The $330 billion Australian Retirement Trust (ART) is understood to be considering a landmark multi-billion dollar allocation across the impact investing sector, which could finally kickstart the fledgling local industry.

It would mark a breakthrough among large Australian institutional asset-owners, who have long held concerns around investment performance. Others have struggled to implement the strategy across disparate investment teams or scale up the strategy across small and highly specialised products.

ART’s plans for impact investing – which aims to deliver returns as well as positive social change – were widely discussed among attendees at the recent Impact Investing Summit in Sydney.

However, an ART spokesperson declined…