What Goes Up Doesn’t Always Go Up
The latest disaster in the financial markets has once again shown that some of the biggest risks investors face derive from the excesses of free markets themselves. This time it was unregulated lending, leverage and speculation. In 2000 it was … Read more…
Home Depot and the Endangered Forests of Patagonia
Ancient forests in South America…Home Depot…environmental groups protest. It may sound like a Hollywood script about the timber battles of the 1990s, but unfortunately it describes the players in the latest chapter in the ongoing battle to protect remaining endangered … Read more…
It Seems to Me
“When power leads man to arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” ~John F. Kennedy As I write this, toward the end of 2008, the world is looking crazier and scarier than ever. I don’t … Read more…
Institutionalizing the For Benefit Corporation
Creating new business models that integrate people, planet and profit is a creative challenge. State and federal laws differentiate between for-profit and nonprofit entities, but what about the mission-driven, for-profit corporation? Or the risk-taking nonprofit social enterprise? Neither fish nor … Read more…
Predicting the Weather Is Easier Than Predicting Financial Markets – and Muckrackers Are No Longer in Fashion.
Reflecting on the carnage we are seeing today in the economy, I marvel that hardly anyone saw it coming, unless it was that bearded philosopher, the late Karl Marx, who warned that financial crises are endemic to capitalism and that … Read more…
(Very Big) Business As Usual at the Beijing Olympics
The Chinese made a grand entrance on the Olympic world stage – intense, controlled, intimidating (if you find 2,008 men beating drums with seamless precision intimidating). Yet the awe inspiring opening ceremony was perfectly balanced with peaceful displays of song, … Read more…
Reflections on a Quarter Century with Trillium Asset Management Corporation
My life is tied closely to the history of Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”). I was there at the birth. The column I now write made its debut on the front page of the first issue of this newsletter in … Read more…
Changing the World, One MBA at a Time
The change we want to see in the world is being created by activists, artists, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, responsible investors and … MBAs. Yes, MBAs! Given that corporations have become the dominant institutions on the planet, this represents a much-needed … Read more…
Keeping the SRI in ESG
Big changes are underway in the world of socially responsible investing (SRI). In just the past five or so years, mainstream Wall Street has reversed course from its longstanding claim that SRI can only hurt financial returns, to embrace the idea that … Read more…