On Tuesday the 24th May 2011 Paul Walsh Chief Executive Officer, Diageo plc, gave this presentation at the RSA. In it he set out a new agenda for business - to prioritise sustainable value or fail.     A transcript and a video of Paul's powerful speech are linked in. 

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.

As Maplecroft launches its Human Rights Risk Report 2009, mapping human rights risk to business in 196 countries worldwide, it is clear that the need for risk mitigation by business is greater than ever. Building on three years data and analysis, Maplecroft’s research paints a gloomy picture of human rights globally on the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, calling into question many governments’ commitments regarding the protection of human rights, as well as the role of business in respecting human rights within their sphere of influence.

This describes the Tomorrow’s Company call on company leaders, shareholders and government to put stewardship and responsible investment at the heart of every decision they make in response to the current financial crisis, at the launch of the report Tomorrow’s Owners: Stewardship of Tomorrow’s Company. 

Tomorrow's Company have a long history of looking at how the financial services work as part of an overall system and where the weaknesses are, major publications include Tomorrow's Global Company (2007), Restoring Trust (2004) and Tomorrow's Owners (to be launched in October 2008).  We are in a strong position to help frame solutions to the current financial crisis, however not a think tank for knee jerk reactions, we are currently having healthy debate about what policies should be.  We are sharing some of this on forceforgood.com in the form of resources and blogs tagged with the issue 'global financial crisis'.  We aim not just to be transparent in our thoughts but to encourage comments from a forceforgood community.