Domini Impact Investments decided in 2016 to invest against systemic risk, and picked six risks to work on: biodiversity, freshwater, economic equality, ocean stability, peace and justice, and planetary resilience. It manages $2.4 billion.
Two years later the firm published what it had learned and cut the list to one — forests — and has spent the seven years since on that single system.
"So, in hindsight, it's apparent that a firm of our size and resources couldn't possibly have significant influence on this volume of systemic challenges."
Carole Laible runs a firm that has been doing impact investing since 1991, whose founders published the first mainstream case for ethical investing in 1984 and built the Domini 400 Social Index in 1990 — and she came to this conference to describe the detours rather than the results.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it. 25 minutes of audio, 11 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 lessons that matter.
👤 Speaker: Carole Laible, CEO of Domini Impact Investments, an SEC-registered adviser that has focused exclusively on impact investing since 1991 and manages $2.4B
📰 Published: 16 September 2026 on YouTube (The Future of Finance Podcast), recorded at the TIIP 2026 symposium
🔴 YouTube | ⏱️ 25 min | ✅ Time saved: 14 min
Key Takeaways
A $2.4B firm tried to take on six systemic risks at once and had to cut the list to one
Forests won because the system was specific enough to define and broad enough to still be systemic
Eight years passed between the 2008 crisis and the firm's formal commitment, and two more before the project launched
Allocation, the third of the six steps, does not apply to a manager that holds only public stocks and bonds
The method is not any single action but the coordination of ten techniques applied together
Goals came last, not first, and Laible says that is the normal order rather than a failure
The firm expanded its definition from intact forest to six different types of forest and green land, each with its own goals
1. A $2.4B Impact Manager
The session's moderator introduced the talk as the story of a task that looked straightforward — setting goals for forest asset management — and turned into a systems problem. "As subsystems collided and objectives conflicted, the path forward proved non-linear and at times confounding."
Domini is an SEC-registered investment adviser that has focused only on impact investing since 1991.
Laible was direct about the firm's size relative to the room. "We have about 2.4 billion and that's correct. I'm not misstating that. We're not one of the trillion firms, but the billion firms."
Her claim is that influence and assets are not the same thing: "2.4 billion in assets under management, but I often say that our footprint outsize our assets under management."
The history she cited as evidence starts in 1984, when Amy Domini and Peter Kinder published Ethical Investing to argue that competitive returns and ethical alignment were compatible; in 1990 Domini, Kinder and Steve Lydenberg created the Domini 400 Social Index.
The product record she listed is a bond fund in 2000 and an international fund in 2005, both of which she said had not been tried before in sustainable investing. Since 2016 the firm has committed to system-level investing in practice.
What she promised the audience was implementation rather than theory — the journey, the struggles and some of the triumphs — and a warning. "But be forewarned, this work requires patience, persistence, and as noted earlier, institutional commitment."
"The good news is the path is much clearer now than it was when we first started our work." The frameworks, the research, the case studies and a handbook now exist.
The firm intends to publish its full body of work shortly, which Laible said should serve as a prototype for others. Her stated reason for publishing it is to acknowledge the firm's own role in the system and to help stabilize critical systems and, in turn, portfolios.
2. The 2008 Awakening
"So, the 2008 financial crisis began our awakening." Watching global markets come close to collapse, she said, exposed the limit of the analysis the firm was doing.
"No amount of company-by-company or industry analysis could have prepared a portfolio for a systemic failure of that magnitude."
The investment argument follows from that: "When systems are unstable, investments are exposed to non-diversifiable risk." Diversification does not help when the system itself is the problem.
The second half of the premise is that investors are not only exposed to systems but act on them — collective investment decisions, she said, can "stabilize or destabilize those systems" portfolios depend on.
"If you agree with this premise, the question becomes, what do we do about it?" She noted that one of the symposium's organizers had put almost the same sentence to the room earlier that day.
Her framing of the answer is additive, not a replacement: "System-level tools are designed to complement our conventional investment tools as a means of stabilizing the systems we rely on for portfolio success."
3. Reading Before Acting
The firm kicked off its search for answers in 2016 and turned to systems theory. Laible was explicit that the work resembled what the firm already did and was nonetheless different in kind.
"The work was intuitive, yet complex. It was related to our prior work, but incredibly different."
Her example of the difference is deforestation, which the firm had worked on before. Finding the root causes and identifying the firm's own leverage points is where it became a different exercise.
The first move was a reading list. "We assigned Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows and Big World, Small Planet by Rockström and Klum as firm-wide reading."
"We held brown bag lunches to discuss and socialize systems theory and how it might apply in investing."
The structure was committees drawing on the whole firm, on the reasoning that different minds and talents were needed.
The output was an investment belief statement published in 2017, and she said the drafting was a bigger moment than it now looks. "This thinking was groundbreaking."
"It felt monumental to formally and publicly recognize that we are not victims of systemic crisis. As investors, we are participants in these critical systems and have the responsibility to strengthen their resilience and integrity."
4. Six Risks Was Too Many
Laible called the firm's first attempt a failure in plain terms. "Our first attempt is what somebody would call a swing and a miss. We were so eager to tackle systemic risk. We decided we would take on six."
The six: "They were biodiversity, freshwater, economic equality, ocean stability, peace and justice, and planetary resilience. Can you imagine?"
"So, in hindsight, it's apparent that a firm of our size and resources couldn't possibly have significant influence on this volume of systemic challenges."
She did not treat the attempt as wasted. The firm published its experience and lessons in 2018, and she said the early work was valuable.
"Our key takeaway was decide where to focus."
5. Why Forests
After internal debate the firm settled on the preservation of forests, on the reasoning that concentration was the only route to real leverage.
"Forests were ideal because they were a key, but underappreciated part of the global climate system, and they were under threat from industrial agriculture, fires, conversion to palm oil, soy, and cattle grazing."
The selection test she gives is a scope test: "They represent a system that was specific enough to define, but broad enough to be genuinely systemic."
The timeline is the number that should give a new entrant pause. "From the 2008 crisis to our formal commitment to system-level investing in 2016 was eight years of learning, reading, debating, and building intellectual foundation. From that commitment to the forest project launch was another two years. We are now seven years into our forest project itself, and a prototype is now emerging."
6. The Six Steps
Domini organized the work around the six steps set out in TIIP's framework, which Laible went through in order with a caveat about how to use them.
"Keep in mind, these steps are not purely sequential." The firm worked on several in parallel — establishing forest investment beliefs while already engaging portfolio companies.
"This framework provides a structure, but not a rigid recipe."
Step one, establish principles. The 2017 investment belief statement, then forest-specific beliefs and principles published with the project launch in 2018, expanded in 2022 to cover biodiversity, agriculture and indigenous peoples.
Step two, decide where to focus. The firm chose forests and green lands, then justified the choice against four criteria — consensus, relevance, effectiveness and uncertainty — which she said have held up.
Her warning against scope creep: not everything is system-level, and the four criteria are what keep the work at that level.
Step three, allocate assets, does not apply to Domini at all. "Not relevant to us at Domini as we manage publicly traded stocks and bonds only, but very relevant to multi-asset managers and owners where allocation is a crucial part of the investment process."
Step four, apply investment tools. "Traditional investment tools can be extended to help manage system-level risks." Domini's version was to enhance its key performance indicators so analysts could identify companies that resolve systemic risks tied to forests, biodiversity and climate change.
7. The 10 Techniques
Step five is the one Laible said carries the weight of the whole framework, and she complained about the slide that hid it.
"Now, this box is the same size as every other box, but I feel like it should be probably two to three times the size of the rest of these boxes, because this truly is the heart of system level investing."
The distinguishing feature is coordination rather than any individual technique. "These techniques with their intentionality and their mutually supportive application is what distinguishes system level investing."
The 10 techniques fall into three groups: "The first, field building, includes self-organization, interconnectedness, and polity. The second, investment enhancement, includes standard setting, solutions, and diversity of approach. And the third, opportunity generation, includes utility, locality, evaluation, and additionality."
On field building: "For example, in field building, we've presented on more than 20 panels." The firm also reports on the forest project on its website and in its impact reports.
"And we are members of the investor policy dialogue on deforestation, a coalition of institutional investors that engage with environmental officials in Brazil, Indonesia, and consumer countries such as the US, UK, and China."
On investment enhancement: "In investment enhancement, in 2020, we signed the finance for biodiversity pledge to commit to take responsibility and contribute to protecting and restoring biodiversity through finance activities and investments." The firm also widened its agricultural research to work out what regenerative agriculture means in practice.
On opportunity generation: "And lastly, in the opportunity generation, we hosted a workshop for indigenous people representatives at the UN on the use of shareholder dialogue and resolutions to communicate concerns to corporations."
8. Goals Came Last
Step six is evaluating results, and Laible was candid that the firm reached it late and could not have reached it earlier.
"We came upon this question relatively late. It seemed we needed goals. Yet we were unable to do that at the start of the forest project."
She compared the position to an earlier panel's description of clearing a path — the firm was cutting its way forward before it knew what the destination looked like.
Goals only became possible once the firm understood the tools and techniques well enough to define what it was managing. It then split the subject into six types of forest and green land, having started with intact forest alone and added planted mixed-species forests, monoculture plantations, agricultural lands, and primary and secondary green spaces.
"Each of these types of forests and green lands had unique purposes and needs." For each type the firm set both portfolio-level and system-level goals, with success metrics.
Laible and Steve Lydenberg contributed a chapter to the symposium's handbook on setting goals, on the argument that goals are what steer investors toward investments that promote resilience at both levels.
The summary of everything the firm has done comes with a caution about reading it as a checklist. "It's important to emphasize here, it is not any one of these actions, but rather the collection of them with their intentionality and mutually supportive applications that defines our approach as system-level investing."
9. Her Five Rules
Laible closed with five instructions for anyone starting this work, framed as a sketch rather than a method.
"So, the first is start with investment beliefs. The second is focus on one systemic challenge. It needs to be a deep dive so you can channel your efforts."
Third, choose a system that meets the four justification criteria — consensus, relevance, effectiveness and uncertainty.
Fourth, use the advanced techniques — and she repeated the point about coordination for the third time in the talk, saying it is intentionality and coordinated action that differentiate a system-level approach from ordinary sustainable investing.
"And five, set measurable goals. Without goals, it's difficult to evaluate progress. But be mindful that these are unlikely to come to you at the start of your work and are likely going to be generated as you continue your work."
Her closing argument returns to agency. "As investors, we are neither hostages nor victims of systemic crisis. We're participants."
"A clear feedback loop connects individual securities and environmental, social, and economic systems."
"As the 21st century progresses, the importance of investors' role in management of systemic risks and opportunities will only be more crucial as we live in a world of ever-increasing complexity and interconnectedness."
Bonus Insights
Laible opened by noting the morning's speakers had been relieved not to go first, and said she was unsure whether going first after lunch was better or worse.
She twice plugged a platform built by one of the symposium's organizers, and pointed the audience at the system-level handbook available at the event.
She was given 15 minutes and said so twice, calling the slot far too short for years of work — which is why the firm is publishing the full account separately.
Laible's bottom line is that system-level investing is a discipline of narrowing: a firm has to pick one system it can actually influence, accept that the intellectual groundwork takes years before the first investment action, and treat the ten techniques as a coordinated set rather than a menu.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Domini Impact Investments (Her firm: $2.4B under management, impact-only since 1991, and the subject of the whole talk)
The Investment Integration Project (The organization whose six-step framework Domini used, and the host of the symposium)
Finance for Biodiversity Pledge (Signed by Domini in 2020 as part of the investment-enhancement techniques)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Thinking in Systems – Donella Meadows (Assigned as firm-wide reading when Domini began the work)
Big World, Small Planet – Johan Rockström and Mattias Klum (The second firm-wide assignment)
Ethical Investing – Amy Domini and Peter Kinder (The 1984 book making the case that competitive returns and ethical alignment could coexist)
21st Century Investing (The book behind the six-step framework Domini organized its work around)
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