Sustainability
Tenured Harvard Business School professor, now at Oxford University.
Precis of the Fable
Evil fossil fuel devouring Monster Asset Managers (MAMs) forced Princess AEP to prematurely kill her beloved child Pirkey. Jobs and heat for homes were lost. Children starved in the cold. Angry gods showered Storm Uri upon the Kingdom of Texas. Aided by the cunning and malicious Renewable Energy Orcs, the entire Kingdom was cast into ice. All of Middle Earth was nearly lost. With the help of Chairman Gandalf, a small committee of beautiful Elves asked the brave Dwarfs to herd the MAMs to the Shire of Marshall. In front of all of the local Hobbits, the Elves cast a magical spell upon the MAMs to make sure this would never happen again.
Much has been written about the December 15, 2022, Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing in which the committee grilled Dalia Blass (Senior Managing Director and Head of External Affairs at BlackRock, Lori Heinel (Global Chief Investment Officer of State Street), and Lorraine Kelly (Global Head of Investment Stewardship Solutions at ISS). The day before, Committee Chairman Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) (he of a neatly trimmed, slightly graying beard and a fashionably long but tasteful coiffure) graciously dismissed John Galloway, Vanguard’s Global Head of Investment Stewardship. Mr. Galloway was saved the long trip ✈️ from Malvern (population of 3,419) to the comparatively bustling metropolis of Marshall (with a population of around 23,000) since Vanguard had expeditiously withdrawn from the Net-Zero Asset Managers Alliance a week before.
Robert G. Eccles of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford is the author of a number of books on integrated reporting, sustainability and the role of business in society. His focus is on sustainability from both a company and investor perspective. Professor Eccles is also involved in a variety of initiatives to embed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in real world decision making. One of these is the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), of which he was the founding chairman. In 2018, Professor Eccles was selected by Barron’s as one of the top 20 influencers on ESG investing.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Subscribe our newsletter to receive the latest news, articles and exclusive podcasts every week