BDTI To Start Section on “ESG and Responsible Investment”

As you can see from the carefully hidden little section at the lower right of the Discussion Forum page, BDTI is preparing a section on ESG and responsible investment. (Please note that his is still a work in progress; so any ideas and additional information are welcome, as longas you help do the work tosummarize, organize etc., as this is a user-generated contents site….)

Yeah, you make false statements, I know, but… oh, come here and give Uncle Sam a hug

The followingentry appeared as part of GovernanceMetrics International’s GMI Blog. GMI is the leading independent provider of global corporate governance and ESG ratings and research. Corporate stakeholders – including leading investors, insurers, auditors, regulators and others – use GovernanceMetrics services to identify and monitor risks related to non-financial measures covering key environmental, social, governance and […]

(Davis Polk Briefing) “Gary Retelny Talks to Us as the Newly Appointed President of ISS”

MSCI, the parent company of ISS, recently announced that Gary Retelny, a member of MSCI’s Executive Committee and its Corporate Secretary, has been appointed President of ISS. As ISS is clearly an influential force in corporate governance developments, we asked Mr. Retelny about his new position.

Davis Polk: What are your primary goals and expectations for ISS as we approach the 2012 proxy season?

Proxy Season 2011: A Tipping Point for Social and Environmental Issues? (Harvard Forum)

The following postin the Harvard Forum on CorporateGovernance and FinancialRegulation,is from Heidi Welsh, Executive Director at the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2), with input from Tim Smith, Senior Vice President at Walden Asset Management, and was adapted from the executive summary of a longer report on the results of the 2011 proxy season published by Si2. […]

J.P. Morgan: “Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class”

Investments intended to create positive impact beyond financial return

Impact investments are investments intended to create positive impact beyond financial return. This definition captures the key themes characterizing impact investments as illustrated in Figure 1: impact investments provide capital, expecting financial returns, to businesses (fund managers or companies) designed with the intent to generate positive social and/or environmental impact.

Investors and investments range broadly, across sectors and objectives

Growth or Decline: Improving Economic “Metabolism” to Raise Productivity

Professor Kyoji Fukao, Program Director and Professor, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, wrote this on-point article in the Nikkei Newspaper's Keizai Kyoushitsu column on July 27 of 2011, describing the challenges that Japan's economy faces and the what is needed to get it growing again.

Much of the article appears below, but you can see the full article and the charts on RIETI's web site:

” The Corporation ” (Movie)

Too big to fail. Massive externalization of risks. Environmental damage. Institutionalized moral hazard…..

Corporations havebecome so powerful over the years. Surely, they are one of the dominant institutions in today's world.

In an era when we see so much damages caused by corporations, maybe it is good idea to look at the origin, history and evolution of corporations and to rethink about what corporations really exist for.