inaam is an ASIC regulated impact investing app for Australians. It is a registered managed investment scheme, the inaam Impact Investments Fund, ARSN 691 614 132, and it aims at long-term, values-aligned growth alongside social and environmental impact.
All 23 holdings are published by name and mapped to one of five impact pillars: renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, sustainable consumption, health and wellbeing, and waste and recycling. Impact data sits next to each holding, impact tracking is in the app, and the learning lab is in there too. Members customise the five themes themselves. The subscription is $10 a month, which is $120 a year, and the minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app. General information only. Consider the PDS and TMD before investing.
the social side of impact investing
When people picture impact investing, they usually picture solar panels and recycling. Environmental impact gets most of the attention and the funding. The S in ESGEnvironmental, social and governance. A framework for judging how a company is run and what it does to the world around it. The S is the part this page is about. covers something equally investable: healthcare access, fair labour practices, financial inclusion, education, diversity. In Australia, those are getting harder to ignore.
One in seven Australians lives below the poverty line. Indigenous Australians have a life expectancy gap of more than 8 years compared with non-Indigenous Australians. Regional communities have significantly worse access to healthcare and education than their capital city counterparts. These are the gaps social impact investing is designed to work on.
The Global Impact Investing Network tracks how social-focused impact capital is growing worldwide. In Australia the harder part is measurement. You can count tonnes of carbon avoided. Counting inequality reduced is less straightforward: it can be done, but the metrics need more care.
start here
the part of impact nobody photographs
A solar farm makes a good photo. A telehealth service reaching a town with one visiting GP a fortnight does not, and it changes as many lives. Social impact is harder to picture and harder to count, and it is reported less often, which is why the claims are worth reading closely.
what social screening looks like
Social screening in investment funds usually takes two forms, and most funds that take it seriously do both.
Negative screening excludes companies that contribute to social harm: weapons manufacturers, companies with poor labour rights records, businesses that make money from vulnerable people, and companies with modern slavery in the supply chain. This is the baseline. A fund that does not at least do this is hard to take seriously on social claims.
Positive screening actively selects companies that create social value: healthcare companies expanding access to underserved communities, financial services companies enabling inclusion, education technology reaching marginalised groups, affordable housing developers, and companies with real diversity programs and fair pay structures.
Most Australian impact funds use both, and the depth varies enormously. Some apply basic exclusions, no weapons and no tobacco, and call that social screening. Others measure social outcomes holding by holding and publish the numbers.
worth separating
two different jobs
Negative screening decides who is not allowed in, and positive screening decides who gets chosen. A fund can do the first and still hold nothing that improves anyone’s life, so read for the second.
the five social themes that matter most
For an investor, these are the areas of social inequality where capital makes a difference.
| what it covers | companies people point to | relevant SDGs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| healthcare access | Affordable medicine, telehealth, diagnostics, mental health services. | CSL, ResMed, Teladoc Health | SDG 3 (Good Health) |
| financial inclusion | Banking the unbanked, microfinance, affordable insurance, financial literacy. | Block (Square), PayPal, Zip Co | SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) |
| education | Online learning platforms, vocational training, accessibility tools. | Coursera, Duolingo, Pearson | SDG 4 (Quality Education) |
| fair labour | Living wages, supply chain transparency, safe working conditions, no forced labour. | Fair Work certified employers, B Corp certified companies | SDG 8 (Decent Work) |
| affordable housing | Social housing, community housing trusts, rent-to-buy schemes. | Housing associations, community development finance | SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities) |
Not every theme is equally easy to reach through listed shares. Healthcare and financial inclusion have obvious listed players. Affordable housing mostly runs through unlisted vehicles or government programs. So it helps to know which of these your fund covers, and which it does not.
how platforms approach social impact
Australian funds arrive at social screening from different directions, and each one publishes its own method. Australian Ethical applies its Ethical Charter across both positive and negative screening, covering labour rights, community impact and social justice, and reports annually. Future Super screens for human rights and labour standards and adds company engagement, reporting annually and quarterly. Rules-based ethical ETFs handle human rights and labour mainly through exclusions, and their social reporting is usually thinner than their environmental reporting. Broad ESG index funds integrate ESG factors and publish scores at the portfolio level rather than the holding level. inaam selects company by company across five pillars, with health and wellbeing and sustainable consumption carrying most of the social weight, and reports per holding in the app.
Social screening approaches change. Every one of these is published by the provider, and the current version lives in their methodology document and their PDS. Read the current one rather than an article about it, including this one.
Rather than score anyone else, here is our answer beside the question worth asking whoever you are comparing.
| inaam | what to ask any other fund | |
|---|---|---|
| screening approach | Company by company selection against three checks: financial robustness, purposeful impact, leadership calibre. | Is this an exclusion list, a score-based tilt, or active selection, and where is the method written down in full? |
| social themes | Health and wellbeing and sustainable consumption carry the social weight, inside five themes members customise. | Which social themes does the fund cover, and which does it leave to someone else? |
| reporting | Per holding, in the app, with impact data next to each company. | How often, and at what level: the whole portfolio, or company by company? |
| what you can see | Every holding published by name, with the theme it sits under and the reason it is held. | Can you read the full holdings list, and can you check the social claims against it? |
| what it costs | $10 a month. $120 a year, flat. The minimum to invest in the fund is $100, and that is a separate number from the subscription. | Is the fee flat or a share of your balance, and is the minimum the same number as the fee or a different one? |
the measurement problem
Environmental metrics have a head start. Carbon comes in tonnes, generation in megawatt hours, water in litres. Social metrics have no equivalent standard, and that creates a real gap between what a fund claims and what it can prove.
The UN SDGsThe Sustainable Development Goals. Seventeen global goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a blueprint for peace and prosperity. Many impact funds map their holdings to specific goals to measure and report impact. are the most widely used framework. SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) are the ones that matter most for social impact. Some funds map each holding to specific goals, which tells you what your money is behind. Others report at the portfolio level, which is less specific and still useful.
the test
a slogan and a metric are different things
"We support social good" is a slogan. "Our portfolio companies employ 12,000 people in underserved communities" is a metric. One of them can be checked next year to see whether it went up.
Four questions worth asking about any fund’s social claims:
- What social metrics do they track? A number you can compare next year beats a sentence about caring.
- How often do they report? Annual is standard and quarterly is better. In-app tracking you can open today, like inaam’s, is better again.
- Do they use a recognised framework? The SDGs, IRIS+ metrics from the GIIN, or the ACSI governance standards are good signs.
- Can you see social outcomes at the holding level? Portfolio averages hide a lot. Company by company data is more honest.
social outcomes and financial returns
The old assumption was that caring about social outcomes meant accepting less. That has largely been put to bed for mainstream social screening. Companies that treat their workers well, operate in growing markets like healthcare and education, and run strong governance tend to be decent businesses.
The Responsible Investment Association Australasia publishes a benchmark report comparing the funds it certifies with their conventional peers. Its 2024 report found the certified funds ahead of those peers over five years in all three categories it reports, ahead over ten years in two of them, and behind over three years. That is RIAA reporting on the Australian responsible investment market as a whole, not a figure about any one product. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance, and every investment carries risk, including the risk of losing what you put in.
It is different at the edges. Community development finance institutions, social enterprises and direct impact investments sometimes do trade financial return for deeper social outcomes. Through a listed fund or an ETF you are unlikely to meet that trade-off. If you are looking at unlisted or direct impact vehicles, ask specifically what return they expect and what they are giving up to get the outcome.
the honest version
two things at once
A healthcare company that reaches more people sells more. An education platform that works keeps its students. Social outcomes and business results are not always in tension, and pretending they never are is as unhelpful as pretending they always are.
what to do with this
If social inequality is something you want your money working on, here is a practical starting point.
- Check your super first. It is probably your largest single investment. Most super funds now offer an ethical option that includes social screening. Switching takes about ten minutes and costs nothing.
- Decide which social themes matter most to you. You cannot back everything, so pick one or two, say healthcare and labour rights, and look for funds that work there. The money values quiz helps you find your priorities, and it takes seven questions.
- Read the methodology. That means the PDS and the methodology document. If a fund cannot explain how it screens for social outcomes in specific terms, it probably does not.
- Compare reporting depth. A fund that publishes social metrics per holding is showing more accountability than one publishing a glossy annual report with vague claims.
- Start with what you can. Recurring contributions mean you do not need a lump sum. With inaam the minimum to invest in the fund is $100, and the subscription that pays for the app is $10 a month, $120 a year. Two separate numbers.
where to start
the order that works
Super, then themes, then methodology, then reporting, then the first contribution. Most people do it backwards, start with the app and work out what they believe later. Either way round, the super step is the one with the most money attached to it.
where inaam sits on this
inaam is a five theme impact fund where two of the themes, health and wellbeing and sustainable consumption, do most of the social work, and members customise the themes themselves. It is not a social inequality fund.
All 23 holdings are named in the app with the impact data beside them, so a social claim on this page can be checked against the actual portfolio. The three checks a company passes before it can get in, financial robustness, purposeful impact and leadership calibre, are set out on how it works, and the five themes are on investment areas. The subscription is $10 a month, $120 a year, separate from the money you invest, and the minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app, not on this website. SMSFs and family trusts are welcome.
If you want to see how that sits beside other platforms on fees, features and screening depth, compare lays it out side by side.
