Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight. Equilibrium is pragmatic. You have to get everything into proportion. You compensate, rebalance yourself so that you maintain your angle to the world. When the world shifts, you shift.
- Tom Stoppard
Sunny Spring Mornings
From Dodge v. Ford to triple bottom lines
A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end.
- Dodge v. Ford Motor Company (Mich. 1919)
The principle that a company is run for the benefit of its shareholders is one that has been enshrined in legal doctrine since 1919, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Ford Motor Company was not permitted to retain its considerable earnings to reinvest internally, at the expense of dividends owed to its shareholders. In recent years, this formulation has come under attack as researchers blame the goal of ‘shareholder value maximisation’ for a host of ills ranging from the lack of focus on R&D to unemployment. It has been proposed that managers should cease to focus solely on maximising value for shareholders and focus instead on maximising value for all ‘stakeholders’.
Several companies (such as Ben and Jerry’s) have embraced the idea, focusing on the ‘triple bottom line’ : people, profits and the planet. But, how does one define who a stakeholder is, and how does an investor measure how ‘green’ a company actually is? Everything from the latest LCD television to eggs in the supermarket are labelled ‘organic’, ‘sustainable’, ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly’, and unless one is disposed to spend a few hours investigating the small print, neither investors nor consumers can differentiate between a myriad of available options.
The benefit corporation (B-Corp) certification introduced in 2006 attempts to enumerate stakeholders, clarify best practices in how they are treated, and rates company performance on a series of indicators including treatment of employees, environmental-friendliness and community-friendliness.
NYT’s Fixes this week covers the rise of the B-Corp in detail. An interesting read, and here’s hoping that listed companies start looking to obtain B-Corp credentials as well.
New Zealand Economic View
On BBC’s World Business Report (10 Mar 2011), discussing the rate cut announced by the RBNZ, and New Zealand’s prospects following last month’s earthquake.
Revolutionizing Renewable Energy and Fashion
I went to the Earth Awards last week, and got to see some innovative ‘green’ solutions.. And, got to blog about it at the paper..
David Wendell wants to revolutionize renewable energy by taking a page out of nature’s book, and improving it. His new technology captures carbon and transforms it into sugar — something that plants do naturally — more efficiently using artificial photosynthetic foam. The foam developed by Mr. Wendell and his colleague Carlo Montemagno, both professors at the University of Cincinnati, was one of six finalists at the Earth Awards 2010 held yesterday in London, eventually winning the $50,000 prize.
Read the full post here
Life is..
I make plans, dream little dreams, dream bigger ones.
Think of how I’ll be when I finally grow up.. Of all the things I want to do, places I want to see, people I want to be.
But life? Life doesn’t care so much about the five year plans and long-term goals.
Life is chilly Thursday evenings spent watching a week’s worth of House episodes.
Life is searching for a particular song on a Saturday afternoon and then listening to it all weekend.
Life is dirty dishes piling up in a tiny kitchen and finding one purple-mauve sock and never figuring out where the other one went.
Life is Sunday afternoons spent with friends and home cooked meals and taking back leftovers in Tupperware boxes.
As the man said,
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans
- John Lennon
