In 2008 Tomorrows Company published “Tomorrow’s Owners – stewardship of Tomorrow’s Company”. This was a review of the principles of good ownership from private equity and family business to institutional investment in listed companies. The report concluded that shareholders had four roles – being a member, a provider of finance, a trader of shares and a steward, but that in listed companies it was this fourth role that was being neglected. The publication of this report coincided with the failure of the banks in October 2008. Sir David Walker picked up the theme of stewardship in his 2009 report for the UK government on the governance of banks and other financial institutions. Here we set out Tomorrow’s Company’s definition of stewardship and the four principles that make up effective stewardship.    

The Good Governance Forum supports achieving business success through improving the quality of corporate governance by providing tools, resources and other instruments for chairs, company secretaries and other key people who drive the quality of board performance. It works with regulators and others to help create the best possible environment for good corporate governance.

A world-first integrated reporting guidance document was unveiled by Professor Mervyn King in Johannesburg today (Tuesday).The document offers direction to the 400 companies listed on the JSE; companies that are obliged to produce an integrated report for their current financial years.

 The 2007-2009 financial crisis was a perfect "black swan" event: unexpected, a rarity, with broad and deep impacts; and, with the benefit of hindsight, it was also retrospectively rationalised by many "experts". We got it all "sensationally" wrong: bankers (like myself), policy-makers, supervisors, auditors, research analysts, economists, civil society itself. And even as the crisis was unfolding, many initially did not consider its seriousness. We saw dangers of shocks, but underestimated the confluence and impact thereof.  

Global climate change has been our greatest market failure. Now it’s our greatest market opportunity.  Market mechanisms are enormously powerful tools to apply to such challenges as climate change. Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions worldwide will require a crash program to use energy more efficiently, and to use renewable energy sources.  Doing this can cut costs and drive competitiveness, spread the use of clean energy technologies that already are cost-competitive and available and develop next-generation technologies in virtually every sector of the economy.