“Exploring Transformation Capital” Workshop

According to the IPCC 1.5 Degree Special Report, the world requires rapid and unprecedented transformations in socio-technical systems (energy, land, cities, infrastructure, industry) to avoid the most perilous consequences of climate change. Financial capital is an important lever in all socio-technical systems, so how capital accumulates and flows within such systems has a significant impact on our ability to reduce GHG emissions and build a climate-resilient society.

Traditional capital markets are ill-equipped to fuel such systems transformations. EIT Climate-KIC has therefore set out to develop a new investment logic at the nexus of systems thinking and finance with the promise of catalyzing directional transformative change of socio-technical systems: Transformation Capital. Read more about the need for a systemic investment logic here and about the latest thinking of what Transformation Capital could look like here.

At present, Transformation Capital is a design challenge. We are tackling this challenge with systems thinkers, innovation practitioners, progressive investment professionals, and ambitious problem owners.

As the first step in this journey, we brought together a group of sharp minds and creative voices for a two-day workshop in London on the 3rd and 4th of July 2019. EIT Climate-KIC hosted this workshop in collaboration with the Oxford Martin School and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

On October 16, 2019, we will convene an equally diverse and knowledgeable group to test and advance some of the central tenets of Transformation Capital. The workshop will build on the outcomes of the London event and focus specifically on the relevance and challenges of systemic investing in low-income countries.

The outcomes of both workshops will feed into the development of the Transformation Capital Initiative, whose mission will be to develop and prototype an investment programme capable of deploying capital with transformative effects.

• Validate, refine, and advance the core elements of Transformation Capital
• Explore the specific needs, constraints, and considerations of applying Transformation Capital in a sustainable development context
• Collect insights into the design of the Transformation Capital Initiative
• Explore collaboration opportunities for conceptual development work and real-world prototyping
• Expand our diverse community of thinkers and doers for the design and exploration journey ahead

Upon invitation only. Attendance to be confirmed by 1 October 2019.

Request an invitation