacional de impacto que tuvo lugar el mes pasado en París – nos demostró que miles de soluciones ya existen. Miles de emprendedores ya están trabajando para transformar el mundo y crear un futuro más sostenible. El mayor obstáculo a esta transición es la brecha de financiamiento.
J. de Antonio, CEO and Founder of Cabify, Blue like an Orange’ second investment, and R. Kaldany, Blue like an Orange’s CIO
EVENT
Blue like an Orange Day | April 3rd, 2019
Blue like an Orange’s team was delighted to hold a meeting to gather our Limited Partners, General Partners, Key Advisors and some of our Clients to share with them our view of the Latin American macro situation, a description of our portfolio and pipeline, and our sustainability approach.
We were also pleased to welcome Cristobal Salas, from IDB Invest, to talk about our relationship. In addition, we heard from our first two investee companies, Produbanco (Ruben Eguiguren - VP) and Cabify (Juan de Antonio - CEO and Founder).
Lastly, Christian Monjou, researcher and professor, gave a speech on “Innovation with an artistic perspective” and Baptiste Perrissin-Fabert, Chief of Staff of the French Secretary of State of Ecology, spoke about Blue like an Orange’s vision and its fit with the ambition of the current French government regarding impact and sustainability.
VIDEO
Les Rencontres Economiques in Singapore | New Horizons for the World Economy | March 14th, 2019
While globalization has been accelerating, voices arise against an ever more integrated global economy. Innovation and new technologies are seen as aggravating factors polarizing the world and increasing inequalities. In this increasingly uncertain context, what are the real pro and cons of globalization? How can we rethink its governance? What set of rules could revive trust and efficiency?
article
Collision d'affaires | La Presse + | May 24th, 2018
Chronicle from Marie-Claude Lortie - La Presse +
Mrs. Lortie introduces C2 Montréal’s AI Forum which gives an opportunity to explore the kinds of environments tomorrow’s organizations and workforce will inhabit, and discover new ways and means of accelerating your business.
She had also the opportunity to ask four questions to Bertrand Badré.
Article
C2 Montreal 2018 | May 23, 2018
Don’t brace for impact – embrace it
We already live in a world of collisions. This is a gift – collisions are the antidote to cynicism, because they break down barriers between ideas, points of view, fields and industries. By allowing you to see the world through new lenses, they create new grounds we can build on together.
At C2 Montréal 2018 / #C2M18 (https://www.c2montreal.com/) , the focus was on re-energizing and re-tooling established and nascent leaders, innovators and creators from all industries and disciplines.
ARTICLE
La finance d'impact | Les Affaires | May 05th, 2018
Interview of Bertrand Badré from Diane Bérard - Les Affaires
"La finance d'impact demeure marginale. Nous sommes tous responsables de la suite."
Diane Bérard interroge Bertrand sur sa carrière, Blue like an Orange, le rôle de la finance et l'investissement d'impact.
Video
Bertrand Badré on International Governance and Public Private Cooperation
World Economic Forum
Global Future Councils on the Future of International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation & Sustainable Development
Why it is is difficult and why it so necessary to work on governance if we want to shift paradigm and reach the sustainable development goals.
VIDEO
Bertrand Badré | L'Hebdo des AG | January 15, 2018
This review of l'Hebdo des AG (#160) focuses on what we really know about socially responsible investment (SRI).
At this occasion, Bertrand gives his view of today's finance.
VIDEO
Webcast replay, seminar 10 January
Bertrand visits SpareBank 1 Markets in Norway.
He has the opportunity to share his standpoint on how to support a more sustainable development. The system is now patched-up after 2008-2009 crisis and we are starting to think about what comes next and where we are heading to. But a lot remains to be done and we need to go back to common wisdom.
BOOK
Can Finance Save the World? Regaining Power over Money to Serve the Common Good
Bertrand's book was released on January 30, 2018. Featuring forewords from Emmanuel Macron and Gordon Brown.
VIDEO
Bertrand Badré | Tech for Planet - December 11, 2017
As an initiative from the French Presidency, Tech for Planet gathered in Paris entrepreneurs who are innovative against global heating.
Bertrand was one of the speakers. He explained how to scale solutions for climate change.
ARTICLE
Bertrand Badré | One Planet Summit - December 12, 2017
On 2017/12/12, the President of the French Republic, the President of the World Bank Group and the Secretary General of the United Nations addressed the emergency for our planet by calling together in Paris international leaders
Two years to the day after the historic Paris Agreement, it is time for concrete action. Many stakeholders are already taking action and present projects illustrating the ongoing transition.
Bertrand was one of the panelist invited to share his experience and contribution to the planet.
Video
Finance: Poor Master, Great Servant | Bertrand Badré | TEDxIHEParis
Bertrand explains that this power does not only lie within the hands of a few inaccessible institutions and that in fact we can all contribute to building an ethical financial system aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.