Watch: Systems Stewardship Masterclass
Many of the most material risks facing investors today - climate transition, nature loss, AI governance, geopolitical tension and shifts in market structure - don't sit within individual companies. They are system-wide, largely non-diversifiable, and they shape market beta, the primary driver of long-term portfolio returns. Engaging with them is a question of fiduciary responsibility, not optional ambition.
In this masterclass, leading international and New Zealand voices explore what systemic stewardship looks like in practice: how it is being approached by leading investors globally, and what it means for signatories in Aotearoa New Zealand. The recording below covers the opening session of the discussion.
Speakers
- Laura Hillis - Managing Director, Responsible Investment, Church of England Pensions Board
- Bill Burckart - CEO, The Investment Integration Project (TIIP)
- Sue Walker - Senior Manager, Responsible Investment, Harbour Asset Management
- Moderated by Jessica Brown - Co-founder, The Action Exchange
Systems Stewardship Masterclass by the Aotearoa New Zealand Stewardship Code
Key takeaways from the discussion
- Systemic stewardship is a coordination challenge. These risks are shaped by the interaction of markets, regulation, industry practice and collective behaviour - so the work is less about identifying a problem than understanding who holds influence, where incentives diverge, and how enough actors can be brought into alignment. Alignment is not the same as consensus.
- Leading investors are broadening the aperture. Global examples range from moving beyond company-by-company engagement to engaging entire value chains, managers and policy, to setting internal "guardrails" and shaping industry standards - collaborating to lift the whole system rather than acting alone.
- When risk is non-diversifiable, engagement replaces exit. Selling a stock simply moves an undiversifiable exposure to another holding. For large, broadly diversified "universal owners," the rational response is to reshape the system itself through voting, engagement, collaboration and better disclosure and regulation - and to weight long-duration tail risks more heavily.
- Influence, not ownership, drives target selection. The Church of England Pensions Board selects engagement targets by the role a company plays in a system, not by portfolio weight - as with its work founding the Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying and its live engagement on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
- Small markets prioritise and collaborate. In New Zealand, lean responsible investment teams focus on two or three systemic themes at a time - climate, human rights and conflict among them - and lean heavily on industry groups like the RIAA, the Stewardship Code and the Centre for Sustainable Finance. Collective investor action influenced NZ’s recent Modern Slavery legislation.
- Internal engagement is the hardest, most important work. Being a voice for systems thinking inside your own organisation - engaging investment teams, not just responsible investment teams - is often more difficult than external engagement. Integrated team structures, beneficiary input and a strong evidence base all help build the case.
- Systems-level work is hard to measure - and that's a signal. Attribution rarely works for system-wide issues. Beyond basic output metrics, the best test is a qualitative one: practitioners genuinely doing the work have specific, textured stories to tell about the conversations and engagements behind it.
The first part of this masterclass was recorded and is shared publicly here. The remainder was a signatory-only conversation held under the Chatham House Rule.
For any questions, contact the Director of the Aotearoa New Zealand Stewardship Code, Jackson Rowland, at jackson@stewardshipcode.nz.