Blue Earth Summit

When Nick Stoop joins the Blue Earth Podcast wearing bright pink headphones, borrowed from his six-year-old daughter, it’s an unexpectedly fitting introduction.

Because at the core of Pangea Impact Investments, the company Nick founded, is a deeply personal idea: that how we invest today should reflect the world we want our children to inherit tomorrow.

Pangea is not just another sustainable finance offering. It’s a direct challenge to how trillions of pounds of pension capital are allocated, and a belief that pensions may be the most powerful, underused lever we have to shape the future economy.

Listen to the podcast on Spotify or click below to watch it on YouTube:

 

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From Traditional Finance to Impact-first Investing

Nick’s journey into impact investing didn’t start in a startup accelerator or climate lab. It started in traditional finance.

He spent the first 15 years of his career inside the global asset management industry, including time at BlackRock, building a deep understanding of how capital flows through markets, and how disconnected much of that capital is from planetary reality.

Alongside that career, Nick has always been drawn to the outdoors and to nature. Over time, that tension became harder to ignore.

“I’ve spent the last two decades watching the damage we’re doing to the planet, and at the same time working inside systems that were still funding it.”

About eight years ago, a realisation landed: pensions are our biggest vote for the future.

Yet when Nick looked for a workplace pension that truly aligned with his values, he couldn’t find one. So he decided to build it himself.

 

What is Pangea Impact Investments?

At its core, Pangea exists to make positively impactful investing accessible, without sacrificing financial performance.

The business designs investment solutions that individuals and organisations can access through:

• Personal pensions (SIPPs)

• ISAs

• General investment accounts

• And, crucially, workplace pensions

Nick became Pangea’s very first client, moving his own pension into the strategy when the company launched.

In January, Pangea reaches a major milestone: the launch of the UK’s first genuinely sustainable default workplace pension solution, designed to work within auto-enrolment rules while still delivering real environmental credibility.

That last point matters.

 

Cutting Through Greenwash with Real Diligence

Sustainable investing has a trust problem, and Nick is clear-eyed about it.

Rather than starting with glossy ESG scores, Pangea begins its due diligence at the asset manager level. The question is simple but demanding: Is sustainability the firm’s entire focus, or just a product line?

Only managers that are fully committed to responsible and impact investing make the cut. From there, Pangea scrutinises:

• Track records and team stability

• Whether funds remain “true to label” over time

• How closely investment decisions align with stated philosophies

For workplace pensions, additional constraints apply, including the 0.75% charge cap. Navigating that required compromise without abandoning principles.

To achieve this, Pangea partnered with Amundi, one of the world’s largest asset managers and, in Nick’s view, one of the most serious about responsible ownership and stewardship.

Crucially, this kind of solution simply wasn’t possible five years ago. The market has evolved.

 

Does Sustainable Investing Mean Weaker Performance?

This is often the first question Nick hears, and it’s the right one.

There’s a persistent assumption that sustainability comes at the cost of returns. But data increasingly tells a different story.

Low-cost, Paris-aligned indices (developed by MSCI) have now been live for over six years, with back-tested performance stretching much further. The results show minimal deviation from traditional benchmarks, while delivering dramatically lower financed emissions.

In short:
You no longer have to choose between responsibility and retirement security.

“For the first time, you can invest money that really matters (your pension) in a way that’s credibly sustainable without sacrificing return.”

Built to scale, not to bloat

One of the most striking parts of Pangea’s model is how deliberately it has been designed for scale.

Rather than building everything in-house, Pangea has assembled a trusted ecosystem of partners across custody, regulation and technology, allowing the business to stay lean while remaining fully regulated and robust.

This approach means:

• Lower costs for clients

• Faster product development

• Scalability without building large internal teams

Since launching in 2022, Pangea has:

• Been revenue-generating from day one

• Surpassed £1m in assets under management

• Grown steadily through individual clients

Individual investors alone wouldn’t unlock the scale needed to match the ambition.

 

Why B Corps are the Starting Point

The real inflection point is workplace pensions, and Pangea’s initial focus is clear.

UK B Corps now face binding requirements around pension transparency and alignment under updated certification standards. There are over 2,700 certified B Corps in the UK, employing more than 200,000 people, and that number is growing fast.

Pangea’s five-year ambition is bold but focused:
£1bn in assets under management within the B Corp ecosystem alone.

From there, the model expands to:

• Sustainability-led SMEs

• Charities

• Values-aligned organisations beyond B Corp certification

It’s a clear ICP, a clear market, and a clear mission.

 

Funding, focus and what success looks like in 2026

After initially self-funding the business, Pangea raised £280k in pre-seed funding led by Mustard Seed & Partners. A £1m raise is now planned to build out the team and accelerate growth, in partnership with Blue Earth Ventures.

For Nick, a strong 2026 isn’t about vanity metrics. It’s about:

• Successfully onboarding early workplace pension clients

• Learning fast and refining the model

• Doubling down on the organisations where alignment is strongest

“By the end of 2026, I want real clarity on exactly who this solution serves best, and the confidence to scale hard from there.”

 

Inspired by Creativity

When asked who inspires him, Nick doesn’t name a fintech founder or fund manager. Instead, he points to David and Claire Hyatt, founders of Howies and The Do Lectures.

It’s the creativity and community-building that resonates most, a reminder that the future economy isn’t just about money moving differently, but about people thinking differently too.

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Pangea isn’t shouting. It isn’t chasing hype cycles. It’s methodically rewiring one of the most powerful systems in the economy.

Because if pensions really are our biggest vote for the future, then Nick Stoop is asking a simple question:

Why wouldn’t we use it?