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NEWS FEATURES
COMPANIES HAVE MORAL LIABILITY
central to this process.
the letter of the law and neglect its spirit. This is the view expressed by the new report launched by 'SustainAbility' with sponsorship from Swiss Re, Insight Investment and Foley Hoag LLP.
John Elkington, a founder of sustainability
The report's main author, SustainAbility's Director Geoff Lye says: "Many of the world's largest and most progressive companies are failing to spot critical risks from new forms of liability. Some of these currently unaccounted risks may prove to be potentially uninsurable. This moves the challenge of corporate responsibility, meeting stakeholder and societal expectations of ethical behaviour, from its frequent home in the corporate affairs and PR department to the heart of the business and onto the desks of C.E.O.s, C.F.O.s and strategic risk managers."
rom earliest times, the Jain tradition has emphasised that individuals and human groups are ultimately responsible for
their actions. Individually and collectively, we have the intelligence and the power to make moral choices. We therefore pay the price, in present and future lives, for making the choices that lead to exploitation, oppression or dishonesty. In today's world, this principle has great relevance to business practice as companies, especially large corporations, often make the wrong choices. Nowadays, the connection between ethical practice and business success is becoming more apparent, partly through a number of high profile campaigns and partly because of a genuine shift of consciousness taking place among some businesspeople.
The report, The Changing Landscape of Liability:
A Director's Guide to Trends in Corporate Environmental, Social and Economic Liability-was launched on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy, which occurred on 3 December 1984. It uses this and other case histories
obesity, climate change and human rights to highlight how society's expectations of business behaviour are rapidly shifting, and how organisations are being punished not only in the courts of law but also in the ever more global court of public opinion: through boycotts, erosion of brand and reputation, loss of shareholder value and destruction of trust, credibility and goodwill.
"The report highlights a critical development - the convergence of escalating liability costs faced by companies, and the role corporate responsibility can play in strategic risk management to lessen liability exposure", says Rick Murray, Chief Claims Strategist of report sponsor Swiss Re.
CONTACTS: Frances Buckingham Tel: +44 (0)20 7269 6900 Email: buckingham@sustainability.com
As well as detailed case histories, the report includes insight into the opinions of the investment, legal and insurance sectors. There is growing pressure for a business to revisit its conventional approaches to corporate responsibility and risk management, including due diligence, to manage environmental and social risks better. Strategic stakeholder engagement to understand and appraise the ethical environment and expectations of the business will be
The Changing Landscape of Liability: A Director's Guide to Corporate Environmental, Social and Economic Liability was published on 1 December 2004. It can be downloaded free of charge from www.sustainability.com
WWW.JAINSPIRIT.COM
Many companies put the long term shareholder value at risk by failing to anticipate and manage new forms of liability. However, it is increasingly untenable for a business to abide by
AIDAN RANKIN
Jain Education International
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