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Stakeholder capitalism and ESG investing have recently emerged to the fore of discussions about corporate responsibility. But businesses, to varying degrees, have always been active in supporting their stakeholders – whether they be employees, customers, or the broader community. This session explores how companies can incorporate ESG principals into their overall strategy to the benefit of their shareholders. We will also review the ways that companies seeking to be socially responsible evaluate the success of initiatives that may only deliver long-term, hard-to-measure results.
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Prof. Lubos Pastor presents a model for stakeholder capitalism that is consistent with widely accepted fiduciary standards for corporate managers and boards.
A growing backlash against ESG has put many companies in a difficult position. Asset managers who control trillions of dollars of investment capital have been at the center of controversy, but others (e.g. Disney) have also felt the effects. This session examines strategies for communicating corporate responsibility initiatives in ways that lower companies’ risks of being embroiled in the ongoing ESG culture war.
Magnolia Room
Royal Caribbean recently committed to a review of ESG efforts, resulting in a revamped corporate framework that is better linked to its core business strategy. In this session, Jason Liberty describes the pillars of the new ESG approach and how it reflects steady progress to engage communities; foster equity, inclusivity and human rights; and demonstrate the company’s efforts and commitment toward a net-zero emissions goal.
Magnolia Room • Refreshments available at 3:30 pm
Magnolia Room
ESG is both extremely important and nothing special. It is extremely important because it is critical to long-term value, and so all business leaders should take it seriously (not just those with “ESG” in their job title). Thus, ESG does not need a specialized term, because that implies it’s niche. Likewise, considering long-term factors when valuing a company isn’t ESG investing; it’s investing.
Twenty years ago, Cisco signed the UN Global Compact, which encouraged businesses to both focus and report on sustainability and social responsibility. Since then, Cisco has established itself as a leader in ESG and corporate responsibility while aligning operations and strategies around its purpose: to power an inclusive future for all. In this session, Chuck Robbins discusses how this “for all” mindset drives how they support customers, care for employees, and serve their communities, all while running a profitable and equitable business.
Mediterranean Courtyard
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If you want dirty firms to clean up their act, should you divest? Frustrations about climate policy delays have incited a movement toward fossil fuel divestment, whereby institutions and investors “starve” dirty firms of capital in an attempt to incentivize environmental improvements or to force them out of the market. Such outcomes could theoretically emerge because divestment can increase dirty firms’ cost of capital. Alternatively, though, socially minded investors can seek to bring about change by leveraging their “seat at the table” to influence organizations’ strategies, practices, and innovation pursuits. And doing so requires continuing to invest. Prof. Jacquelyn Pless explores the trade-offs and potential efficacy of each approach.
How can we get the most out of companies willing to consider their social responsibilities while not overburdening them with unrealistic expectations? There are benefits and costs to ESG, along with implicit limits to what companies can achieve on their own in terms of solving challenging problems facing society. This session explores the promise and the limitations of corporate actions within the ESG framework.
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ESG issues continue to grow in importance, and companies are facing unprecedented internal and external criticism and pressure to address them. Executives are left to wonder, “Should I respond to this issue, and if so, how?” and oftentimes note that addressing ESG issues before the company is being criticized in the news is an underrated strategy and a deliberate choice. Prof. Olga Hawn discusses how corporations should approach external ESG pressures as part of the broader corporate strategy.
What is in the ESG policy pipeline today, and how will it affect the increasing number of organizations facing expectations of ESG measurement and reporting?
Magnolia Room
Alan Murray reveals how corporate CEOs – the ultimate pragmatists – realized that they could lose their “operating license” unless they tackled the fundamental issues of our time: climate, diversity and inclusion, and inequality and workforce opportunity. Responding to demands for corporate change from employees and customers, many CEOs have taken the lead in establishing new principles ensuring that – for the first time in more than half a century – it will not be shareholders alone who have a say in how corporations are run.
Established in 1985 by Frank Hawkins Kenan, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise is a nonpartisan business policy think tank affiliated with the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The nonprofit institute and its affiliated centers convene leaders from business, academia and government to better understand how the private sector can work for the public good. The institute leverages best-in-class research to develop market-based solutions to today’s most complex economic challenges. In doing so, the institute aims to support businesses and policies that better the lives of people in North Carolina, across the country and around the world.
A Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise Event