You run Planetary Impact Ventures; a venture focused on planetary boundaries and sustainable systems. Before participating in ISC, how were you already thinking about systems change through your work, and what gap or challenge made you decide to join the program?
Since we founded Planetary Impact Ventures in 2020, we've thought of systems change as a creative, patient, and holistic endeavor, with room for both data and intuition. But when we started out, we didn't have a language for it. And that took time to lean into.
In our impact investing sphere, there's a tendency to focus on specific, measurable outcomes like CO₂ reduction and less on the wider boundaries and context. We knew early on that we never wanted to commit to narrow impact metrics, because some can lead to unintended, harmful, consequences. For example, you can reduce CO₂ while harming animals, biodiversity, or entire ecosystems. That's why we avoid performance-based bonuses or financial incentives tied to single metrics: we simply can't measure the full impact. The "impact investing" label never really felt like the right one for us.
When I started exploring the field of systems change in 2023, I immediately felt it described what we wanted to do far better, and could help guide our work going forward.
Investing for Systems Change is designed to help investors identify and act on leverage points within complex systems. Was there a specific moment, framework, or exercise during the program that fundamentally changed how you think about deploying capital for impact?
I had an intellectual understanding of systems change before I came to the program. But during ISC, we did these embodiment exercises, using our actual physical bodies to understand the theory. That made a big difference.
It helped me understand how systems operate, but from a completely new, embodied perspective.
The most impactful part was feeling through my body that systems could change. It's hard to describe with words. Something let go inside me. It was like experiencing systems that were stuck in their old ways suddenly soften and shift, making room for something new. On a deeper level, it gave me access to an older wisdom: that change is possible.
Since completing ISC, has the program changed anything in how you approach investments or engage with stakeholders?
Over the past year, I've worked intentionally with systems change as an investor. As an example, I started using existing food and agriculture system mapping from Climate Farmers and asked myself three questions:
- Where are the real leverage points in this system?
- Where do I have capital, whether financial, relational, or organizational?
- And in which areas do I have the energy to persist for many years?
This process gave me clarity and led to three concrete actions.
First, seven months after the program, together with a group of progressive investors, we launched a Soil Fund with an initial €12 million to acquire conventional farmland in Denmark and transition it to organic-regenerative agriculture and permanent nature.
Second, we joined a European agri-food co-funding alliance to help mobilize more coordinated capital across the EU for systemic transformation.
Third, I helped co-fund a new cross-party fundraising initiative for progressive politicians, because I realized we needed to engage in the political framework to reshape the system.
But the most important shift has been personal. I've changed my mindset significantly. I no longer feel the need to do everything myself, to put my name on initiatives, or to lead them. The real strength lies in supporting others and building alliances. There's still substantial work to be done to fill the gaps in the ecosystem we depend on, financially, politically, and culturally. My focus has been less about building something alone and more about strengthening the networks and structures that can carry systemic change over the long term.
"The most impactful part was feeling through my body that systems could change. It's hard to describe with words. Something let go inside me. It was like experiencing systems that were stuck in their old ways suddenly soften and shift, making room for something new."
CSP programs bring together a small cohort of wealth holders in an intimate, peer-only setting. What was it like to be in that room?
It gave me confidence. And a sense of being highly aligned with a group of people. I also got to spend meaningful time with them, time I might not otherwise get with like-minded peers doing similar work.
What would you tell someone who isn't sure a three-day program can make a real difference?
They might be right. I don't think it's the number of days, weeks, or months that determines the effect of a program. But I do believe Hartmut Rosa is right when he writes about resonance. Given the right circumstances, resonance and alignment can happen. There's no way to force it. It happened during those three days. And that's probably because of the circumstances.
Thomas is the founder of Planetary Impact Ventures, a Denmark-based venture focused on investing within planetary boundaries.
Investing for Systems Change is a 3-day immersive program for wealth holders who want to move beyond deal-by-deal impact investing and learn to deploy capital at the systems level. The next cohort begins May 4, 2026.
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