The content from the October 2020 online conference “Can Purpose Deliver Better Corporate Governance?” is included as part of the “Sustainable Financial Management” series the journal began in 2012 to focus on sustainability issues. In Editor Don Chew’s words, the series was born a decade ago to address the question, “how can companies make significant contributions to ‘sustainability’ while maintaining enough profitability and value to keep attracting the investor capital that will enable them to sustain themselves?”
In this latest issue in the series, JACF shares contributions from the second of three STI-supported collaborations between IESE’s Center for Corporate Governance (CCG) and the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) “as evidence of the value of corporate ESG investment,” according to Chew.
The conference work, published on Open Access, shares the issue with other hopeful voices, opening with two articles by Harvard University scholars. Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker contributes a relatively optimistic argument in “Enlightenment Environmentalism: A Humanistic Response to Climate Change.” Then, HBS’ George Serafeim co-authors “Corporate Resilience and Response to COVID-19” (with State Street financial analysts), to reveal that the stock market does recognize the value corporate ESG (Environmental, social and corporate governance).
