On Wednesday 9 November 2011, Paul Abberley, chief executive of Aviva Investors, joined CIMA and Tomorrow’s Company at their annual parliamentary reception at the House of Lords. 

Download the Tomorrow's Natural Business publication here. We can learn from nature’s immense wisdom about which business models, relationships and organisational structures are resilient enough to survive unpredictability, disturbance and stress in order to flourish in the future. 

Following the news that Manchester United's owners, the Glazer family, plan to float a 30% stake in the club on the Singapore Stock Exchange Mark Goyder adresses the complex issues surrounding shareholder voting rights and their implications for stewardship.  

"All of us whose money is going into the system need to be given the opportunity to exercise some simple choices about stewardship. A consumer who walks down the supermarket aisle can choose to buy Fair Trade coffee, and they know what that means. The same should happen when we look at products offered us by fund managers: we should be able to tell the stewardship content," – Mark Goyder, Founder Director of Tomorrow’s CompanyAn article published in The Guardian newspaper (on 21/6/11) - featuring contributions and comment from Mark Goyder - sets out the expectation that Business Secretary Vince Cable will use his speech to the Association of British Insurers on Wednesday (22/6/11) to renew his calls for UK plc to take a more long term view of its activities.

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.