System-level investing is moving from pioneering practice to market standard. This month: a refreshed home for the field, a date for our 6th Annual Symposium, and what’s live (and coming) in SAIL.
Our website has a new look
Just over a decade after TIIP’s founders coined the term, system-level investing is being called the next frontier for finance. Our redesigned site reflects that momentum and makes it easier to find what you need:
- SAIL: how the Systems-Aware Investing Launchpad meets investors where they are (ESG integration, sustainability, or impact) and helps them scale system-level investing, plus a first look at the upcoming SAIL Dashboard.
- Consulting services: customized support with activation, implementation, and reviews. Ask us about our Playbooks.
- Community of Practice: our past cohorts and trainings, the current Total Portfolio & Systems Intelligence (TPSI) Cohort and Advisory Group, and our partnerships with Columbia SIPA and the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium.
- Publications: the canon of books on system-level investing and our latest case studies on HESTA, Surdna Foundation, and Nippon Life.
- Resource hub: a searchable archive of past newsletters, events, and more.
Save the Date: TIIP’s 6th Annual Symposium on System-level Investing
April 14, 2027 · In person (limited) and virtual
Last April we launched the Total Portfolio & Systems Intelligence (TPSI) Project at the Symposium. This April, we’ll deliver the results of Phase 1.
Expect an overview of our three-part white paper series and the field-tested TPSI framework, built to give investors decision-useful intelligence about both their exposure to systemic risk and their influence on the systems their portfolios depend on. Speakers will include members of the TPSI Cohort and Advisory Group, whose organizations are profiled in the Part III case studies.
In-person space is limited, as always, and everyone can follow along virtually. The application to attend will open on the Symposium page.
Interested in sponsoring the Symposium? Write to us at [email protected].
5th Annual Symposium Redux: Long-term value creation in a changing world
Our series of videos from From Ambition to Action (April 14, 2026) closes with Jake Barnett, Managing Director, Sustainable Investment Strategies at Wespath Benefits and Investments.
Drawing on recent work with the Church of England Pensions Board, Jake argues that long-term value creation now requires investors to confront systemic risks directly, as core drivers of market performance rather than peripheral ESG concerns. He’s candid about where the field has overreached, where it has fallen short, and what asset owners must change to move beyond incrementalism.
Watch the session. Questions or reflections? We’d love to hear them.
On the Radar
October 28, 2026 – Future of Finance Podcast, Pricing the Energy Transition with Mark Campanale of Carbon Tracker
The energy transition is already reshaping oil and gas economics, but many of the models institutional investors rely on still assume it hasn’t happened. Georges Dyer talks with Mark Campanale, Founder and CEO of Carbon Tracker, about unburnable carbon and what stranded assets mean for valuations, Carbon Tracker’s “quiet retreat” analysis of oil and gas majors, why long-dated bonds issued against shrinking reserves deserve closer scrutiny, and how consultants’ climate scenarios can understate risk for long-horizon investors.
October 16, 2026 – Navigating Capital Strategies for Impact: Through Assets, Markets, Systems
Emilie Goodall‘s new paper starts from one question every impact-seeking investor faces: what is the most useful thing I can do with this capital? Its orientation matrix maps intent across three lenses (assets, markets, and systems) so foundations, family offices, and institutions can see where they sit today and how they might evolve.
At the October 16 launch, panelists Belissa Rojas (Fondaction Asset Management) and Sophia Omar (Impact Investing Institute) showed how the matrix helps trustees quickly see their options, with no systems jargon required. A key takeaway: the matrix can be a coordination tool, connecting investors working toward similar ends from adjacent cells.
October 14, 2026 – Future of Finance Podcast, From 2D to 3D Investing with PGGM
What happens when a pension investor makes sustainability a third dimension alongside risk and return? Geraldine Leegwater (CEO, PGGM Investment Management) and Colin Tissen join Georges Dyer and Handbook co-editor William Burckart to discuss their chapter in The Handbook of System-level Investing: a total portfolio approach, stewardship at multiple levels, moving public equities from index tracking to “conscious investing,” and tying compensation to one organization-wide goal.
October 7, 2026 – Future of Finance Podcast, Rule 14a-8, Fiduciary Duty, and the Freedom to Invest with Andrew Collier
The SEC’s proposal to rescind Rule 14a-8 could change how investors and companies talk to each other. Georges Dyer asks Andrew Collier (Ceres) what it would mean in practice: a possible 50-state patchwork, shareholder proposals as a market tool for transparency, and increasingly targeted state bills aimed at proxy advisors. Essential listening for anyone responsible for stewardship, proxy voting, or fiduciary oversight.
What’s New With SAIL?
Watch our new video explainer: How SAIL works.
SAIL is the AI-enhanced platform for managing systemic risks end to end: developing strategy, aggregating data, running diagnostics on current practice, and producing mandatory and voluntary reporting in hours, not months. It meets investors wherever they are today and gives them the tools to scale system-level investing when they’re ready.
Now live!
- Launchpad, now with Diagnostics: initialize your organization’s profile with AI, then work through six interconnected steps to build your system-level investing approach.
- Cross-check: due diligence and peer comparison across 800+ investor profiles, benchmarked against leading practice.
- Reporting: meet mandatory and voluntary disclosure requirements without duplication. Your Launchpad profile becomes the context for each draft.
- Rework: complete questionnaires and due diligence faster, and stress-test policies as new systemic risks, or intersections of risks, emerge.
Coming soon: Dashboard. See your entire portfolio’s real-world influence.
A portfolio-wide view of how your holdings strengthen or strain the systems they depend on, across every asset class and manager. Dashboard will be an optional add-on to the Basic SAIL Subscription (Launchpad, Cross-check, Reporting, and Rework), with bundled pricing for new subscribers.
Request a SAIL demo or email us at [email protected].
TIIP and Friends Around Town
Where we’re going
October 29–30 (New York): Global Inclusive Finance Forum 2026
30+ speakers over two days at the Deutsche Bank Center, working sector by sector (housing and retirement, healthcare and insurance, climate infrastructure, AI and data governance, and more) on one question: where does capital need to move so LGBTQ+ people can build real economic security? See the agenda.
November 18 (New York): Making Missing Markets: Catalyzing Capital and Igniting Innovation
Part of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s initiative to bring private capital to under-resourced communities at a scale that matches the need. Remarks from Governor Michael S. Barr and President John C. Williams, and a fireside chat with Tracy Palandjian (Social Finance). William Burckart joins the closing panel, “The Returns on Investing Upstream,” moderated by Tynesia Boyea-Robinson (CapEQ), with Dr. Bechara Choucair (Kaiser Permanente) and Edgar Romney (Amalgamated Bank). Open to the public at 33 Liberty Street or online, 1:00–5:30 pm. See the agenda and register.
November 18–20 (Toronto): IEN Annual Forum
William speaks on the System-level Investing panel on Thursday morning, November 19, with Brian Minns (University Pension Plan) and Shayla Praud (JFK Law LLP), then helps lead practitioner table conversations with Belissa Rojas (Fondaction Asset Management), Max Messervy (Oakledge Advisors), and Keith Johnson (Global Investor Collaboration Services). Also on the agenda: fiduciary duty and systemic risk, and building system-level investing into the investment policy statement. See the agenda and register.
Where we’ve been
September 23 (New York): Columbia SIRI Blended Finance Conference
William and Jon Lukomnik joined moderator Daniel Sheehan (NPV Associates), a SIPA alum who both took and TA’d their Columbia course, to discuss The Handbook of System-level Investing, with contributors Caroline Flammer, Steve Lydenberg, Max Messervy, and Chris Pinney in the audience. Jon noted that 75–94% of the variability in investor returns comes from systematic risk, while security selection and portfolio construction account for just 6–25%; an estimated $15–25 trillion, roughly 12–20% of institutional capital, is now invested at the system level. Their shared takeaway: this isn’t conceptual. It’s practical, it’s happening now, and investors can act on it tomorrow.
September 24 (New York): System-level Investing in Action, with The Shareholder Commons
TIIP and The Shareholder Commons convened practitioners around two questions: what are the most meaningful actions system-level investors can take, and how do they advance them inside their own organizations? Part of TSC’s System-Level Investing Knowledge Lab led by CEO Dan Osusky and anchored in the Handbook, the roundtable started from the premise that market returns, not relative performance, drive portfolio outcomes, so costs companies push onto others can hurt diversified portfolios in ways the company never feels. William closed with a live SAIL demo showing how to turn those insights into organizational strategy.
September 25 (New York): US SIF brunch-and-learn, NYC Climate Week
In conversation with Jenny Coombs, William and Monique Aiken explained why systemic risks like climate instability, economic exclusion, and biodiversity loss compound and cascade, and can’t be evaluated as separate line items. Monique made it concrete: contaminated groundwater that no diversification can escape. The Q&A went deep, on how SAIL sources data and guards against hallucinations, how strategies extend to bonds and private markets, and how to keep system-level investing from being lumped in with ESG. The takeaway: AI can dramatically expand what investors see and act on, but the destination is still theirs to choose.
September 27 (New York): Street Works Earth
Monique and the Make Justice Normal team closed out NYC Climate Week with the 3rd annual street arts and climate action festival, postponed and moved indoors this year due to the changing climate. Highlights: a first-ever sustainability-themed fashion show and the debut of the team’s new term, JusticeFuturism.
Earlier this year
- April 14, New York: 5th Annual Symposium and the launch of The Handbook of System-level Investing
- April 23–30, New York: Student strategy presentations close our Columbia SIPA course
- May 20–21, London: UK Handbook launches with Investors for Purpose and at LSE
- June, Montreal, Chicago, Boston: System-level investing workshops with Fondaction, PRI, and Climate Finance Action
- June 2, virtual: Opening session of the IEN 2026 Virtual Forum
- June 24–25: Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium (Maastricht); London Climate Action Week
- July 21, virtual: Systemic stewardship webinar, Aotearoa New Zealand Stewardship Code
- August 18–21, San Diego: NGLCC International Business & Leadership Conference mainstage
Full recaps ran in our past newsletters, archived in the resource hub.
Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up with the latest TIIP news and find out how to join the system-level investing movement. Have questions about system-level investing? Email us at [email protected].