What does fiduciary duty actually require when you own the whole economy? Madison Condon, Associate Professor at Boston University School of Law and recipient of the American Law Institute's Early Career Scholars Medal, brings one of the most rigorous legal and economic frameworks in climate finance to the Future of Finance podcast.

For institutional investors, pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, climate change is not a values question. It is a portfolio-level structural exposure. When damages from fossil fuel companies cascade through every other holding in a diversified portfolio, the conventional logic of ESG as a screened strategy breaks down. What replaces it is a systems-level argument grounded in fiduciary law, macroeconomic modeling, and the economics of universal ownership.

Topics covered in this episode:

• The legal basis for climate action under fiduciary duty, including the Uniform Prudent Investor Act and the duty of impartiality toward future beneficiaries
• Why leading macroeconomic climate models have systematically underestimated damages and what better modeling looks like
• The diverging interests of asset owners and asset managers, and why that distinction is increasingly consequential
• The McRitchie v. Zuckerberg decision and what Delaware corporate law says about externalities and diversified shareholders
• The Texas v. BlackRock antitrust case and the emerging legal risk landscape for climate-aligned investor coalitions
• The role of IEA scenarios and institutions like NCAR in shaping capital allocation and why their integrity matters to investors

Future of Finance is produced by the Intentional Endowments Network. New episodes explore how institutional capital can be aligned with long-term economic resilience.

Resources Mentioned:

https://share.google/QGtJ3a2aIQpfIR7SM

General Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction — Universal Ownership and Systemic Climate Risk

03:15 The 2020 Paper: Externalities and the Common Owner

07:10 Asset Owners vs. Asset Managers — Why the Distinction Matters

10:20 Fiduciary Duty and the Legal Landscape for Climate Action

13:30 The Duty of Impartiality and Future Beneficiaries

16:40 Corporate vs. Portfolio Fiduciary Duties — The Delaware Question

23:10 Why Climate Economic Models Have Underpriced Risk

28:30 Supply Chain Bottlenecks and Place-Based Climate Impacts

32:50 Antitrust Risk and the Texas v. BlackRock Case

38:20 Investor Policy Engagement and the Role of Climate Data Institutions

43:00 IEA Scenarios as a Self-Fulfilling Mechanism in Capital Markets

47:30 Vision for the Future — Asset Owner Governance and Long-Term Capital

Fran Seegull, President of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, joins host Georges Dyer for a wide-ranging conversation on the structural forces reshaping institutional investing. Before leading the Alliance, which she co-founded with Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation, Fran served as Chief Investment Officer of ImpactAssets, overseeing its $3 billion impact investing donor-advised fund, and taught graduate-level impact investing at USC's Marshall School of Business.

For institutional investors, this conversation arrives at a critical juncture. The policy and governance environment is actively constraining the tools investors need to manage systemic risk: from anti-ESG legislation restricting fiduciary discretion, to executive actions targeting community finance infrastructure, to the erosion of shareholder engagement rights. At the same time, frameworks like system-level investing and dynamic materiality are gaining traction as rigorous, financially-grounded responses to risks that traditional portfolio theory was not built to handle.

Topics covered in this episode:

• The U.S. Impact Investing Alliance: mission, structure, and four-pillar strategy
• System-level investing as a bridge between traditional finance and impact frameworks
• Capital markets assumptions and how systemic factors should be priced
• Double materiality and dynamic materiality (definitions, distinctions, and investment implications)
• The Community Reinvestment Act and CDFI ecosystem: importance, recent threats, and bipartisan defense
• Anti-ESG legislation: the financial case against it and the first major constitutional challenge
• The rise of corporate management primacy and the erosion of shareholder accountability tools
• Impact measurement frameworks, verification tools, and the IEN Endowment Impact Benchmark
• Final takes: what every institutional investor should do today, and Fran's vision for the future of finance

Essential listening for CIOs, pension trustees, endowment leaders, and policy professionals navigating the evolving intersection of fiduciary duty, systemic risk, and long-term capital markets stability.

Resources Mentioned:

Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory - https://share.google/0HU0Sfshhzw9ANysL

Principles Responsible Investing Podcast - https://www.unpri.org/newsroom/podcasts

General Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction & Guest Background

02:00 What the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance Does — and How It Came to Be

07:30 Global Context: Where the U.S. Stands in the Impact Investing World

09:00 Is Impact Investing Fit for Purpose? The Case for System Transformation

17:00 System-Level Investing: Non-Diversifiable Risk and the Full Toolkit

22:00 Capital Markets Assumptions, Double Materiality, and Dynamic Materiality

29:30 Community Investing: The CRA, CDFIs, and the Defense of Financial Infrastructure

41:30 The Freedom to Invest: Anti-ESG Legislation and the First Constitutional Win

47:30 Climate Policy Rollback: Market Forces vs. Federal Headwinds

50:00 Impact Measurement: From Transparency to Accountability

54:00 The Rise of Corporate Management Primacy — A New Governance Risk

1:00:00 Final Takes: One Action for Every Institutional Investor

Systemic climate risk is increasingly recognized across capital markets but how should institutional investors engage with the policy drivers shaping that risk?

In this episode of the Future of Finance podcast, host Georges Dyer speaks with Richard Roberts, Inquiry Lead at Volans, about the intersection of systemic risk, fiduciary duty, and investor engagement on real-economy climate policy.

For long-horizon asset owners, disclosure frameworks alone may not address the structural economic forces influencing portfolio outcomes. Energy systems, infrastructure policy, industrial strategy, and trade dynamics ultimately determine emissions pathways and market stability.

Key themes include:

• The imbalance between disclosure-focused engagement and real-economy policy
• Systemic risk across diversified portfolios
• Catastrophic risk and the limits of economic modeling
• Coalition-based approaches to policy engagement
• Governance structures and long-term stewardship incentives

For CIOs, trustees, and policy leaders, the conversation explores whether policy engagement is becoming a necessary dimension of systemic stewardship.

Resources Mentioned:

Recalibrating Carbon Risk: https://carbontracker.org/reports/recalibrating-climate-risk/

Triple Bottom Line Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2018/06/25-years-ago-i-coined-the-phrase-triple-bottom-line-heres-why-im-giving-up-on-it

Existential Politics - Jessica F. Green: https://share.google/RLMhxwaxpSnWvhqAj

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

03:10 Disclosure vs. Real-Economy Policy

08:00 Investor Resource Allocation Findings

14:20 Political Legitimacy and Engagement Constraints

19:40 Coalition Strategies and Collective Action

26:35 Fiduciary Duty and Systemic Risk

32:10 Catastrophic Risk and Tipping Points

47:45 A Long-Term Vision for Finance