An unprecedented transdisciplinary research project based on Deep Transitions thinking - an academically grounded theory of change that explains how change unfolded in the past in order to learn how to shape the future. In collaboration with the Global Investors Panel, the Deep Transitions research team developed a Transformative Investment Philosophy for financing a multi-system, world-wide sustainability transition.
Our mission is to mobilise and inspire public and private investors to recognise and activate their role as change agents for accelerating a deep transition towards sustainability. We want Transformative Investment to become the new norm and encourage the finance community to use the power of capital to transform the unsustainable systems our societies are built on.
The Global Investors Panel consists of 16 public and private investors, including from the following organisations:
The Deep Transitions project convened an unusual collaboration of historians, sustainability transition scholars, innovation experts and public and private investors who have come together to co-produce a new approach for financing transformation and long-term system change.
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Impact and ESG investment practices are bringing very positive developments to the industry. However, certain dominant practices often favour system optimisation rather than deeper and more fundamental societal transformations. These include, for example, short-term focus, narrow interpretation of fiduciary duty, rigid asset class distinctions, backward-looking risk management, and incentives structures. To support global net-zero targets or the trajectory stipulated in the Sustainable Development Goals, we need to change the way we invest. Investments need to contribute to long-term system change. Currently, ESG investors often lack the tools and assessment practices to evaluate investments based on their transformative potential.
Investment is an incredibly powerful tool and we urgently need to scale up investment to fully fund socio-technical system change. Socio-technical systems provide basic needs, such as energy, mobility, and food. They dictate everyday behaviour, from our modes of transport to the food we consume and the values we hold. Currently, these systems are based on unsustainable practices such as fossil fuel dependency, globalisation, linear mass production and mass consumption. Transformative Investments are long-term investments that trigger profound multi-dimensional change which ultimately leads to remaking the underlying principles of one or more socio-technical systems.
Participating in this project allowed for constituents from the public, private and academic spheres to opine on what successful systems level change could look like and how to best implement it. Collaborating with this group on sharing our findings via the investment philosophy will allow others to see how they may implement systems level change in their own organisations. Our multi-asset impact investing portfolios will attempt to do just that.
Starting from where we want to be as a society and reflecting on how current innovation niches can get us there to then try and figure out what our investment strategy should look like has been an incredibly valuable exercise.
Journalists, bloggers, writers and other individuals and organisations are encouraged to download and use these authorised Transformative Investment media resources and assets.
In 2020, historians, sustainability transition scholars and public and private investors from around the world have joined forces as part of the Deep Transitions Futures project to develop a new approach for financing transformation and long-term system change. On 16 November 2022, the group launches a Transformative Investment Philosophy, which proposes principles, tools and metrics for realising the transition towards sustainability. It is calling on ESG and impact investors to join the movement and mobilise the power of capital to accelerate change and tackle global challenges such as climate change and growing inequality.
Sponsored by James Anderson and Baillie Gifford, Deep Transitions is an innovative interdisciplinary research project that demonstrates how the unsustainable systems our societies are built on emerged, and how they can be unmade.
The project consists of two phases: Deep Transitions History, an unprecedented historical analysis of how fundamental changes unfolded in the past. And Deep Transitions Futures, applying those findings to shape the future. Together with a Global Investors Panel, Deep Transitions Futures developed a new philosophy for investment to forge a path out of the climate and biodiversity crises and to tackle growing inequality. This is termed Transformative Investment.
The Deep Transitions project is founded by Professor Johan Schot. It is coordinated by the University of Sussex Business School and the Utrecht University Centre for Global Challenges.
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