UpEffect

21/10/2025

In September, UpEffect and Wholesum launched the inaugural Islamic Impact Investing Conference, bringing together over 70 attendees, including wealth managers, scholars, Islamic finance leaders, social entrepreneurs, impact investors, students, and alternative finance enthusiasts.

We can see that today’s Islamic finance faces challenges in fully living up to its founding principles. Despite growing interest in ethical finance, Islamic impact investing remains underdeveloped. Even with limited data, impact investing makes up only a small portion of the Islamic banking and finance sector’s $3.9 trillion in assets.

While billions flow into traditional Islamic investment products, very little reaches social enterprises delivering measurable social or environmental outcomes or real-economy trade. These solutions are often at the forefront of serving community needs.

In partnership with Wholesum, we wanted to explore one idea: Muslims view wealth as a trust - how can it be used to advance an economy rooted in justice, ethics, and social impact?

A heartfelt thank you to our incredible attendees, inspiring speakers, supportive partners, generous sponsors, and dedicated volunteers — they made this event possible. You can learn more about their work in the comments ⬇️

20/01/2025

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05/11/2024

📕🎉🥳It’s here! Elated to receive my copy of Beautiful Solutions by Beautiful Trouble.

Grateful to Nathan Schneider for inviting me to join an inspiring group of authors creating a toolbox for liberation and transformative ideas for our communities and the world.

I wrote my chapter in 2020 to delve into why Islamic finance stands as a compelling alternative to today’s exploitative and extractive financial systems. In a world grappling with debt and wealth inequality, Islamic finance offers a model rooted in shared risk, power, earnings, and wealth redistribution — values that address some of our most urgent economic challenges.

This vision isn’t just theoretical; it’s being actively realised by inspiring entrepreneurs like , Raza Ullah, and . Through ventures like and , and , they have become beacons of hope, crafting solutions that not only embody the principles of Islamic trade and finance but also create lasting impact in communities.

At UpEffect, we’re proud to contribute to this movement by developing projects grounded in contemporary Islamic financial frameworks to help close the wealth gap and create a more just economy. I’m excited by the potential of this sector to drive meaningful change in local and global economies.

Fortunately, countless people around the world are also working to create a better future through enterprise. For a source of hope amid the darkness surrounding us, order a copy of Beautiful Solutions.

22/10/2024

“The DEI enterprise is meaningless if its principles are only meant to serve the interests of Western governments and systems rigged against minorities.”

’s latest op-ed for on the betrayal of the DEI sector.

25/03/2024

10/01/2024

The 1st ever British Asian Woman's Awards 2024

CEO of the Year Finalists!!!
Sheeza Shah (UpEffect , London)
Kasra Akbar (Alphabet Language Services , Manchester)
Farzana Baduel (Curzon PR, London)
Poonam Gupta (PG Paper Company Ltdy Ltd ,Greenock)
Bakul Gupta (Deliver Biosciences , London)
Kiran Bhagotra (ProtectBox , Belfast)
Nadira Hussain (Socitm , Northern Hampton)
Priya Lakhani (CENTURY Tech, London)
Shalini Khemka (E2Exchange , London)
Tamara Rajah (Live Better With, London)

08/11/2023

Bastions of social good have stood in silence as Palestine has been bombed senselessly for 32 days. What chance does the social enterprise and tech sector stand if we don’t have the courage to speak against an active genocide? Our full statement 👆🏽🍉

27/05/2019

"We, in the West, do not see the consequences of our consumerism and materialism. But people living in developing nations, many of whom live in poverty, pay for our lifestyles."

Full article by 👇

This is the second post in my series, The Picture: big and small. In my first post I explored how land and oceans are integral to the survival of the earth (pretty obvious) and how they are threatened by climate change and pollution. I started big, and over the next few weeks I will be getting small...

22/05/2019

"The sea level has risen by 20 centimetres in the 20th Century, in part due to melting icecaps. This has caused an increase in extreme weather events such as flooding, hurricanes, cyclones and tsunamis."

Full article on Land and Oceans by 👇

If you read my last post you’ll know that this is the start of a series looking at the ‘why’ behind my blog, and behind taking action on climate change at all. I’ve titled this series The Picture: big and small because I want to provide both an overview (if only a brief one) as to the magnit...

07/05/2019

"..as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival"

A dire United Nations report, based on thousands of scientific studies, paints an urgent picture of biodiversity loss and finds that climate change is amplifying the danger to humanity.

01/05/2019

Another sustainable fashion brand FUNDED on UpEffect🥳. Huge congrats Brooke Da Cruz 🎊

Only a few hours left to get your hands on fair trade clothes made lovingly in India from organic crops and non-toxic dyes.

Pre-order your luxury sustainable and ethical wardrobe essentials from Brooke Da Cruz who creates unique but timeless pieces with intention.

28/04/2019

"Six years ago today, a building came crashing down, shattering the worlds of thousands of garment workers. In the wake of this tragedy, there was one world that remained unchanged in Bangladesh, that of the global garment industry”.

With week coming to an end today, let's remember to continue our fight for the protection of the hands making our clothes, our forests, oceans, wildlife and landfills so that we can build a brighter future for our future generations.

Today we look back on our event on slow fashion, financial equity and conscious business with Hoda Katebi, pebble magazine and Faris Sheibani. The speakers highlighted a range of issues prevalent in fashion and coffee industries and how we can use our platforms to build equitable solutions in the fight for justice and ethics for vulnerable communities.

🎥 Watch a full replay of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRSfXyJ8SOM

Video by Justmebreathing Photography

On 19th February 2019, we organised an event with Hoda Katebi, Faris Sheibani and Georgina Wilson-Powell to discuss how to live consciously in a capitalist w...