Author Description

Investing always evolves. The investing challenges of the 21st¿century are new, destabilizing and systemic. They involve complex, interconnected global issues that impact societies and economies. To maximize returns while minimizing risk, investors need to consider the interplay and interdependencies between their investments, the real economy, and the complex challenges of our environmental, social, and financial systems. System-level investing does just that. Building on and going beyond traditional finance theory and sustainable investing practices, system-level investing recognizes the need for capital markets to be able to efficiently create investment opportunities from a flourishing real economy, which in turn, depends on robust social, financial, and environmental systems. At the same time, investing influences those systems. The feedback loops are complex. System-level investors intentionally seek to manage their impacts on global systems, recognizing that mitigating systemic risks can reduce investment risk and enhance returns. Doing so, however, requires new investment strategies that directly address challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, racial and gender injustice, income inequality, and food and health systems fragility, among others.