Skip to main content
Yearly Archives

2014

Carl Ferenbach
In Ethics

Quaker Capitalism

I was recently invited to offer observations on the evolving role of “values” and incentives in businesses, particularly from the perspective of a so-called “financial buyer.”  The convening was organized in London by the Center for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics and was titled “Quaker Capitalism.” I graduated from university a bit over 50 years ago, and after a brief tour in the armed forces, several years at a commercial bank and business school, I ended up on Wall Street.  I came to advise corporations on merger and acquisition transactions, working for one of what were then a number of small,…

Read More
Chris Pinney
In Bottom line for business, Sustainability

Miles to go Before We Sleep

The UNPRI conference in Montreal last week demonstrated that while progress is being made, there is still a long way to go before sustainability will be fully embraced by mainstream investors. Among the key challenges identified during the conference were: Incentives— PRI’s Managing Director Fiona Reynolds said that only 6% of asset owners committed to the UNPRI report that their performance management and compensation systems for senior executives include metrics that recognize and reward sustainability. As she noted, “What gets measured gets managed. If responsible investment is to become truly mainstream, it must start at the very top of every…

Read More
Chris Pinney
In Bottom line for business, Business leadership in society, Sustainability

Can Sustainability Help Companies Outperform?

In recent years, the perception that companies that integrate sustainability in their corporate strategy and operations will do so at the cost of financial performance has finally been put to rest.  As a recent study by mainstream investment advisory firm RBC Asset Managers concludes, investors “can pursue a program of socially responsible investing with the expectation that investment returns will be similar to traditional investment options.” The real challenge in attracting mainstream investor interest in sustainability, however, is not to simply prove that sustainability is not a drag on financial performance, but rather that it enables companies to financially outperform…

Read More
Chris Pinney
In 21st century governance challenge,

Is it Time for Guaranteed Annual Income?

As we move further into the 21st century, a technologically-driven transformation is starting to take hold that will challenge our current economic model for distributing income in society. The key driver for this transformation is the rapid growth of machine intelligence, which is now poised to radically reduce capital’s dependence on human labor. According to David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the loss of middle-class jobs to technology, “It will be harder and harder to find things that people have a comparative advantage in versus machines.” The impact of replacing workers with machines, coupled…

Read More
Chris Pinney
In 21st century governance challenge

Is Income Inequality Really the Problem?

Income inequality is a top policy issue for the Obama administration and a focus of global private and public sector leaders at national and international forums.  But what is driving income inequality, and what does it tell us about the future prospects for economic growth and social development? Most experts agree that the central determinant of income inequality is when the share of national income going to capital (interest, dividends, and other realized investment returns) increases relative to income going to labor (wages, salaries, pension benefits, and other work-related compensation such as insurance benefits and incentive-based compensation). A majority of…

Read More