Systemic Investing Summit Reflections

Last week, we had the honour of participating in the 3rd Systemic Investment Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, organized by TransCap Initiative and Converge Capital. It was the first time the Summit was held in the global south. 

We were impressed by the overall organization, the quality of the discussions and how the structure of the days facilitated good one-on-one conversations and connections. It was a spot-on move from the TransCap team, which is in a bold initiative to create and foster the ecosystem of Systemic Investment. 

Being part of a movement that is gaining traction has advantages. It is more porous in the sense that its borders are still being defined and refined, which allows for quick corrections and route adjustments. It offers language to practices and processes that were already happening to a deeper understanding of its own work, and also to become legible to a broader field. On that note, It was quite common at the Summit to listen to people saying in a rather humorous way that they just found out they were doing “systemic mapping for years” or that “my efforts to make initiatives viable by approaching many different mechanisms and stakeholders is actually called blended finances.”

Another aspect is that opportunities for collaboration and improvement multiply when an ecosystem is still taking shape. This is further deepened by something particular to Systemic Investing itself: by shifting the core of analysis from individual investors and projects to the field as a whole, it becomes clear that lasting solutions depend on wide collaboration between many stakeholders. In that sense, the centrality of action moves almost naturally from the individual to the collective, ideally a collective that includes many other beings and ecosystems.

The definition of Systemic Investing presented by Dominic Hofstetter at the Summit is "a capital deployment approach designed to transform real-economy systems for advancing a low-carbon, climate-resilient, just and inclusive society." Those are of course desirable outcomes and point us all in an important direction, yet broad enough to risk being co-opted and emptied without mechanisms for constant course-checking. What feels particularly important is building an accountability system where not only projects are accountable to investors, but where asset owners and managers can also be held accountable by the people, communities, territories, bioregions, and more-than-human beings.

Which is precisely why the voices of Indigenous and traditional communities matter so centrally to this conversation, not as a gesture toward inclusion but as holders of deep accountability to land, ecosystem, and long-term consequence. Representatives of communities who carry that knowledge were present at the Summit, and their presence was strong. But the conversation needs that knowledge and lived experience closer to its centre, not at its edges. The same could be said for reparation, historical harm, and the deeper patterns that produce the polycrisis itself. That is a conversation for another post, though.

That said, bringing the Summit to the Global South already creates the conditions for sensing what and who is missing. As we saw at COP30 in Belém, holding conversations in the places where the effects of the crisis are most acutely felt generates necessary tensions, and an openness to the alternatives and social technologies produced by communities and territories who have been living systemic alternatives for generations. 

It is that productive tension, between what the field is building and what it has not yet made space for, that brought us to the Summit. As Terra Adentro, we arrived carrying Phase 3 of an ongoing inquiry into Wealth, Power and Complexity, a process shaped in earlier phases alongside Carolina Azul Duque, and supported by Stefan Binder and Cassie Robinson through Arising Quo, with the early support of Antonis Schwarz in this phase. Some of the questions we are carrying, and would very much like to continue in dialogue about:

• What are the conditions that can foster real accountability and more generative relationships between people in different positionalities experiencing power asymmetries? 

• How do we build the inner and relational capacities that systemic investing requires, beyond analytical capacities and financial mechanisms?

• How do legal, financial and psychological structures shape the relationship between wealth and historical responsibility?

• What would it look like for reparation and historical harm to be considered in systemic investing frameworks rather than adjacent conversations?

We want to close by recognizing the many strong projects, initiatives, and people we encountered, some for the first time and others again. The ethics that guide their actions and the will to question their own assumptions and business models are not something that is easily found within the sector. Complexity demands being able to move while critically looking for what still needs to be done differently, and where we keep failing despite our efforts. We look forward to continuing shaping the field together.

Camilla Cardoso & Dino Siwek