The Investment Integration Project (TIIP) in New York City has announced the formation of a Racial Equity Working Group, which includes 21 industry leaders who will focus attention on racial injustice as a systemic risk and guide investor action in becoming part of the solution. 

The working group, which includes the Surdna Foundation, Ballmer Group, and Harvard University, will support TIIP over the next 12 months as it dives deeper into racial justice to help investors incorporate racial equity into their strategies and promote economic opportunity for people of color. One goal of the initiative is to strengthen and support the Systems Aware Investing Launchpad (SAIL), which provides answers to fundamental questions about system-level investing as well as practical system-level investing implementation support and tools. 

“Racial equity can and should be incorporated into emerging frameworks for sustainable and impact investing,” said Renaye Manley, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) deputy director and a co-chair of the working group. “We will not achieve the promise of leveraging capital for social and environmental outcomes unless we confront racial injustice as the systemic risk to our markets that it is.” 

For a complete list of participants, see the Surdna Foundation website. 

(Photo credit: Getty Images/fizkes)