Preventable Surprises is an influence tank that seeks to prevent or mitigate corporate and market implosions. They work with various individuals and groups within the investment industry to persuade and cajole the financial sector to better address systemic risks. Preventable Surprises defines systemic risks using three features:

They are pervasive and not confined to a sector or territory. For example, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board found that 72 of the 79 industries in the SASB classification system are affected by climate change.

They are non-linear with unpredictable tipping points. The long-term climate transition will almost certainly be volatile and messy. Global temperatures and rainfall may rise incrementally on average but extreme changes will be localised and deadly.

They are inter-related, making it impossible to predict the likelihood of unpredictable and widespread (i.e. “Black Swan”) events.

Preventable Surprises focuses on institutional investors because, through the trillions of dollars in assets under their management, they have enabled corporate and market dysfunction. While this may be unintentional, the continuing damage caused to investors and to ecosystems is untenable. The organisation believes that long-term investors cannot use stock-picking or hedging strategies to avoid systemic risk and must mitigate systemic risk through forceful stewardship.

Preventable Surprises approach is an Insider Outsider strategy, encouraging real change from the inside while putting pressure where it counts from the outside. As asset gathering and personal incentives play a powerful role in shaping the culture of finance, Preventable Surprises work with positive mavericks, who according to Preventable Surprises are the change agents with the capacity to persuade their institutions to go beyond what is convenient or easy to do and to act in the best interests of clients, members, and of the sustainable institutional context they require.

To persuade institutional investors to accept their fiduciary responsibility to mitigate systemic risks before the next preventable surprise.

Preventable Surprises accepts support from foundations and individuals and other relevant partners, provided it does not conflict with our independence. Past and current funders include The Funding Network, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation, the Network for Social Change, Marmot Trust, Mava Foundation and the Margaret Hayman Charitable Trust, the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, the Good Move Initiative, the Namaste Foundation, the Arcus Foundation. Find out more.