By Henry Leveson-Gower, Founder & CEO of Promoting Economic Pluralism
Mainstream economics justifies the primacy of individual shareholder interests. Unless we challenge this paradigm, the social and environmental will remain marginal. This may seem a major ask but the humiliation of mainstream economics in the crash 10 years ago has weakened it. There are clear alternative frameworks and with your support we can raise their profile and legitimacy.
By Jeanne Martin, Senior Campaigns Officer
Last week, the IPCC (a group of UN climate scientists) released a report quantifying the differences between a 1.5C and a 2C world. Its key message? The next 12 years will determine whether or not we can avert the worst consequences of climate change – such as 10cm rise in sea level, putting a further 10 million people at risk of coastal flooding and water contamination by sea water, a total wipe out of coral reefs, the death of low-lying islands and a massive reduction in habitat for a large number of animals. This will cause global climate-related economic losses to soar – which have already increased by 2.5 times in the past 20 years, totalling $2.9 trillion, found the UN.
By David O’Sullivan, Policy Officer
This month, we mark the 10th anniversary of the 2008 financial crash with distressing levels of poverty prevalent in the UK. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 8 million people in the UK are living in ‘in-work poverty’ – where the household income is below the poverty threshold despite one member of the household working either full or part time.
By Michael Kind, Shareholder Activism Coordinator
AGM season has come to an end for this year. We facilitated 142 questions at 86 AGMs, keeping the issues that matter on the table of FTSE100 CEOs. Here are our top 10 moments:
By Clare Richards, Good Work Programme Manager, first published in IR Magazine on 6 September
While environmental risks and governance issues like boardroom excess and chairmanship have been on investors’ radars for years, it has taken a while for the trio of ESG factors to be rounded out. The ‘S’ has only recently come to greater prominence, as companies and investors identify social issues as factors to which they should be more alert – with headline issues including diversity, modern slavery and supply chain safety.
