@hofstetter
Climate innovator, currently reimagining impact investing as the Executive Director at the TransCap Initiative and designing collaborative spaces for climate politics as board member of Expedition Zukunft.
In a nutshell: Addressing societal issues is increasingly about strategic capital allocation, but the challenge is not only to mobilize more money but also to better coordinate the capital we already have.
My latest in the @ssir.org, basically an executive summary of our white paper titled "Financial Backbones: Capital Orchestration for Systems Transformation".
ssir.org/articles/ent...
In recognition of us doing fuck all to reduce emissions, let me remind y'all that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is useless unless we decarbonize drastically.
rdcu.be/dbFbB
A sobering article by @dwallacewells.bsky.social, arguing that the spirit of Paris has dissipated and that global climate politics has drifted into a slumbering, complacent mood underpinned by voters wanting climate action in theory but not when it costs much.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/m...
The practical workstream is focused on the design and establishment of a capital orchestrator in the real world, specifically in the American Midwest, with a focus on catalyzing regenerative agricultural transitions. Check out the official announcement: transformation.capital/places/finan...
One workstream has consisted of a multi-stakeholder inquiry into why capital orchestration isn't routinely done as part of collective impact initiatives and how financial backbones could close that gap. We'll be publishing a report on this soon (for a teaser: shorturl.at/OKYUf).
Over the past 12 months, @transcap.bsky.social has been deeply involved in trying to understand what it means to orchestrate financial capital for systemic change. 1/n
I’ve written a piece on the importance of impact investors working in context, published this week in SSIR. Have a look and let me know what you think.
In response to the story broken by @theatlantic.com , let’s all reread this gem: www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-...
In today’s Bloomberg newsletter: BP announces a divestment from renewables and an increase in oil & gas capex, and Mercedes reverses a previous decision not to develop new combustion engines by developing a new V8 combustion engine.
We’re backsliding.
There’s something to be said about making transportation cool, which this kind of metro train does.
We'll make formal announcements and publish results and outputs from all this work in the coming weeks. So stay tuned!
7) We've finalized the manuscript of a practice guide to systemic investing.
6) We've made significant progress in our innovation partnership with Mútua on the use of AI/LLMs in systems analysis.
5) We've progressed our systemic investing prototype around the transformation of the Swiss Food System. As part of that, we've significantly advanced our understanding of how to quantify "system financing needs".
4) We've run 8 workshops with 23 members of a practice community on strategic capital facilitation (foundations, asset owners, investment managers, system innovators) to define and design "financial backbones".
3) Under the leadership of Jess Daggers, and with the generous support of @mitsloansusty.bsky.social, we've completed an initial inquiry into what a systemic approach to impact measurement and management (sIMM) could look like.
2) We've started a new prototype around systemic investing for urban transformation, partnering with @cpi-foundation.bsky.social and a major capital city in Europe.
1) In partnership with TWIST, we've been busy organizing the second Systemic Investing Summit, happening in London (UK) from 10-12 March 2025 with more than 160 participants.
We've been busy at @transcap.bsky.social! Time to catch you up on some of what's happened in the past few months:
Observation from the past 6 months of fundraising for the TransCap Initiative: most foundations want to fund the doing, few want to fund the thinking.
I have sympathy for that position. After all, we need to act with urgency. But what if the action is based on the wrong thinking?
My colleague Jess Daggers wrote an insightful departure blog to an inquiry into the conceptualization and measurement of impact in the context of impact investing and systemic investing.
TL/DR: There's a problem.
medium.com/transformati...
If you're interested in questions of funding systems change (in the context of our sustainability challenges), check out this paper by Penna et al., which is making a great contribution to the literature.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I sort of resent the fact that it takes Taylor Swift to increase the priority level for climate change adaptation. But alas, we take any help we can.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
The New Zealand Government recently consulted on its Emissions Trading Scheme, and also the prospect of a biodiversity credits system.
For anyone interested, here is Toha's submission to both. #greensky #climatesky
And the gist of the article is beautifully summed up by this picture:
This is such an interesting critical reflection on Norway's EV success. It shows how Horizon 2 thinking is insufficient and creating the kind of change we need to cope with sustainability challenges (particularly the social aspects).
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
“DeepMind has developed an AI model that uses decades of historical weather conditions to produce accurate 10-day forecasts in less than a minute.”
When might we see AI being used in climate modelling?
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Aptly sums up one of the main issues in transportation.
I recently debated the virtue of “net zero” for framing climate ambitions with an employee of a major environmental NGO. She didn’t see any issue with it, hadn’t even given it any thought. And she estimated residual emissions at 2-5%.
Naïveté in the climate action community is becoming a problem.