Revised edition · Miniver Press · 2026
The revised edition of The Handbook of System-level Investing: How Experts Worth Trillions of Dollars are Rethinking Investing is out, and it includes a new chapter you can download free.
Edited by Jon Lukomnik and William Burckart, the Handbook brings together investors and advisors who have built system-level investing programs from the inside, at pension funds, asset managers, universities, consultancies and regulators.
New in the revised edition
Catalyzing the Bloomberg Cambridge University Corporate Indices
By Lily Tomson and Ellen Quigley, University of Cambridge
Tomson and Quigley recount how a university’s climate commitment became the catalyst for a market-shaping experiment in system-level investing. When Cambridge went to implement its fossil fuel divestment commitment, it found no off-the-shelf bond product that distinguished companies expanding fossil fuels from those phasing them out. So it developed a novel Framework for assessing corporate climate action that, using data from the German NGO Urgewald, has been applied by Bloomberg Index Services Limited (BISL) to build the Bloomberg Cambridge University Corporate Indices (BCam Indices).
- Why corporate bonds are a powerful leverBonds and bank loans account for roughly 90% of new capital for oil and gas companies, and research suggests bond indices can affect both the cost and the volume of that capital.
- How the index worksTransparent, rules-based criteria across fossil fuel extraction, electric utilities, banks and insurers, with no blanket exclusions, so companies have a clear, public pathway to inclusion if they change their behavior.
- A new model of stewardshipAn independent Academic Board identifies an annual Watch List and a Priority Engagement List to focus bondholder engagement.
- Lessons learnedSix lessons from four years of work, from “sometimes you have to create your own data” to “tenacity is key.”
Free download
We’re making this chapter free to download, both for readers who already own the Handbook and for anyone looking for a place to start with system-level investing.
Copyright © 2026 Miniver Press. All rights reserved. From The Handbook of System-level Investing: How Experts Worth Trillions of Dollars are Rethinking Investing, Revised Edition, edited by Jon Lukomnik and William Burckart (Miniver Press, 2026). For information and educational purposes only; not investment advice.
Inside the Handbook
Every chapter is written by investors and advisors who have lived through implementing system-level investing programs. With a foreword by Caroline Flammer and a preface by Stephen B. Heintz.
CHAPTER 01
Why, Who, What, Where & How: Introduction to the Handbook of System-level Investing
Jon Lukomnik and William Burckart
Why Modern Portfolio Theory’s assumptions no longer fit the risks investors face, and the full architecture of system-level investing in one place.
How System-level Investing Comes to Life: A Three-part Case Study of PFZW / PGGM
CHAPTER 02
How to Get Started
Jaap van Dam
How, starting from a blank sheet of paper, the Dutch pension fund PFZW and its manager PGGM became exemplars of system-level investing.
CHAPTER 03
From Two-dimensional to Three-dimensional Investing
Geraldine Leegwater and Colin Tissen
How PGGM builds public market portfolios for a risk, return and impact mandate, and what it changed in its process, structure and culture.
CHAPTER 04
A Real Economy Approach to Integrated Investing and Portfolio Management
Dirk Schoenmaker and Willem Schramade
The academic theory behind PGGM’s portfolio construction, and a practical approach to portfolios that deliver both financial and societal outcomes.
Getting It Right – One Size Fits One
CHAPTER 05
Different Organizations, Different Leverage Points
John Hoeppner
Why effective system-level investing means using each investor’s own skills, resources and culture, from a global asset manager to a mission-driven investor.
CHAPTER 06
System-level Investing for Asset Managers
Jane Ambachtsheer, Sarah Annan and Adam Kanzer
Case studies in collaborative engagement and escalation from BNP Paribas Asset Management, from protecting horseshoe crabs to combatting forced and child labor.
CHAPTER 07
How to Organize an Investment Department as a System-level Investor
Barbara Zvan, Aaron Bennett and Brian Minns
How University Pension Plan Ontario built system-level investing into its governance, culture and compensation while creating an investment office from scratch.
CHAPTER 08
Where to Focus: Identifying Systemic Risks and Setting Goals
Steve Lydenberg and Carole Laible
What setting goals for forest assets taught Domini Impact Investments about subsystems, competing goals and deciding where to focus.
CHAPTER 09
Measuring Success: Evaluation and Measurement
Emilie Goodall
Three reasons to evaluate system-level efforts (to learn, to improve and to prove), with best practices for each.
Tools and Techniques for System-level Investing
CHAPTER 10
Investment Belief Statements
Saksham Malhotra
How HESTA’s investment beliefs link purpose, governance and day-to-day practice, from asset allocation to stewardship and policy advocacy.
CHAPTER 11
Engagement and System Stewardship
Jake Barnett and Patrick Peura
How the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance moved beyond company-by-company engagement to asset-manager oversight, proxy voting and policy alignment.
CHAPTER 12
Catalyzing the Bloomberg Cambridge University Corporate Indices
Lily Tomson and Ellen Quigley
How a university’s climate commitment led to a novel Framework for assessing corporate climate action, applied by Bloomberg Index Services Limited (BISL) in the Bloomberg Cambridge University Corporate Indices. Download free (PDF).
CHAPTER 13
How to Work with Your Consultant on System-level Issues
Max Messervy
An insider’s view of the incentives that shape the consulting industry, and how asset owners can treat consultants as co-creators.
CHAPTER 14
Policy as Table Stakes
Corey Klemmer
Why system-level investors must engage with the legal and regulatory “plumbing” of markets, and how to do it effectively.
CHAPTER 15
Capital Market Assumptions and System-level Investing
Scott Kalb and Paul O’Brien
How climate-adjusting capital market assumptions turns one of finance’s most fundamental tools into a lever for resilience.
CHAPTER 16
Guardrails and Standard-shaping
Takeshi Kimura
How internal guardrails and external standard-shaping turn an investor’s private discipline into market-wide norms.
System-level Governance and Accountability
CHAPTER 17
Applying Fiduciary Duties to System-level Investing
Susan Gary, Keith Johnson and Tiffany Reeves
Why system-level investing is not only permissible under fiduciary law but, in many cases, required by it.
CHAPTER 18
Data and Information Flow for System-level Investors
Roger Urwin
How data has become a strategic asset, and how human and artificial intelligence together can turn sustainability complexity into decision-useful insight.
CHAPTER 19
CalSTRS Case Study: How to Explain Why You Do What You Do
William Burckart and Jon Lukomnik
How the second-largest U.S. public pension fund treats communication as a strategic discipline to build trust in its system-level approach.
Get the full Handbook
The revised edition of The Handbook of System-level Investing is published by Miniver Press.
Listen: The System-level Investing Series
IEN’s Future of Finance Podcast, hosted by Georges Dyer, features authors from the Handbook in a dedicated series.
Episode · Chapter 3
With Geraldine Leegwater (CEO, PGGM Investment Management) and Colin Tissen (PGGM)
How PGGM treats sustainability as a third dimension alongside risk and return.
Episode · Chapter 4
A Real Economy Approach to Integrated Investing and Portfolio Management
With Dirk Schoenmaker (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University), Willem Schramade (Nyenrode Business University) and TIIP CEO William Burckart
How investors can put a value on companies’ social and environmental impact, and use it to build portfolios as universal owners.
Episode · Chapter 5
Different Organizations, Different Leverage Points
With John Hoeppner (Builders Vision)
How system-level stewardship differs between a large index manager and a mission-driven family office.
Episode · Chapter 13
How to Work with Your Consultant on System-level Issues
With Max Messervy (Oakledge Advisors)
Structuring the consultant relationship so it serves the investor.
Episode · Chapter 15
Capital Market Assumptions & System-level Investing
With Scott Kalb (Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative) and TIIP CEO William Burckart
Do your capital market assumptions account for systemic risk?