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?

Tomorrow's Company has played an important and leading role in developing the argument for stewardship, and in so doing has helped to create the conditions which have led to the establishment of the Stewardship Code in the UK.   We are now building on this impact, to establish a new momentum for stewardship and understanding of what this means in practice - by tackling both the demand side (setting out  'Why Stewardship Matters' and developing toolkits to help each participant in the system to be more effective in their pursuit of stewardship) and the supply side (working with fund managers, investment consultants and FRC to develop the “stewardship spectrum” and establishing criteria through which excellence in stewardship might be identified and rewarded in the market). Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false"...

GLOBE-Net (October 16, 2009) What is the role of investors in creating a more sustainable economy? A survey of fund managers just published by the UK’s Fair Pensions campaign provides challenging reading for anyone who believes that a green future will emerge simply through market forces operating in the investment community. The market purist argument is that the system should regulate itself; because if climate change really is a material risk for businesses, it should be built into the way companies are valued. Companies whose factories or plantations could be destroyed by climate change-induced floods or droughts should be less attractive investments than ones making wind turbines or hybrid car engines. 

 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.  

Date: July 2007A snapshot on how the Principles for Responsible Investment came about, and views of leading thinkers in the field of sustainable finance and responsible investment.