Monthly Archives: July 2010

Water: A Human Right

The TakeAway: Intel Affirmed Water as a Human Right Before the UN; Will Other Companies Follow Suit? Water is the driving force of all nature, said Leonardo da Vinci.  Apparently, the United Nations agrees.  On Wednesday, in a nonbinding measure … Continue reading

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SEC Rulemaking: Transparency Is Not Enough

Part Two of Two Parts The TakeAway: Dodd-Frank Provision Reduces SEC Accountability, While Digital Tools Can Transform Transparency into Action Yesterday, as we were writing optimistically about the new SEC transparency and outreach initiatives, a showdown was brewing. The issue: … Continue reading

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We the People, or Corporate Lobbyists: Whose Interests Will the SEC Serve?

Part One of Two Parts The TakeAway: SEC Opens  Door Further to Public Engagement as Ex-Regulator Lobbyists Rush In Two developments late yesterday demonstrate the high stakes involved when it comes to money and power, and vividly illustrate the imbalance … Continue reading

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Sustainability: When Will the Exception Become the Rule?

Commentary by Bob Massie The TakeAway: Silo Thinking by Corporations, Activists, Investors, and Others Slows Progress of Sustainability Those who have been working to advance the concept and practice of sustainability in the United States over the last decade can … Continue reading

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Good Ownership and Good Governance: The Case for Investor Stewardship

The TakeAway: New UK Stewardship Code Helps Investors Act as Owners – Will US Follow Suit? With all the attention on financial regulatory reform, it’s easy to forget a simple truism:  You can’t have good corporate governance without good ownership.  … Continue reading

Posted in Proxy Voting, Public Policy, Stakeholder Engagement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

U.S. Boards Lag on Sustainability

The TakeAway: Conference Board Study Says Most US Boards Still Pursuing Random Approach to Sustainability With rapidly changing financial regulations, the emergence of coherent global standards for disclosure, and a record breaking year of sustainability shareholder resolutions, you’d think that corporate … Continue reading

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Rules of the Road: Fixing Corporate Governance, and What It Means To You

The past half-year or so has seen a host of corporate governance reforms in the US, which dramatically change the context of corporate power and accountability.  In December 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) set the ball rolling by … Continue reading

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Good Governance: A Perfect Storm

Part Three of Three Parts President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act into law yesterday, capping an extraordinary period of financial and governance reform, stimulated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers 22 months ago.  You could call it “the end of … Continue reading

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Environmental & Social Policy Resolutions Receive Record Levels of Support

Part Two of Three Parts For more than forty years, shareholder activists and large investors have expressed their concerns to corporate boards through the proxy resolution process.  For them, this past season was the best ever. Proxy resolutions are proposed … Continue reading

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Voting Matters: Record-Breaking Proxy Season

Part One of Three Parts It’s been a banner year for U.S. capital market reform:  on Wednesday President Obama is expected to sign the Dodd-Frank Act, while the SEC is receiving comments on its Concept Release for improving the process … Continue reading

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Sustainability Disclosure and Sector Sensibility

Now that the experimental cap seems to be holding on BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf, it’s time to step back and take a wider view of the company and the industry it occupies.  While we need to keep the focus … Continue reading

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Game On!

Who knew that sustainability could be fun?  Those who are in the business of “Serious Games”, that’s who.  A growing number of digital game developers are finding ways of connecting game genres and mechanics to serious policy issues, creating outcomes … Continue reading

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Tackling “Corporate-Carditis”: SEC Proposes Quadruple Bypass Surgery on Proxy System

Part Two of a Two-Part Post Yesterday, in a rare expression of unanimity, the five SEC Commissioners all voted to approve a Concept Release that proposes sweeping revisions of the US proxy voting system.  This is akin to quadruple bypass … Continue reading

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We’ve Only Just Begun: Why Today’s SEC Open Meeting Matters

Part One of a Two-Part Post This morning, the SEC held an open meeting to issue what’s called a “concept release”, the Commission’s mechanism for considering rule revisions by floating a first draft of policy open to public comment for … Continue reading

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When Titans Learn to Dance: GRI Partners with CDP + UNGC

Last Wednesday, the Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, the international corporate sustainability reporting standard setter) announced a linkage document with the London-based Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP, a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change reporting system).  This marked the second … Continue reading

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Why Dodd-Frank Is Important–For Everyone

This week, Congress returned from  its holiday  break to confront a deep irony:  while millions are desperate for work, the place that brought down our economy is now on a roll.  On the first count, roughly 2.1 million US workers … Continue reading

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The Future of Good Governance

July is the month to celebrate democracy’s journey—Independence Day in the US,  Bastille Day in France ten days later.  Too bad democracy’s core values aren’t enacted, even though they’re embedded in our corporate governance system of checks and balances.  Fortunately … Continue reading

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Free and Fair Elections?

Corporate governance in the United States operates much like the old days of corrupt municipalities: James Michael Curley’s Boston, Richard J. Daley’s Chicago, or George Washington Plunkitt of New York City’s Tammany Hall.  Patronage and abuse of power rule the … Continue reading

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The Murninghan Post Launches!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Murninghan Post, which we’re creating as a gathering place for information, ideas, deliberation, and strategic action on matters pertaining to the reform of our corporate structures and capital markets. The aim is bold … Continue reading

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