Table of contents for the London Accord containing links to articles.

Corporate governance is not an area usually associated with vision, imagination, or even integrity. This needs to change.In this lecture I have looked at corporate governance through the eyes of William Blake.Blake was a visionary, a man to whom imagination, energy and integrity were central. I argue that much of the compliance burden companies face is self-imposed. Business creates the problem when it begins its approach to every new code by saying “how do we comply” instead of asking “What is the spirit of this code? Do we accept it? If yes, how do we fulfil the spirit?

Nature and Ethics by F. David Peat.Paper given  to Centromarca; Italy association of leading brand names."When, in the late 17th Century, bankers, merchants and shippers met in Edward Lloyd's Coffee House they carried out their transactions based on the principle of "my word is my bond". Indeed in English law a verbal agreement, sealed by a handshake, was legally binding, the written contract being only a memorandum of what had been agreed upon by both parties. This was the world analyzed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo in their theory of the market place. It was a market, as Ernesto Illy has often pointed out, based on three invisible pillars of Trust, Honesty and Respect, ethical principles that were taken for granted in that period".

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.