While innovative, conservation programs that pay communities to protect forests have a critical vulnerability: their incentive structure can be easily outbid. If logging companies offer more profitable terms for land rights, there is little to stop communities from abandoning the conservation agreement, highlighting the model's economic fragility.

Beyond traditional energy projects, there's a growing opportunity for large-scale, long-duration capital in "social infrastructure." Mature private education platforms and hospital networks in developing markets are now predictable enough to attract lower-cost capital, creating a new asset class for multi-billion dollar impact funds.

Sir Ronald Cohen critiques the philanthropic model, arguing that relying on donations keeps charitable organizations small, underfunded, and perpetually begging for capital. This prevents them from achieving the scale needed to solve massive problems, a flaw that impact investing aims to correct by creating self-sustaining models.

For founders in emerging markets like Africa, the most valuable asset from a community is not capital but access to good product judgment, taste, and peers. This cultivates the ability to create globally meaningful products where established tech ecosystems don't exist.

Government-administered aid programs are often highly inefficient, with significant overhead costs meaning only "cents on the dollar" reach the intended recipients. A more effective solution is to provide direct cash transfers or vouchers, empowering individuals to spend the money within the existing private market.

Unlike wildlife conservation, which prioritizes non-interference, preserving agrobiodiversity requires consumption. Reviving, cultivating, and herding ancestral grains and livestock creates a market and an economic incentive for their survival, following the principle: "to save it, you've got to eat it."

CEO Sim Shabalala argues that a bank's largest risk factor is "country risk." By promoting societal growth and inclusion, the bank creates a more stable operating environment, which directly reduces its cost of capital and debt.

The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) uses a clever economic design. It offers a small payment ($4/hectare) for existing forests but imposes a massive penalty ($400/hectare) for any destroyed. This focuses financial incentives on the margin, where deforestation actually occurs, making the program more cost-effective.

Mondragon, a massive Spanish cooperative, was founded when its founders couldn't access a wealthy heir, instead pooling money from 118 church members. It shows that a community-funded, employee-owned model can achieve massive scale as an alternative to the venture capital-driven path.