Becoming a Benefit Corporation
Over the past year, the Sunwealth® team has been hard at work raising capital to develop high-performing commercial solar projects that generate clean energy, combat climate change, reduce energy bills for diverse group of power purchasers in our communities, and support clean energy jobs – all while aiming to deliver market rate returns for our investors.
We were steadfast in our belief that we could succeed as a business without sacrificing the social benefits that make developing these projects so rewarding. By the year’s end, we reached a powerful conclusion: our social purpose is way more than a feature our business can accommodate; it is driving our growth.
Here’s how:
- Communities and organizations of all types are clamoring for ways to increase their resiliency, creating a strong pipeline of projects from which we can select a socially diverse pool of projects for our Solar Impact Fund.
- Investors – most notably individuals, specialized investment firms, and foundations – are seeking meaningful ways to align their portfolios with their values, and they find few options for direct investment into value-aligned assets.
- The commercial solar asset class has been underserved by institutional capital, creating a mispriced risk and an enormous opportunity for Sunwealth and our community of purpose-driven investors to achieve triple bottom line returns.
With social purpose driving our growth, it made sense to codify that mission into the DNA of our business. With the broad support of our board members and investors, Sunwealth embarked upon the transition from a limited liability company to a public benefit corporation with an expressly stated mission to:
finance and manage solar and other sustainable projects that benefit a diverse range of communities and energy customers through clean power, carbon reduction, cost savings, and job creation.
We still wake up every day pursuing exceptional returns for our investors, but we are doing so with the deep understanding that this social purpose is what makes us a successful organization – one that we hope will deliver a true benefit to the communities we serve for years to come!