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Consumers are becoming more eco-conscious and little by little, investors are too. A company that shows regular profits might look like a sound investment, but if that company engages in irresponsible practices that are likely to create an environmental catastrophe, investors should know about it. Not only would investing in that company promote irresponsible behavior, it might well yield poor returns when the company finds itself facing multiparty lawsuits.
This week on Sea Change Radio, host Alex Wise speaks to Allen White and Mark Tulay, two executives from the newly launched Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings, or GISR. GISR is a rating system that supplements an investor’s understanding of a company by focusing on environmental and social factors. Partnering with reputable organizations such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, or SASB, as well as the Global Reporting Initiative, GISR has the bold ambition of transforming the very definition of corporate value in the 21st century.
Marjorie Kelly, former editor of Business Ethics, and Allen White, a founder and former director of the Global Reporting Initiative, have organized an effort to redesign the corporation. Their new organization, Corporation 2020,brings together business people, experts, academics, investors and stakeholders to reconfigure the corporate form — one in which private interests would be harnessed for, and subservient to, the public good.