Impact investments, in Italy focus on housing and urban regeneration

A quantum leap. Long overdue. Impact finance in Italy is still a niche topic. According to the latest research (May 2025) conducted by Tiresia-Politecnico di Milano, impact investments in Italy reached 9.3 billion in 2022 against 5.8 billion in 2020. Despite the significant growth, there is still much work to be done to push and root the sector. A key role could be played by Social Impact Agenda for Italy (Sia), an organisation committed precisely to the development of impact investing. And which recently, at the beginning of June, saw a change in its presidency: in place of the outgoing Giovanna Melandri, Stefano Granata, already vice-president since 2016, became president of Sia.

A pioneer of social entrepreneurship, Granata is also president of Confcooperative Federsolidarietà, the national organisation representing social cooperatives. Since 2021 he has also chaired Aiccon Research Center, a study centre that promotes the culture of cooperation and non-profit.

Now there is the challenge of impact investing in Italy. "What am I thinking of doing? I would like to focus our work on a couple of themes and make the many energies of Italian social engineering converge on them,' says Granata. There was initially the idea of focusing on energy communities but interest is waning because there are difficulties in getting them off the ground. It's not exactly a win-win project, as they said at the beginning. Alternatively, the areas on which to focus could be urban regeneration and especially housing. I really think we could find the interest of funds on these issues'.

According to the definition of the Global Impact Investing Network (Giin), impact investing refers to 'investments in companies, organisations and funds made with the intention of generating a measurable social and environmental impact and capable, at the same time, of producing an economic return for investors'.

There are still few funds active in the sector in Italy. Yet, according to Granata's analysis, in our country the supply is there but the demand is lacking. 'Great strides have been made in Italy on the social impact finance front over the last ten years,' explains Sia's chairman, 'There has been accreditation at an international level. In addition, institutions, funds and important players in Italian finance have joined Sia. At the moment, impact finance in our country has a discrete offer while on the demand side there is very little. The patient capital has yet to be seen'.