GIX is extremely grateful for the interest and support that you all have shown since our project was announced last September. We are working diligently to bring this important concept to life.

We have been busy the last nine months, and made important behind-the-scenes progress. We want to bring you up to speed on where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how we plan to get there.

A successful start-up is only as good as the team of people who come together to build it.

GIX is no different — soon after our public announcement we began building out the teams who would help us reach potential listing companies and trading firms. We posted several positions to various job sites and were blown away with the quality and number of applicants. Thank you all!

We have since expanded to 13 people, including a sustainability evangelist, a head of listing sales, and two experienced connectors to Wall Street firms and large investment funds who would trade on the exchange. We also engaged a technology team and several former senior executives from Wall Street to help us execute our vision. We’ve been blessed to have these industry professionals join our team and their efforts have been nothing less than outstanding. But we’re not done yet — as we ramp up, we’ll be needing additional talent, so stay tuned.

A core component of our strategy to build a green future is to engage with Wall Street. Stock exchanges have historically been engines of growth, whether it was the industrial boom of the 1950s and 60s or the tech boom of the 90s or the always-on-always connected internet boom of the past 20 years. In each case, stock exchanges have created deep and liquid markets where investors can trade quickly, efficiently, and with confidence.

GIX is continuing this tradition by building a coalition of market makers, institutional investors, large banks and broker-dealers who will trade on the first dedicated Green exchange in the US. This has involved reaching out to dozens, even hundreds of firms to share our story, and getting early commitments by firms to trade on GIX when it goes live. We look forward to some exciting announcements as we get closer to the launch date.

GIX grew out of our fundamental belief that if we are going to build a greener future, large corporations will be at the core of any solution that works. But we also recognized that public companies aren’t charities, they’re profit-making enterprises that respond to market incentives.

And there are powerful incentives: according to reliable estimates, there will be $50 trillion in investments over the next ten years looking for sustainable investment opportunities. From the early stages of its conception, GIX was meant to serve as a listing venue for companies who are actually doing the hard work to highlight their efforts relating to sustainability so investors can know who’s really walking the talk.We call this promise backed by real accountability a “credible commitment”. Once upon a time, the role of listing exchanges was to ensure that listed companies were credible — that they were committed to providing accurate and robust information to investors on a regular basis. Back then, the need was for standardized financial accounting and reporting, and today the need is for better environmental accounting and reporting. But while there have been significant developments at exchanges involving the mechanisms of trading and its fees over the past 30 years, we haven’t seen the same degree of innovation when it comes to listing standards. GIX seeks to provide that innovation.

To that end, our listing team has done an amazing job over the past 6 months. They have made contact with over 250 companies across a wide spectrum of industries and market capitalization, and they continue to build a pipeline of new companies with which to speak. The overall response from companies has been nothing less than remarkable. While it’s still early in our discussions, there seems to be a common thread of frustration in getting the “sustainability story” to the public. Companies are beginning to recognize that GIX will serve to be part of that solution.

And finally, speaking of “walking the talk”, we at GIX will be holding ourselves to the same standard. Among other things, we are organized as a Delaware public benefit corporation, which means we pay attention to a triple bottom line — people, planet, and profit. We’re working with several large NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to develop a realistic carbon offset plan (with additionality) so that our trading is carbon-neutral — a first for Wall Street. And on Earth Day we announced our “Return to Green” program, where we will commit a portion of our trading revenue on every trade to the NGOs who are doing the hard work on the ground to build a greener future. Look for more announcements and details soon.

The GIX team has accomplished a great deal over the past year and we have been humbled by the support and interest from the financial industry and public. We look forward to sharing additional news and updates in the near future so stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to reach out with thoughts or questions.

GIX June 2023 Update

News roundup! Wednesday's launch was a success, and picked up by a number of news outlet. Here are a few places where our story ran. Be on the lookout for more news and updates coming soon.

Bloomberg: 

News Roundup

We’re proud to announce publicly the establishment of the Green Impact Exchange (“GIX”). We’ve been operating in “stealth” mode for the past year, so this is a big step in our improbable journey from an idea and a mocked-up logo pinned to a wall for inspiration to a full-fledged company doing real and important work.

GIX is a new capital market bringing together environmentally-conscious investors and companies committed to a greener future. In a world filled with greenwashing, GIX incentivizes companies who are serious about sustainability to make a credible commitment to environmental goals. This simplifies the investment landscape for green-minded investors and helps companies access the vast and growing pool of capital earmarked for sustainable investment.

GIX uses enforceable exchange listing standards that require listed companies to adhere to sustainable principles and practices. These standards hold companies accountable — because that’s what it takes to build a clear, impactful, and sustainable marketplace.

Our actions today have a huge impact on our collective tomorrow. At GIX, we are committed to helping companies develop responsible, thoughtful, and comprehensive approaches to sustainability. By creating an ecosystem where green companies and green investors can thrive, the Green Impact Exchange is leading the way to a greener future.

If you’re a green-minded issuer or investor, we want to work with you. Together, we can ensure that tomorrow’s blue chips will be green!

Coming out of "Stealth" Mode

GIX CEO Dan Labovitz was a featured panelist at the the 

2022 IR Summit UK: Investor Relations and ESG Best Practices and Trends

 on June 15, 2022, sponsored by the London Stock Exchange Group and 

For a video of the event visit this link (free registration may be required): 

https://www.lsegissuerservices.com/spark/ir-summit-trends-best-practices

IR Summit UK: Investor Relations and ESG 

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 

 that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency clear authority to mandate that power companies transition from coal to other power sources that emit fewer greenhouse gases. This ruling will have significant and far-reaching implications for the role of the federal government and the states in setting environmental policy. 

While this issue will surely play out in federal and state politics, one thing is clear: the risks associated with climate change are not going away. And investors — particularly younger, more green-conscious investors — know this. The trend lines prove that these investors want their investment dollars to make a difference. In the absence of consistent guidance from federal and state authorities, it will be up to individual companies in the private sector to decide whether they want to be leaders or laggards, and to act accordingly, including making credible, enforceable commitments to green leadership and green follow-through in everything that they do.

We at the Green Impact Exchange believe in the power of markets to allocate capital where it is needed most. Now, more than ever.

Statement on the June 30 U.S. Supreme Court Decision

GIX CEO Dan Labovitz participated in a panel discussion at the Trading Evolved Best Execution Conference on June 14. The panel, "ESG Considerations in Trading and Best Execution," asked the question of how environmental, social, and governance considerations intersect with broker-dealers' trading function. Check out this 

write-up of the event in Traders Magazine

The consensus of the panel was that, broadly speaking, ESG is the province of asset managers who are selecting what to buy or sell, not the traders who are responsible for executing the trade. This is because trading desks are generally measured by how well they were able to execute the trades, not their ESG impact. That's starting to change, though: when it comes to trading, ESG "is like a freight train just starting to move: it hasn’t gone far yet, but the wheels are turning, and at some point the locomotive will be hard to stop."

Dan noted that exchanges have a role to play in ESG, but broadly speaking, “there is a lack of leadership that the industry needs to confront." The panelists agreed that the trading industry should get in front of ESG and develop its own framework.

GIX CEO quoted in Traders Magazine article on ESG Panel

ESG is suddenly in the news, as the SEC takes aim at issuers' disclosures around climate, and at advisors who are creating all kinds of ESG-flavored funds. Meanwhile, the amount of investable dollars committed to ESG investing has soared from about $2 trillion ten years ago to $20 trillion and climbing. But how "new" is ESG, anyway? Would you believe it's 90 years old?

, GIX CEO Dan Labovitz digs into a forgotten bit of ESG history, and the influence of a young law professor at Columbia Law School in 1932 who articulated one of the earliest legal justifications for corporate social responsibility.

Photo of Adolf Berle by Walter Albertin, New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer, c. 1965, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The New Old Thing

GIX CEO Dan Labovitz was a featured speaker at the 

 Invitational Conference, as part of a panel discussion on "Profiting from ESG: The Truth and the Darkside", sponsored by MZ Group. The conference took place June 7-9 in Westlake Village, CA.

"There's no denying that ESG has 'arrived' as a thing, and therefore companies need to pay attention to it," Dan told attendees. "But it doesn't have to be just a cost -- if you really own it and do the work, ESG can be an asset. Investors, particularly younger generations, but also employees, customers, and other key stakeholders, are watching to see what you do on the environment, social issues, and governance. Evidence suggests that if you're more transparent about those things, they will notice and react positively."

Since its inception in 2010, the LD Micro Invitational has helped many of the successful names in small-cap today connect with investors and get noticed. Held in person for the first time in two years, this invitation-only event let investors hear directly from the leaders of over 180 companies as they made the cases for their companies. The conference also featured analyst-moderated chats, interactive breakout sessions, and presentations by vendors and others would work with micro- and mid-cap companies.

GIX gratefully acknowledges the support of 

 for facilitating our appearance at the conference.


See the forest through the trees