Bringing intention and purpose to investing
Sponsor highlight: A Q&A with Kristin Hull of Nia Impact Capital
Upstream is proud to partner with Nia Impact Capital of Oakland, California as one of our business sponsors in 2025. We found each other through 1% for the Planet, which connects mission-driven businesses to environmental non-profits – and we look forward to co-creating a circular future. We asked Kristin Hull, Nia’s Founder & CIO, to tell us more about their story and their commitment to investing in sustainability.
What is Nia, and why did you start this investment firm?
Most people are not aware that the way their retirement money is invested is counter to the world they want to see. In fact, 99% of Americans with retirement savings are invested in the fossil fuel industry. We had youth in Oakland (where we are based) interview people on the street to create a great video on this topic. I’d love to share it with you.
I founded Nia over a decade ago to bring a very thoughtful and intentional approach to investing in the stock market, in public equities, in solutions-focused companies and companies that have diversity in leadership. We then build relationships with those companies and engage with them as investors. We believe that sustained, meaningful conversations with companies can lead to long-term value creation—financially, socially, and environmentally.
Nia is Swahili for intention and purpose, and that very much communicates the approach we take to enable people to invest in a way that is beneficial for people, planet, and community. We offer impact investment products that are available at Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and many other custodians—a full list is available at our website.
I am very interested in how you incorporate circularity considerations in your investment approach. Can you tell us how you and your team approach circularity?
At Nia, we take a full-spectrum approach to supporting a sustainable planet by building portfolios of companies delivering climate solutions and products that help communities thrive. An important part of this effort is encouraging each portfolio company to responsibly address issues including circularity, re-use of materials, and stewardship of precious resources. We want to see corporations that are renewing or regenerating, rather than creating waste.
For example, when we invest in wind energy, we look for companies that are taking the full lifecycle of their products into account and are taking actions like converting decommissioned wind blades into concrete products, recycled fiberglass yarns, construction panels, and structural flooring applications. When we invest with companies that have a large water footprint, we look to engage with them on what methods they are using to measure the quantity of water they are using and what efforts they are putting in place to reduce water use as well as steward water quality.
Why did you decide to partner with Upstream?
Circularity and net zero waste requires a large systems change—we’re working on it through channeling our client’s investment dollars and through engaging with and conducting one conversation at a time with companies. Upstream is doing this work in so many ways and filling a vital educational and information sharing role.
We have been a member of 1% for the Planet for years, and so collaborating and partnering with Upstream was a natural step. Moving from the current system of consumerism and single-use-everything to a system-wide change is going to take all of us working from every angle, and that’s what Upstream is doing. We’re really glad to be working to grow awareness among publicly-traded companies that their investors care and want to see them adopting circularity, since what these companies do has such enormous impact—positive or negative.
What’s next for Nia?
Continuing to educate individuals on the power they have through investing, even at times when we might feel powerless.
We’ll of course continue our strong support of 1% for the Planet and the B Corp movement. We recently finished our latest B Corp re-certification and are thrilled that our commitment to people and planet was recognized with an increase to a B Impact score we were already very proud of.
We’re excited to welcome our next cohort of Spring and then Summer interns for our Changing the Face of Finance program. At Nia, we run this program to hire, train, and prepare women and people of color to serve as leaders in the investment industry—within our own company and beyond. There is a surprising statistic here: Just 1.4% of the $83 trillion dollars managed in the United States is managed by female or diverse asset managers.
Each year, the Nia team welcomes interns to learn the ins-and-outs of impact investing by engaging in hands-on portfolio and company research and receiving mentorship from the Nia team.
Whether it’s training the next generation of finance professionals or helping individuals to be more intentional with their investments, that’s what we’ll be working on.
