TIIP was founded in 2015 by Steve Lydenberg—co-founder of the first index to utilize social and environmental standards—and William Burckart—a respected sustainable investing consultant—who were determined to help investors align their strategies and practices with the increasingly complex world of the 21st century. Not only did they want to show investors that everything—from the environment to healthcare to the financial markets—is interconnected, they also hoped to demonstrate that investors can play a major role in preventing environmental disasters and easing social unrest. They hoped that investors would realize that doing so is not only good for global sustainability and well-being, but it is good for their bottom lines.
TIIP has since worked tirelessly to encourage adoption of system-level investing, an advanced sustainable investing approach through which investors consider the bigger-picture environmental, social, or financial system context of their security selection and portfolio construction decisions.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, we established the theoretical frameworks for identifying systemic environmental and social challenges best-suited to investor action and developed and disseminated information about effective system-level investing tools. We have since broadened our efforts and are helping to meet industry demand for practical guidance on adopting system-level investing approaches and measuring investors’ impacts and influence on environmental and social systems.
We look forward to continuing to build the industry’s understanding of system-level investing and its capacity for addressing pressing systemic challenges; challenges that if left unaddressed, threaten investors’ long-term success.