Dreaming about tomorrow pays off

Last week, FD journalists wrote “With the downfall of Emmanuel Faber, mid-March, the last of the most vocal defenders of sustainable operations has disappeared. the top executive of dairy giant Danone became the victim of two activist investors, who saw their opportunity, because of Danone's lagging stock prize. So far for new capitalism?” 

The next day, Emmanuel Faber's departure led to an almost 5% higher stock. An interesting question is what the stock will be in the long term. Time will tell. This may sound as sad news. It seems like the CEO's of multinationals with a great social ambition will be the loser against the hedge funds that are only pursuing profit. In this case, they each hold a 3% share. This could imply that the other shareholders, holding the other 94%, tacitly consent. If it's true that small shareholders can have a major impact, there will be hard times for parties like Shell. They are in the completely opposite version: activist shareholders like Follow This require organizations to be much more sustainable. 

Because of the time difference, short-term objectives (profit for the shareholders) and long-term objectives (such as social return) are getting into conflict. It seems pretty logical to partly enforce acting responsibly by legislation. Twenty-five professors, led by Professor of Corporate Governance Jaap Winter, have already written the bill This calls for responsible corporate citizenship responsible corporate citizenship to ben included in statutory duties of executive and supervisory directors. As a result, directors are obliged to participate in society as a responsible organization, to establish their guiding principles, and to report on the company's impact on human, social and natural capital. A kind of GDPR, but for social policy. We are in Favor, including the capital. 

Alan Jope, Paul Polman's successor at Unilever, recently stated that brands associated with sustainability grow faster and attract better talent. The transition from shareholder value to social value requires a bridge from the short to the long term. Harvard research confirms Jope's story. 

Would sustainable policy lead to structurally better results? We definitely believe so. Obviously, it's a matter of perspective. We consider it our mission to inspire organizations with different perspectives. To help them dream big and make those dreams come true. In a time of enormous change, our mission is to create a different perspective (things can change), and to make it into reality (we do things differently). We can't think of anything more inspiring than that. We believe the world will be a better place for CEOs who dare to dream out loud and pursue their dreams. Shall we?