At the Systemic Investing Summit organized by the TransCap Initiative and TWIST earlier this month in London, participants gathered to explore how private wealth can drive real, systemic transformation. A key topic was private wealth’s unique role in systemic investing —a relatively new approach gaining traction among high net worth investors navigating today’s uncertainty.
The discussion surfaced key insights: the value and necessity of collaboration, the feasibility of market rate returns without being extractive, and the ‘taxes’ of learning, building, and orchestrating as a pioneer in systemic investing. What was particularly inspiring was the enthusiasm of so many to step into this work together.
Systemic investing is an emerging approach to capital deployment at the nexus of impact investing, philanthropy, and sustainable finance, introducing systems change principles to investing for good. The growing community engaged in systemic investing believes that we must face humanity’s most pressing challenges collaboratively and holistically.
Traditional investment strategies often address issues in isolation, missing the broader forces at play. Systemic investors, by contrast, aim to understand and shift the underlying dynamics of complex systems—whether in food, energy, biodiversity, or economic inclusion—by aligning investments, partnerships, and field-building efforts for lasting change. This mindset recognizes that issues can only be addressed by getting to the root of the deeply interconnected systems that generate them.
Root causes
The process starts with scoping the problem space—identifying the root causes of systemic issues. Investors then map out the dynamics of the system, clarify their own role within it, and take action through synergistic investments and partnerships. Because systemic investing is only possible in deep collaboration, CSP’s latest guide, The Investor’s Guide to Systemic Investing, provides insight into key groups for investors to engage with, from fellow wealth holders to wealth managers, financial service providers, researchers, public funders, and field builders.
Several organizations are already proving the power of this approach. The Good Investors, or TGI, is a collective of families working to transform essential systems like food, water, and energy through systemic investing. TGI zeroed in on global food systems, identifying industrial agriculture’s reliance on resource-intensive, unsustainable practices. It responded by funding research and ecosystem-building efforts, commissioning energy and biodiversity system maps, and fostering a community that reflects the diversity of affected stakeholders.
CO_, another systemic investing collective, aligns capital and collaborative action for transformative change. Expanding its mission from Mexico and Latin America to a global scale, CO_ applies a model that integrates research, collaboration, investing, learning, and orchestration. One of CO_’s core initiatives targets alternative food systems that restore soil health and enhance biodiversity while improving food security. By uncovering how dominant industrial food models drive inequality, biodiversity loss, and poverty, CO_ is investing in solutions that offer a regenerative alternative.
Wealth holders and family offices can apply this approach to accelerate impact across sectors—whether in climate adaptation, community finance, or sustainable entrepreneurship. They can do so regardless of borders and create real impact locally, nationally, or internationally – wherever they find their resources can make a greater change.
Momentum is growing. Ultra-high-net-worth communities like The ImPact, which includes members of the Rockefeller and Ford families, are increasingly engaging in systemic investing. The Center for Sustainable Finance & Private Wealth (CSP) and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative have partnered to equip investors with the knowledge and tools to invest for systems change.
As more and more communities expand their systemic investing knowledge, it is possible to create a movement of informed, motivated, empowered investors who use all their forms of capital to contribute to a more just and equitable world. The opportunity is here. This is the moment to align capital with long-term systemic solutions—and to build our resilient futures in the process.
Co-authored by CSP’s managing director Dr. Falko Paetzold and the director of the Sustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan Dr. Jason Jay
