With frameworks in place, attention turns to the realities of long-term implementation. Carole Laible of Domini Impact Investments recounts what began as a seemingly straightforward task—setting goals for forest asset management—and evolved into a complex systems challenge. As subsystems collided and objectives conflicted, the path forward proved nonlinear and at times confounding. This session offers a candid account of detours, trade-offs, and lessons learned, highlighting the practical complexity investors face when managing real assets within interconnected systems.

This episode is part of our ongoing System-Level Investing series, featuring the chapter authors of The Handbook of System-Level Investing. Most capital market assumptions used across the investment industry are built almost entirely on historical data, which is a methodology that's worked for decades but may be reaching its limits as climate change reshapes long-term economic trends.

Host Georges Dyer is joined by Scott Kalb, former CIO and Deputy CEO of the Korea Investment Corporation and now Director of the Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative at Tufts University's Fletcher School, along with William Burckart, CEO of The Investment Integration Project and an associate editor of the Handbook.

They dig into Chapter 14, co-authored by Kalb and Paul O'Brien (Wyoming Retirement System board; former Deputy CIO of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority). This chapter is built around one foundational question for institutional investors: do your capital market assumptions account for systemic risk?

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Key themes:

- What capital market assumptions (CMAs) are, and why they're the foundation of every institutional asset allocation model

- How Kalb and O'Brien built a climate-adjusted CMA by running 40 major providers' assumptions through NGFS climate scenarios

- Why most CMA providers still lean heavily on backward-looking historical data, and what that means for long-term risk

- How asset owners can start the conversation with their own CMA providers about integrating climate risk

This episode offers a candid look at one of the least-discussed building blocks of institutional portfolio construction, and why it may need updating. Catch the rest of the System-Level Investing series on the channel. #responsibleinvesting

Join us at IEN's 2026 Annual Forum, November 18–20, 2026, in Toronto, ON. Register here: https://www.intentionalendowments.org/ien_2026_annual_forum

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Resources:

The Handbook of System-Level Investing (Jon Lukomnik & William Burckart): https://us.amazon.com/Handbook-System-level-Investing-Trillions-Rethinking/dp/1939282594

Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative (RAAI), The Fletcher School at Tufts: https://raai.tufts.edu/about

TIIP (The Investment Integration Project): https://tiiproject.com/

The Predistribution Initiative  (PDI): https://www.predistributioninitiative.org/

Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS): https://www.ngfs.net/en

If system-level investing is now an operating imperative, the next question is how institutions actually see and manage these risks across the whole portfolio. Lynn Paquin (CalSTRS) and Adam Connaker (Surdna Foundation) introduce the Total Portfolio Dashboard—a new decision-support tool designed to help institutional investors identify, manage, and act on system-level risks and opportunities across asset classes and strategies. Built for CIOs and investment teams operating in a world where beta is increasingly shaped by system health, the Dashboard translates complex system dynamics into a portfolio-wide view that connects asset allocation, stewardship, risk management, and governance.

Many institutional investors are caught in a bind: fiduciary duty requires them to weigh material risks like climate and workforce stability, while political pressure increasingly discourages them from naming those risks at all. Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, President & CEO of CapEQ and author of Just Change, joins Georges Dyer to unpack that tension, and what boards, CIOs, and asset owners can actually do about it.

Key themes:

IEN's 2026 Annual Forum is November 18–20 in Toronto, ON. Register here: https://www.intentionalendowments.org/ien_2026_annual_forum

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Resources:

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General Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction

Physical climate risks such as wildfires, floods, extreme heat, are generating more data than ever, but institutional investors still struggle to translate it into decisions. In this episode, Eric Collins, co-founder of CRX.pro and former tech lead at the University of Washington's Climate Risk Lab, joins Georges Dyer to unpack why the physical risk data industry has a "last mile" problem, and what it actually takes to price this risk into portfolios.

Key themes:

Georges Dyer and Eric Collins also cover CRX.pro's Resilience Benchmark tool for REITs, the shifting political language around "climate" versus "resilience," and the risk of losing foundational public climate data.

Join us at the IEN 2026 Annual Forum, November 18–20 in Toronto. Register here: https://www.intentionalendowments.org/ien_2026_annual_forum

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Resources:

CRX.pro: https://www.crx.pro/

UW Climate Risk Lab: https://foster.uw.edu/uw-climate-risk-lab/

GARP, "A Risk Professional's Guide to Physical Risk Assessments: A GARP Benchmarking Study of 13 Vendors" (2025): https://www.garp.org/white-paper/risk-professionals-guide-251023

Fire Weather by John Vaillant: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554938/fire-weather-by-john-vaillant/

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General Timestamps:

00:01:28 – Introducing Eric Collins and CRX.pro

00:01:44 – The gap in physical climate risk data

00:04:38 – Eric's path: Vanguard, Grow Intelligence, UW Climate Risk Lab

00:13:11 – Inside CRX.pro's Resilience Benchmark for REITs

00:18:43 – Priced vs. unpriced risk: three transmission channels

00:24:13 – Utilities as a case study in repricing

00:26:44 – Who uses this data: asset owners, consultants, and managers

00:38:46 – Climate risk in a shifting political environment

00:41:55 – Public data access and the foundational data layer

00:43:54 – What's next for CRX.pro

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This conversation is intended to inform institutional decision-making and does not constitute investment advice. Listeners should consult a qualified professional before making investment decisions.

Internal guardrails and standards achieve scale only when supported by coordinated field-level action. Featuring Cambria Allen-Ratzlaff (PRI), Fran Seegull (USIIA), Georges Dyer (IEN), and Josh Zinner (ICCR), this session examined field building as a critical—but often underappreciated—lever for system-level investing. Moderated by Chavon Sutton of Cambridge Associates, panelists explored how investors can shape shared norms, information flows, and policy environments, and why collaboration with peers—including competitors—is often essential to addressing risks no single investor can manage alone.

George Suttles is Executive Director of the Common Fund Institute, where he leads the organization's education, benchmarking, and professional development work for endowment and foundation investors. In this episode, Suttles joins host Georges Dyer to discuss how institutional investors are approaching sustainable and mission-aligned investing amid a shifting political and regulatory environment, a conversation relevant to any CIO, trustee, or asset manager weighing how to hold a long-term course through short-term pressure.

This conversation offers a grounded, practitioner's view of how institutional capital continues to evolve without departing from fiduciary discipline.

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Resources:

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As fiduciary expectations evolve, so too must the shared frameworks and reference points that guide boards, CIOs, and investment committees. Moderated by Tynesia Boyea-Robinson (CapEQ), this fireside conversation marks the launch of The Handbook on System-Level Investing. Editors Jon Lukomnik and William Burckart discuss why the Handbook is arriving now—amid intensifying systemic risks, rising scrutiny of fiduciary practice, and growing recognition that diversification alone cannot protect long-term returns. Drawing on case studies from leading global investors, they explore how system-level investing has moved from theory to practice and what decision-makers need to understand as market outcomes are increasingly shaped by system health. Get your copy here: a.co/d/0ch6wiRr

Roy Swan, Head of Mission Investing at the Ford Foundation, joins Georges Dyer to talk about his new book, Positive Sum: How Zero Sum Thinking Broke Capitalism and How We Can Fix It. Drawing on his experience running Ford Foundation's mission-related investing program, Roy makes the case for positive-sum capital allocation, not as a values position, but as a measurable efficiency argument. For endowment leaders, CIOs, and trustees weighing how fiduciary duty applies in a more complex world, this conversation grounds the debate in economic theory, historical precedent, and portfolio-level evidence rather than advocacy.

In this episode, Roy and Georges discuss:

This conversation is intended to inform institutional decision-making and does not constitute investment advice. Listeners should consult a qualified professional before making investment decisions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

IEN 2026 Annual Forum 📅 November 18–20, 2026 📍 University of Toronto, ON

🔗 https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/2026-annual-forum

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General Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

02:17 Why Foundations Separate Endowment from Mission

08:39 Sponsor: IEN 2026 Annual Forum

09:11 The Mathematical Roots of Zero-Sum vs. Positive-Sum Thinking

13:36 Milton Friedman and Why Nations Fail: Rethinking Economic Orthodoxy

23:07 The $50 Trillion Cost of Zero-Sum Thinking, Explained

26:32 Worker Engagement, Culture, and the KKR Proof Point

28:47 Inside Ford Foundation's Mission-Related Investing Portfolio

41:37 Who Needs to Lead the Shift to Positive-Sum Capital

52:27 Roy's Vision for the Future of Finance

In this episode, Georges Dyer is joined by Caroline Escott, Head of Investment Stewardship and Co-Head of Sustainable Ownership at Railpen, the in-house manager for the UK Railways pension schemes overseeing £34 billion on behalf of over 350,000 members. Together they walk through Railpen's December 2025 case study “Systemic Stewardship: The Financially Material Imperative” produced with the Investment Integration Project (TIIP) and Sinclair Capital, distilling five years of live implementation into a framework any asset owner can learn from.

What you'll learn:

For CIOs, trustees, and investment teams thinking about how to move from ESG integration to genuine market influence, this episode delivers a concrete, evidence-based framework built over five years of live implementation.

Resources mentioned:

General Timestamps:

00:00  Introduction & US SIF Forum 2026

02:10  Why Every Large Investor Should Think Like a Universal Owner

06:45  The TIIP Case Study — Grounding the 3 Levers in Fiduciary Duty

12:00  Lever 1: How to Use Company Engagement for System-Wide Change

20:30  Lever 2: Why Policy Engagement Is Often More Efficient Than Company Engagement

29:15  Lever 3: How to Build Collaborative Initiatives That Actually Work

38:40  How to Adapt Your Levers When the Regulatory Environment Shifts

44:50  How Smaller Asset Owners Can Apply All 3 Levers Without Railpen's Scale

50:20  What Happens When Asset Owners Use Their Collective Sway

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The Future of Finance podcast is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network. New episodes explore how institutional capital can be deployed to build more resilient, prosperous, and sustainable financial systems.

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*Disclaimer*

The information presented in this episode reflects the views and opinions of the guest and does not constitute investment, legal, or regulatory advice. The Intentional Endowments Network does not endorse any specific products, services, or organizations referenced herein.