What We Offer

TIIP helps institutional investors understand the big picture, or “systems-level,” context of their portfolio-level decisions. This is important because “systems-level” events, such as economic crises, ecosystems under stress, and societies in turmoil can disrupt the best-laid plans of investors and cost them dearly. Even seemingly “local” issues are now having much greater impact than they once did as the world becomes increasingly interconnected.

TIIP designs, provides and maintains data and tools that enable institutional investors to make this important connection between portfolio-level decisions and systems-level considerations. TIIP’s research portal and database of investor profiles, market analysis, and practical guidance provides a way to better match investors, benchmark systems strategies, and optimize program development. Investors leverage TIIP’s data and tools to solve program inefficiencies, enhance impact measurement, and boost absolute returns.

Mission

Our mission is to help institutional investors understand the feedback loops between their investments and the planet’s overarching systems that make profitable investment opportunities possible. TIIP categorizes these systems as environmental, societal, and financial, and envisions them as large gears that interact with each other. Once this relationship between portfolios and systems is understood, TIIP aims to provide investors with the tools to manage the impacts of their investment policies and practices on these systems.

Vision

Our vision is a world in which institutional investors recognize the influence of their investment decisions on the earth’s systems, and therefore intentionally make those decisions with the realization that healthy portfolio returns are not possible without healthy systems.

Team

Steve Lydenberg

Mr. Lydenberg is Founder and CEO of TIIP. He is also Partner, Strategic Vision of Domini Social Investments providing strategic vision and direction. While Mr. Lydenberg provides concurrent services for TIIP and Domini, each is a separate, independently operated legal entity. He was previously a co-founder of Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini LLC, the originator of the Domini 400 Social Index, the first index to utilize social and environmental standards. Mr. Lydenberg was the Founding Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment and has published widely on responsible investment topics over the years.

Jessica Ziegler

Ms. Ziegler is Associate Director for Research at TIIP and oversees all the organization’s research projects. She has extensive experience in research design, data collection and rigorous qualitative data analysis. She comes to TIIP from Mathematica Policy Research—an industry-leading policy research firm—where she spent eight years conducting social policy evaluations. Ms. Ziegler has authored a number of reports on the implementation, costs and effectiveness of federally-funded employment, family support and education programs; her reports are used by programs and policymakers to guide reforms and improvements. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in Policy Studies from Dickinson College.

William “Bill” Burckart

Mr. Burckart is the President and COO of TIIP. He is also the Founder of Burckart Consulting, an impact investing advisory firm. Mr. Burckart has been at the forefront of the impact investing industry and has contributed to the field through groundbreaking research, including leading a multi-year field building effort focused on the financial services industry in collaboration with the Money Management Institute. Mr. Burckart is a visiting scholar of the US Federal Reserve, serves on the Global Advisory Council of Cornerstone Capital Group, and is a co-founder of Impact Economy.

Mackenzie Clark

Ms. Clark is a Research Assistant at TIIP. She previously worked at various organizations including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Principles for Responsible Investment, the United Nations Global Compact and the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Ms. Clark was a panelist at the Zofnass Program Workshop: The Business Case for Sustainable Infrastructure at Harvard University in 2017 where she presented her work on quantifying the benefits of sustainable infrastructure through a unique sustainable return on investment framework. She holds a Master of Science in Sustainability Management degree from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from Queen’s University in Canada.

Background

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) currently encourages investors to consider portfolio-level decisions as if they were without impact on the planet’s systems because it is assumed that market forces are beyond their influence and control. But we believe the world is more interconnected than ever before and that investors must look beyond MPT to improve the performance of long term investments.

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