UNLEASHING THE POWER OF CAPITAL
transformative investment
Together, we need to create a new approach to investment. One that supports systems change and deep, fundamental transformations. We have a choice in the type of future we build and can free ourselves to spark the lasting change needed for a sustainable world. How? Transformative Investment.
Target short-term positive impact while seeking (above) market rate return on investment. Investment is seen as a means to treating a symptom (e.g. global warming), which doesn’t bring about long-term systemic change. For example, creating efficiencies in an industrial manufacturing process.
Consider the risks and outcomes of an investment in terms of set, easily quantifiable environmental, social and governance factors, such as CO2 emissions avoided, or the number of people given access to power.
Invest in individual sectors and seek to make progress on discrete challenges within single systems. For example, through deep yet siloed engagement with agritech or renewable energy.
Investors tend to work in isolation on the basis of as-presented investment opportunities.
Targets opportunities to amplify positive impact within multiple dynamic systems. Investment is seen as a means to stretch the potential and accelerate the rate of ongoing transformation processes by realising investments that intervene in key leverage points of single or multiple systems. For example, the transition to a production and consumption model of more durable and shared-use goods.
Considers the outcomes of an investment in terms of the impact on the underlying and guiding rules embedded within a system. For example, replacing the current dominant model of individualised car ownership with cars as a shared mobility service.
Invests across multiple sectors and systems, seeking to understand new innovations, products and solutions as opportunities that exist not in isolation, but within a wider web of interwoven systems.
Investors are encouraged to collaborate among each other and with other actors, such as the public sphere and other organisations, to contribute to creating solutions and investment opportunities.
Standing on centuries of knowledge
Transformative Investment stands on the shoulders of over a century of climate science, political action, investor frameworks and academic research. By leveraging the insights of the Deep Transitions framework, Transformative Investment aims to enable and accelerate systems change. It empowers us to break free of rigid constraints, builds upon the seeds of best practice already established by front runners within the industry, and provides a springboard for deploying capital for transformation.
Transformation in action
The Deep Transitions Lab uses the Transformative Investment Philosophy as a framework and map to help us use and practice each of the 12 principles. The lab is a space for innovation that unites and nourishes collaboration. We run rigorous experiments, develop tools and metrics, conduct research, grow a community of practice and nurture investment portfolios that are geared towards the long term and are resilient towards the shocks and radical uncertainty associated with climate change.
Take a deep dive or quick tour of Transformative Investment
Download the full Transformative Investment Philosophy for a deep dive into its background, process, and impact or the Quick Guide for initial understanding.
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