Research · System-level investing
Today's social and environmental challenges are fundamentally destabilizing, new and different. They are global. They have tipping points that once passed cannot be reversed. They are systemic risks in a highly interconnected and complex world, and they threaten long-term investment returns across all asset classes in ways that traditional risk management cannot cope with. A growing class of investors, whom we call system-level investors, has emerged in response. They acknowledge that they have an impact, negative or positive, on the health of global systems, and that those systemic challenges impact their portfolios in return.
System-level investors go beyond portfolio construction and security selection to adopt new techniques explicitly designed to influence global systems and limit broadly occurring undesirable outcomes from the outset. These approaches stress collaborative action, building shared knowledge bases, setting industry standards, and creating a rising tide of investment opportunities for all investors. They focus on key leverage points that can strengthen overall systems, enhance their resilience, and ensure their long-term sustainability.
The books
Three books that define the field: 21st Century Investing sets out what system-level investing is, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory explains why it matters, and The Handbook of System-level Investing shows how leading investors put it into practice.
The what
William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg
Two experienced and visionary authors show how institutions and individuals can go beyond conventional and sustainable investing to address complex problems such as income inequality and climate change on a deep, systemic level.
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The why
Jon Lukomnik and James P. Hawley
Why Modern Portfolio Theory cannot deal with systematic risk, and how investors can and do mitigate risks such as climate change, income inequality, lack of diversity and antimicrobial resistance.
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The how
Jon Lukomnik (Editor) and William Burckart (Associate Editor)
Leading investors show how system-level investing works in practice: considering the interplay between their investments, the real economy, and our environmental, social and financial systems to maximize returns while minimizing risk.
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Reports, case studies and white papers from TIIP and its partners, newest first.
This comprehensive white paper from Colorful Capital delves into how historic inequities persist in the structures of today in the U.S. and offers actionable frameworks for investors, managers and allocators to address and assess progress towards rectifying the longstanding exclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community. Read this report to gain perspective on the reality that LQBTQIA+ inequity is nothing short of a systemic challenge that poses considerable risks to the U.S. economy and financial system.
This whitepaper by Colorful Capital covers the history of systemic inequality in the United States that, to this day, impacts marginalized and overlooked communities. The paper examines the large systemic changes and significant community empowerment necessary to reach a society where opportunity is equitably dispersed among gender, racial, ethnic, geographic location, social class, and other invisible attributes.
