Al Gore has issued his latest challenge to the world: an end to businesses' quarterly earnings reports in order to allow a greater focus on long-term sustainabile value creation.
"While we believe that capitalism is fundamentally superior to any other system for organising economic activity, it is also clear that some of the ways in which it is now practised do not incorporate sufficient regard for its impact on people, society and the planet," he explains.
This proposal isn’t groundbreaking – Unilever stopped issuing quarterly reports in 2009 when the then new CEO Paul Polman argued that they only served to promote the short-termism that dogs the financial markets. But the fact that a well-respected global voice (who also happens to be a major investor) is making this call, reflects the growing tide of expectation on the role of shareholders to foster and enable sustainable capitalism.
Al Gore’s white paper issues a number of other challenges, including proposals to mandate integrated reporting and to integrate sustainability into business education at all levels. In fact, he uses the word 'integrate' a lot. Could 2012 be the year that corporate responsibility and sustainability are welcomed in from the silos and embedded at the heart of more of the world’s top businesses? Long-term-minded investors will be on the lookout.
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