Forbes has posted a story about a new impact investing stock exchange that, as it puts it, "is making steady progress."

The Impact Investing Exchange Board, is a partnership between the Stock Exchange of Mauritius and NeXii, a social enterprise start-up.

To be sure, social exchanges have been bantered about and proposed before. I regularly receive e-mails from entrepreneurs who are hyped on setting up such an exchange, where companies aimed at "doing good" are listed exclusively.

New York-based Mission Markets tried this (albeit on a private equity listing basis)-- and failed. Others from Asia and Africa say they are getting close.

What I like about the idea is that it would serve to address the main obstacle advisors have with impact investing: liquidity.

It has taken the giant country and economic powerhouse of Mauritius to actually make a social exchange a reality. "What's particularly ambitious is that, from the word go, it's been conceived of as a public retail marketplace, open to any investor, not only accredited ones," writes Ann Field in Forbes. Investors must be accredited to invest in private equity deals, of course. Traditional impact investments are private equity deals.

This exchange could be an amazing feat and something that could turn heads at the major exchanges if successful. The Mauritius exchange (SEM) is a member of the World Federation of Stock Exchanges.

Exchanges may see the value on attracting social listings and gaining trading volume. After-hours exchanges and electronic exchanges, after all, led the way to a whole new era of trading only a decade or so ago.

In turn, listings, or as we in the general public call them, companies, may start to see the value in getting more socially responsible. For advisors this means more choices of socially responsible stocks and impact investments from which to choose. Liquid ones.

Seems time then for advisors to drink -- and get more social.
 
Thomas M. Kostigen, who writes about impact investing for fa-mag.com, is a New York Times best-selling author whose latest book is Golden Dawn.