In September, The Shareholder Commons announced plans to embark on a new collaborative project to produce a system stewardship framework. With a thriving ecosystem of investors and other organizations taking action on system stewardship and growing interest from investors, both the existing leaders and new stakeholders seek support in addressing and overcoming core questions that arise from system stewardship and the collective action problem that it seeks to overcome.

Following the September announcement, TSC has continued to listen and learn from market participants, including most recently at PRI in Person in São Paulo, Brazil, November 4-6, 2025. Across more than 20 individual meetings and a TSC-led System Stewardship Roundtable (with registrations representing USD 9+ trillion assets under management and more than 50 individuals attending live), we tested what we have been hearing and what we’ve been envisioning in the framework. We sought to understand how it could meet the needs of practitioners and carry the field of system stewardship further.

What did we hear?

1. The project is important and will add value – although different practitioners may have different views of what to prioritize in its development.
2. It will be challenging – overcoming the culture and infrastructure that underpins the financial focus on ‘alpha’ in a way that can improve market returns and address societal and environmental challenges is not something that will happen overnight. It requires an inclusive and thoughtful process.
3. It should build on the great resources and projects that already exist. With the growth and momentum behind system stewardship, resources and collaborations have proliferated; part of the challenge is knowing who is doing what and how stakeholders can navigate to the resources they need.
4. It probably needs a different name. Ultimately, the change sought and needed goes beyond conceptions of ‘stewardship’ in the sense commonly used in the investment world – it includes a wider set of actionable strategies at the system level. And people want more than another ‘framework.’ Investors want something actionable and concrete, collaborative and engaging, and that can link to other frameworks and resources more broadly.

A more detailed summary of the roundtable and the feedback we heard is available here. We were thrilled by the engagement and conversation and will look forward to continuing our listening tour through the first half of 2026  – hosting roundtables both virtually and at key events globally, conducting research, and speaking with experts and practitioners.

If you are interested in the project, have questions, want to partner or support, please reach out to Dan Osusky, our Chief Research Officer. And sign up for our newsletter to receive ongoing updates as we progress. To be successful, we need broad engagement and input, and we look forward to listening and working together to help transform the financial system in a way that works better for everyone.