17May
Filed in Economy | Efficiency | Energy | Environment | GHG | GRI | Social | Sustainability
I just received my GRI G3 reporting certification from the course I took last week. The course was delivered in Colorado for the first time due to the efforts of CORE with support from Deloitte. Lead, out of Canada, provided the training based on materials from the Global Reporting Initiative.
The instructor was well informed, as were the 26 attendees. Lively discussion, along with some good and some not so good exercises provided us all with a great understanding of the G3 framework and the processes companies should put in place to engage stakeholders, prioritize initiatives, disclose results, share goals and increase sustainability through management processes and transparency.
Global Reporting Initiative
The Sustainability Reporting Framework – of which the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines are the cornerstone – provides guidance for organizations to disclose their sustainability performance. It is applicable to organizations of any size or type, and from any sector or geographic region, and has been used by thousands of organizations worldwide as the basis for their sustainability reporting.
Efficiency, Energy, Environment, GHG, governance, GRI
06Mar
Filed in Management | USA politics
Another high profile company going public has decided to maintain control while selling a majority of the economic stakes in the company to the public. This time it is Al Gore as a founder of Current Media.
I certainly agree, the company’s shareholders have a right to decide the control structure they want to have after a public offering. At the end of the day, people can always choose not to be a party to it. And the average investor (not the same as the average dollar invested) has little voice in the actions of a company. But I still don’t like it. I guess it comes down to creating value for all shareholders and when you remove options – and putting control in the hands of a few reduced options – you lower the value to the group as a whole.
In this case the interesting thing will be how Gore is viewed in this debate (not that I’m trying to pull Barak and Hillary into this). In Al Gores Convenient IPO the comparision with Google focused on Gore’s holding public office and being a voice for many of the institutions who are currently fighting against these type of control structures. I don’t think we should hold Gore or any other ex-public official to any higher standard than we hold each other. And he should not try to tell us to do what he thinks is better for others unless he is willing to do that or more himself.
Finance, governance, Management
08Jan
Filed in Economy | Management
Why are private boards putting more value on the efforts of top managers than comparable public companies? With no doubt there have been compensation structures for CEOs that were neither aligned with the interest of the shareholders or other stakeholders in the corporation. However, the comparison between the pay at the top of the organization and that at lower levels really misses the mark. This comparison just happens to be simple to calculate, easily understood and highly contentious.
The true value of a CEO is her ability to improve the value of the company. The best way to measure this is to compare the value increase to other similar companies in order to remove the value increase or decrease that impacted all companies in the sector.
The cost of the CEO should be market driven with significant portions based on performance. What is the market rate for a CEO with these skills and necessary experience? Just as the top performers in movies or baseball games are paid many multiples the salary enjoyed by their peers due to the short supply of “stars”, CEOs are short in supply as well.
What is surprising here is that private companies with active investors on their boards are offering higher compensation for these talents than the generally less active boards of public companies? I would suggest that the backlash of the “compensation scandals” have the compensation committee of public companies swinging too far in the conservative direction. The swing was needed, let’s hope it does not continue so that public companies become the minor league training camps for CEO destined to play in the private company major leagues.
Public CEOs take to private firms in order to get top dollar as shown in Private Firms Lure Chief Executives With Top Pay – New York Times
compensation, governance, Management
18Jul
Filed in Ethics
Economist.com |Is the MBA responsible for moral turpitude at the top? :
“SEVERAL of the corporate scandals that took place in the early years of this decade are currently being replayed in courtrooms from New York to Alabama. The trials of top executives at HealthSouth, Tyco International and WorldCom are reminding the public how unethical was the behaviour of some of the nation’s top managers only a few short years ago.
The finger of blame for this behaviour is sometimes pointed at the MBA, the degree offered by business schools from Harvard to Hawaii. Perhaps this is not as odd as it sounds. After all, MBAs lay as thick on the ground at Enron as managerial hubris, and disinterested outsiders are not alone in asking whether there might have been some connection.”
Do we really think the primary place for social and moral teachings is in the management schools teaching twenty and thirty year olds the latest theory on business and economics? Yes, these schools can and are exposing future manager to difficult situations. But, no, it is not the primary responsibility of these institutions to instill the core values of ethical and legal decision making. Here is an article on the issue worthy of a read.
Education, Ethics, governance, Management
