Capital Institute Blog

Last week we opened a discussion on the idea that “while resilience is critical for a system’s survival, in times of great instability, that same resilience can be problematic for the larger system(s) in which the resilient system is housed.” A vibrant conversation in the comments section has since ensued, the main themes of which are the hierarchy of systems, the management of systems, and…

August 2012 Update— In January of 2012 the CARS™ system was spun-off the Opportunity Finance Network and re-launched as an independent organization.  CARS™ continues to focus on providing intelligence on the CDFI industry to investors of all sizes. The organization, has released new products in tandem with its independent re-launch and Paige Chapel has continued on as director. The new…

Capital Institute contributed to a new Ebook, just published by Harvard University Business School.  The Landscape of Integrated Reporting is a collection of articles and thought pieces by those who attended a recent Integrated Reporting Workshop organized by Professor Robert Eccles, co-author of One Report.  Our contribution is a letter written by a fictional CEO to her board of directors.  Read it…

As we look to transform our economic and financial systems to support a more just and regenerative economy, we at Capital Institute are aware of how much we have to learn from observing the resiliency of natural systems. And the more we learn about the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council project as we undertake the research for our upcoming Field Guide to Investing…

Capital Institute’s John Fullerton has been selected as a juror for the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, an annual international design challenge awarding $100,000. We are grateful for the opportunity to bring attention to legacy of the challenge’s namesake. As one of the first engineers to contemplate the way design interacts with nature and society, he sought to create a world…

One of the Capital Institute’s eight over-arching goals is a transition to new metrics of social and environmental wellbeing. Much great work has already been done on the private sector component of this issue by groups like the Global Reporting Initiative, the Initiative for Responsible Investment, the International Integrated Reporting Committee, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, Global Initiative…

If you open up the papers lately, you’ll find the discussion of the sovereign debt crisis tends to focus narrowly on offending nations’ profligate spending and borrowing habits. While these behaviors have no doubt contributed to fiscal deficits, what is often overlooked is that addressing another kind of deficit–an ecological one–is of equal importance if nations are to sustain healthy…

We recently spoke with Alexander Barkawi, founding director of the newly launched Council on Economic Policies, an international non-profit, non-partisan economic policy thank tank. Alex is the former managing director of SAM Indexes and was responsible for developing the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) into a recognized reference point for sustainability investing. He is also president of the oikos Foundation, which supports…

In her paper, “Integrated Value–A New Private Equity Model for Driving Value Creation,” adapted from an article published in Private Equity International, Diana Propper de Callejon, a General Partner of Expansion Capital Partners LLC and a member of Capital Institute’s Board of Directors, reports on the emerging opportunities for investing in sustainability that her venture capital firm is accessing as…

Last week, Capital Institute network organization Demos released a striking report and series of graphics on the myth that economic growth equals progress.  The report lays out the argument for rethinking our national accounts while the graphics visually detail the failures of GDP as a measurement of progress. Click here to download the report. Click here to enlarge the slideshow.

“Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up,” a panel discussion held at Columbia University on December 7, brought four distinguished economists together for an open conversation that began with the need for policymakers to look beyond GDP as a standard economic measure to address both ecological constraints and human well-being but moved to the central challenge of our time:…

We were very pleased to read Al Gore and David Blood’s “Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism” in the WSJ last week.  It called for “a framework that seeks to maximize long-term economic value by reforming markets to address real needs while integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics throughout the decision-making process.”  Companies that integrate sustainability into their business models and…

In “Reclaiming Fiduciary Duty Balance,” James Hawley, Keith Johnson, and Ed Waitzer maintain that narrow interpretations of fiduciary duty have “generated myopic investment herding behaviors” and caused fiduciaries to focus increasingly on their short-term liabilities at the expense of longer-term ones. Institutional fund trustees, the paper argues, cannot meet those longer-term obligations unless they have access to information on the…

On August 9th 2012, institutional thought leaders were invited to a workshop gathering in San Francisco convened by Corporation 20/20, Tellus Institute, and Capital Institute to discuss “Redesigning Finance: Pathways to a Resilient Future.” Presenters included Joshua Humphreys, Fellow of Tellus Institute, Marjorie Kelly, author of the recent book Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, Allen White, Vice President…

Among the formidable challenges facing the further development of the impact investing market is the lack of an accepted framework for assessing deal structures that can be utilized as an asset allocation tool by the full spectrum of impact investors. “Investing for Impact: Case Studies Across Asset Classes,” begins to fill this breach. A joint project of London-based social investment…