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Melbourne Invests in Systemic Transformation (MIST), is a new collaboration between local and global capital holders, fund managers and thought leaders. Convened by Regen Melbourne, the initiative seeks to achieve a paradigm shift in the impact and approach to deploying purpose-led capital across Greater Melbourne.
There is now consensus amongst scientists and economic leaders that urgent change is required to safeguard our planet for human civilisation. From the sustainable development goals, to the planetary boundaries framework and the COP process, there is global agreement for change. However, progress towards meaningful change at the magnitude required is limited, with emissions rising, natural disasters increasing and inequality accelerating.
The United Nations identifies finance as a critical success factor for the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, the Paris Agreement names finance as one of three essential strategies for reaching our climate goals. It is agreed that capital is a critical lever in driving positive change and addressing our global challenges.
Instead, the problem is there is a mismatch between:
(a) acknowledging the urgent need to deploy finance in service of transformation and
(b) the amount and quality of money flowing towards genuinely systemic action.
Our current financial paradigm is blind to the quality and magnitude of risks we face, and is equally blind to the transformational opportunity that lies in structuring system-level value. Money is not flowing in service to life.
As such, the focus on simply increasing the quantity of capital into the 'impact space' is only one half of the challenge. The other half is interrogating the quality of capital and shifting the finance paradigm and investment logic away from incrementalism and single-point solutions and towards systemic transformation.
As a result of Regen Melbourne's foundation research into this issue, a formal collaboration has emerged that we are calling Melbourne Invests for Systemic Transformation, or MIST for short. This is a collaboration dedicated to nurturing a paradigm shift in purpose-led capital and actively prototyping investment vehicles at the intersection of systems thinking and finance.
Convened by Regen Melbourne, MIST includes local capital holders and fund managers, alongside national thought leaders including Small Giants, Climate-KIC and Centre for Systems Innovation, and international systems partners like Dark Matter Labs and TransCap Initiative.
