An extract of five key questions for leaders from the recent Tomorrow's Company publication 'Corporate Purpose and Values - time for a re-think?' by George Binney. For more information visit www.tomorrowscompany.com

   “A lack of long-term stewardship by company heads and shareholders is at the heart of the current financial crisis, an influential think-tank says in a report published on Wednesday. Tomorrow’s Company, whose previous research has helped shape UK company law, urges the government to understand better the effects of the growing “casino economy”, where activities such as derivatives trading are often far removed from the real economy activity to which they theoretically relate. The report warns against the search for scapegoats for the current crisis and says that it is wrong to attack private equity, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds for irresponsibility, noting that different shareholders perform different functions. However, it condemns the practice of borrowing shares for voting purposes and asks if investors need to toughen up their engagement to change company behaviour or divest holdings in companies with particular shortcomings. Mark Goyder, Tomorrow’s Company...

This article looks at inherent problems associated with seeking economic growth above all else.  In particular it advocates the creation of a more stable system; one that does not constantly need extra-resources, which the world can no longer supply. John Fullerton is a former Managing Director of JPMorgan, where he worked for 18 years in New York, London, and Tokyo, and subsequently was CEO of an energy focused hedge fund. He is now seeking to launch an investment fund for high impact sustainability initiatives and is working on “The Purpose of Capital,” a book about the role of investment capital in sustainable economics. He is a friend and supporter of the E. F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. John can be reached at john@level3cap.com.

In Tomorrow's Global Talent we asked how leading global companies create value through people and challenged how we think about talent. We argued that talent is abundant, not scarce; that talent exists at every level, not just the high fliers and that the key challenge is how to inspire, engage and harness talent.In our new UK based report, we have talked with business leaders, in the UK and abroad to find out if and how businesses in the UK are coming to terms with globalisation, and with the new drivers of value creation and as a result what this means for talent management in the UK.We argue that as a nation we must pay our way through our one natural resource – the talent of our people, but that we can do this if we have a shared sense of national purpose, one which embraces the world we are a part of.  We argue that we are being held back by a 'fortress Britain' mentality - this could mean huge problems for us as a nation, whilst failing to harness the talent of our people,...

Bonds are a set of financial products ideally suited to both the financing of long-payback period energy projects and to providing institutional investors with security of returns over the longer term. Climate Bonds are intended to unlock ‘patient capital’: taking savings which require secure returns over long periods of time, such as those held by pension funds, and investing them in low-carbon projects that have high up-front costs but good payback rates over the long term. Climate Bonds need not differ greatly from existing government and corporate bonds, save for their central purpose: the funds they attract are underpinned by real and verifiable energy efficiency and renewable energy projects that in some certifiable manner contribute to the mitigation of climate change. At a minimum this has marketing benefits, allowing investors to report to their members on how their secure investments are also making a contribution to addressing climate change. At a maximum, investors...