Moving Beyond ESGs

Naming the Dominant Logic and Making Sense of the Real Governance Metrics 

Welcome to a set of unfolding presumptions about how we transition to a survivable social, environmental, and political climate. This is a second in a series of explorations about how we might think about investments that connect across public and private sectors and the spaces in between called Contribution Value Design.

We value community agency and resilience locally but struggle with finding investments that meaningfully move the needle globally. 

So we search for investments that can scale. 

There are massive barriers to complex systems change, but the crucial problem is that we know how to scale market solutions, but seem to be stuck with markets-solve-everything delusions. 

Most of our complex problems are already embedded in systems that combine private, public, and third sectors, together. We can’t just innovate inside of the market to upgrade our infrastructure, refactor our supply chains, and transition our healthcare, housing, education, and energy systems to work better for us. We need to admit we’re great at creating new technology in new spaces, but not so great at shifting legacy industries.

All eyes rest on the evaluation metrics as the core leverage point to change how we move a company or industry or society from one horizon to the next. 

Thousand of finance folks worked on all of the standards that led to the alphabet soup of investment metrics: TCFD, PRI, GRI, SASB, IFRS, ISSB, and SDR, all rolled up into an umbrella term that has not quite succeeded: ESG or environmental, social, and governance.

Continue reading at Reason Street.