ESG was once heralded as the gateway to responsible capitalism. Today, many of the field’s most experienced practitioners are asking a harder question: has ESG become a sophisticated form of incrementalism — one that measures risk within a failing system rather than financing the emergence of a new one? As climate disruption accelerates and social and economic instability deepen, the limits of disclosure-driven, ratings-based investing are coming into sharper focus. In their recent Impact Entrepreneur article, “Beyond ESG: Investing for the Next Economy,” Erika Karp and Garvin Jabusch argue that ESG, as currently practiced, may be less a bridge to a sustainable economy than a framework that keeps capital anchored to the past.

If ESG is no longer sufficient, what comes next? What would it mean to align capital allocation not with backward-looking corporate metrics but with the forward-looking requirements of a livable, regenerative, and inclusive economy? Drawing on decades of experience across Wall Street and sustainable finance, Karp and Jabusch explore what an investment discipline designed for the “next economy” might demand of investors, institutions, and markets. From redefining fiduciary duty in an era of systemic risk to shifting portfolios from “less bad” to genuinely generative, this Deep Dive will examine whether the future of impact investing lies in reforming ESG — or moving decisively beyond it.

Framing Questions

1. Is ESG reformable — or structurally obsolete?
   Can ESG evolve into a more effective framework, or has it become inherently constrained by its origins within the legacy financial system?
2. If ESG is not the destination, what is?
   What does a fully realized “next economy” investment discipline look like at the level of portfolio construction, asset allocation, and benchmarks?
3. From risk mitigation to generative capital
   How does investing shift when the goal moves from minimizing downside exposure to actively financing regenerative, system-level solutions?
4. Fiduciary duty in an age of planetary boundaries
   How should institutional investors reinterpret fiduciary responsibility amid escalating systemic risks tied to climate, biodiversity, and social instability?
5. Where is capital most misallocated today?
   What are the largest structural misallocations embedded in current ESG practice — and what should investors be reallocating toward over the next decade?
6. Beyond critique: building the architecture of the next economy
   What practical actions can asset owners, managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers take now to accelerate a transition beyond ESG?
7. Looking ahead
   Ten years from now, what will we wish we had understood earlier about ESG’s limitations — and about the opportunity to finance a truly generative economy?

About Our Deep Dives

Deep Dives are hour-long Zoom Meetings: Live Q&A Sessions (as opposed to our Zoom Webinars, where the audience is in View-Only Mode) between the author(s) or subjects of a Magazine article and our members. Be sure to read the article in question and come bearing questions!

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