Happy holidays from everyone at TIIP!
Whereas 2021 saw the launch of our book, 21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change, and important conversations about system-level investing in a post-pandemic world, we spent 2022 focused on helping investors implement system-level strategies. Our research shows that almost all investors want to confront systemic challenges, but few know how to do so.
We have established a strong foundation of tools, resources, and expertise to support the transition to system-level investing and we are grateful for the support of our friends and allies in the field working alongside us. As we look ahead to opportunities for reconnection and renewal in 2023, we wanted to also reflect on what we achieved together in 2022:
We set SAIL!
In the beginning of 2022, TIIP launched an all-encompassing investment information platform for investors seeking to better manage systemic social and environmental risks. The Systems Aware Investing Launchpad (SAIL) has two unique components—a plug-and-play solution investors can use to chart their course to become a system-level investor, and a community of practice aimed at driving broader industry transformation.
After the launch (and being featured in publications like Barron’s PENTA), TIIP began to further expand the SAIL platform in partnership with the Surdna Foundation. With Surdna’s support, we have started to develop resources for SAIL focused on the systemic risk of racial injustice and using system-level investing to advance racial equity in investment practices.
Leaders assembled around racial injustice as a systemic risk.
This partnership with Surdna also supported the formation and launch of TIIP’s Racial Equity Working Group, which includes institutional investment leaders (including those from pension funds), impact investing practitioners, and representatives from industry associations and intermediaries. Working group members will guide TIIP in helping investors understand why and how racial injustice is a systemic risk and guide them in managing this risk using system-level investing strategies, policies, programs, or products.
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN) brought system-level investing to their members.
Both ICCR and IEN prioritized the transition to system-level investing in 2022, and partnered with TIIP to bring our tools and resources to their members. Their pilot participation in SAIL is helping users learn, contemplate, address, and ultimately incorporate investment approaches that consider the interconnected nature of the 21st century’s most pressing, complex challenges.
Click here to register for the info session on January 24 @ 2pm ET to learn more about participating in the program. You do not have to be a member of ICCR or IEN to attend.
Our Industry Needs Project helped build the marketplace for system-level investing.
System-level investing may be a familiar concept to regular readers of this newsletter, but it’s still somewhat of a new idea to many across the broader investment industry. As part of our Build the Market initiative, and in partnership with Humanity United and the UBS Optimus Foundation, we executed an industry needs assessment, surveying nearly 100 investors and other industry stakeholders and conducting focus groups and interviewing investors, to better understand how to equip the financial industry with tools and strategies to manage existing systemic social and environmental challenges.
The research confirmed what we long suspected – that many investors want to tackle system-level challenges, but few know how to do so. Platforms like SAIL and other support from TIIP can help bridge this transition from awareness to adoption.
Tideline Compass Series highlights system-level investing.
When TIIP began, there were very few resources or frameworks to help investors successfully implement system-level investing strategies. In the last nearly eight years, our consulting work and research revealed a lot about what it takes to design and implement successful system-level investing strategies.
While more resources are available today, there are still not enough tools to help implement system-level investing strategies. This is why the TIIP team was excited to accept the invitation to feature system-level investing in Tideline’s Compass Series to discuss what system-level investing looks like in practice, along with representatives from two of TIIP’s clients, Domini Social Investments and the University Pension Plan.
We announced a leadership transition.
William (Bill) Burckart became Chief Executive Officer and assumed day-to-day leadership of the organization. Burckart previously served as TIIP’s President and COO. Steve Lydenberg, who founded TIIP, became TIIP’s Chairman. Monique Aiken, TIIP’s Managing Director, took on additional leadership responsibilities, including overseeing the ongoing development of SAIL.
Thanks for your support of this movement in the past year. Wishing everyone a healthy and abundant 2023!
