To the letter: How truth speaks to stakeholders
Technological change is blasting us forward and continues to solidify the role reputation and trust play for 
organizations of all kinds. Even some news organizations, entities multiple stakeholders look to for unbiased information, can succumb to what is less than best practice.
According to Gallup, distrust in the media has hit a new high, with 60 per cent saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.
In the New York Law Journal, 2009 was referred to as “the Year of Investor Anger”. FAIR Canada published a report in 2011 called A Decade of Financial Scandals highlighting fraud as a problem and making recommendations for prevention, detection, prosecution and compensation. Edelman‘s recent study on trust revealed trust in banking and financial services has dropped 50 per cent even amongst global, informed publics.
Against this backdrop, where investors both small and institutional are looking for a return but also an investment they can believe in, Laura Rittenhouse looks beyond what is reported in most public companies’ financials. She looks for innovation in communications.
Rittenhouse writes about CEO communications. She focuses on strategy, culture and performance with the idea of truth key in her audits.
Truth as competitive advantage
Today, forward-thinking companies are embracing the opportunity to really “talk” to investors and other stakeholders. There’s so much noise surrounding annual general meetings and annual reports that investing in communicating regarding contentious issues pays dividends.
An organization that sees the light on corporate transparency thinks in a more holistic way. Organizations stepping forward to be thought leaders are creating best practice not rushing to engage in best practices because others have already set the agenda for them.
Truth in reporting is so obvious that it bears more focus. Sometimes, it’s the obvious issues that fall out of the cross hairs of what’s important for managements to do.
Richard Edelman notes how logic becomes oxymoron:
[CEOs demand] … less regulation while CEOs suggest that enforcement of the new regulations has restored trust; this is a baffling logic problem.
Yet this is part of the duality of the human being. Although we know what’s right, we don’t always do what’s right.
Anyone who doubts what negative sentiment or negative media attention can do when an organization is held up to pursue less than best practices, and what that can do to reputation, might want to take a look at what legislators are calling “egregious” and “outrageous” regarding Apple’s “web of tax shelters”.
[While other companies have taken advantage of loopholes,] … I’ve never seen anything like this, and we don’t know anybody who’s seen anything like this.
— Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Business culture suffers due to lack of transparency. The reputation of business is left to the media which will tend to focus on the worst rather than the best. The media plays a vital role in highlighting tremendous failures in business but it’s up to businesses that are engaging in innovative practices to tell their story.
Business needs to get better at communicating. Business needs to communicate true innovation and best practice. It may have been the best of times with respect to some companies, but the organizations that showed up most often in the wake of the financial crisis are the ones that reflect a “worst of times” operational execution.
In such an environment, companies operating in a forward-thinking manner will be best positioned to gain from stakeholders’ need for a positive story. While it’s important to reveal worst practices, corruption and other failings, there’s a decided human need for the positive, for the feel-good story wrapped in the long-term resilience of truth.
Rittenhouse is a big proponent of a new wave of letters from directors and boards. She feels it’s a “powerful opportunity” to make a statement about governance.
A letter may be traditional but it’s impact can be revolutionary. Truth is the revolution. Companies need to tell the truth not only for the advantages truth will bring from a long-term operational point of view, but because it’s absolutely the right thing to do.
Coming soon:
Part Two: Why boards need to deal with the issues
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Related articles
You’ve got to do something about your reputation: Why CEOs need to pay attention to reputation management (johnrondina.wordpress.com)
Brave new reputation: What CEOs need to know (johnrondina.wordpress.com)
The impact of social media on investor relations
How has social media affected the communications world with respect to investor relations?
Disclosure and necessary tools
Have a look at a graphic representing tweets launched into the communications stratosphere. Visualize the potential impact of social technologies.
Can investor relations (IR) exist today without taking advantage of what digital has to offer?
Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S. has decided that social media is a necessary tool when it comes to disclosing key information. Companies can use social media, but they need to tell investors where they can find key information about operations.
As we begin to use these tools more, as a generation grows up used to them, and they evolve, the impact of social media becomes increasingly apparent:
Social tools are quickly establishing their relevance. Studies continue to show and to project the impact on business of transformative collaborative tools. And now the SEC has acknowledged that they hold relevance for investor relations.
(Two interesting visualizations of tweets.)
“Perfectly suitable” but not if access is restricted
Critics of the SEC were calling the regulatory body a dinosaur struggling to keep up with changes in the playbook of communications. George Canellos, acting director of enforcement at the SEC, said regarding the policy change: “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news …”
Of course, there are different kinds of investors, and not all investors have the same access to information. Organizations like FAIR Canada are working hard with multiple stakeholders, including regulatory bodies, to advocate for and help assure a level playing field for all investors.
The stakeholder is the message
Companies need to share information with stakeholders. Stakeholders are increasingly flexible, technologically-savvy, and as anyone who’s done research on digital technologies or social media can tell you, they want information the way they want it, when they want it, and, often, as fast as possible.
The stakeholder is the message. And the future is about listening and interacting. But is this true of stakeholders in all their incarnations? Will less social-savvy investors be at a disadvantage?
Most large companies are already actively listening to social chatter. How will the smaller investor cope?
Listening to the voice of the multiverse
Listening, monitoring messages in the digital multiverse is, and will become, increasingly important. It’s social media’s incredible speed and accessibility that makes it an important channel of information on a company or issue. You only need to focus on Royal Bank’s recent experience with outsourcing, and the resulting firestorm, to see that this is true.
Monitoring for issues related to IR is crucial.
Multiportal conversation
One of the cornerstones of communications is that an organization deserves to tell its story, but now that communications has tools like social media, it’s important to remember that public relations is a conversation. It is dialogue.
- Conversation is now multiportal
- Conversation resembles multiple “worlds”:
- Information is accumulated, digested and shared very quickly
- Information can be accessed by almost any individual or organization in near real-time, and then sent out to more new “worlds”, where:
- The process might repeat again and again, exponentially
If you’re not part of a two-way conversation, then, what does this say about your organization?
Questions, questions, questions
Can less social media-savvy investors cope? Do they want to cope in this environment?
Then again, did storytellers want to cope with the printing press?
How does social affect reputation or risk mitigation for companies? Do stakeholders perceive you as having the ability to respond in a crisis? To listen? What does it say about your thought leadership? About advancing your organization, and advancing its most important resource, its people, within your sector?
You can find social media users amongst investors, both institutional and retail, customers, and analysts, but how level is the playing field when it comes to those who are less social-savvy?
The conversation over social disclosure is going on whether companies or other stakeholders take part or not. Not only is it multiportal, but it’s multidirectional.
At the time of writing, a case of tweet-hacking set the whole conversation on its ear. The Associated Press (AP) was hacked, a fake tweet was sent out saying there had been explosions at the White House resulting in $136 billion evaporating from the stock market although the market bounced back after the tweet was discovered to be a fraud.
Speed is both advantage and disadvantage when it comes to social. The AP event guarantees an ongoing discussion on the use of social media and reinforces regulators’ philosophy of using social technologies as part of the integrated flow of communications.
The AP Twitter hacking will draw increasing attention to issues of security. But Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and news wire services, as well as emails, can, and have been hacked, too.
It’s clear we’ve entered into a brave new world of digital communications where the speed of our technologies will accelerate the speed of the debate on our technologies.
Inherit the feedback
Social channels provide an interesting arena for obtaining feedback. Some feel it’s the best feedback money can buy: direct customer feedback from specific and broad stakeholder groups. And it’s cost-effective.
In the Royal Bank case, information about what was happening was posted via social media. But the creators of the Facebook page weren’t random individuals, or even disgruntled customers. They were employees, part of a key stakeholder group.
Information is power. But increasingly, information is becoming an exponent of conversations. Debate is a necessary tool. It’s how we advance.
Yet the lightning strike of the AP event, and its resulting effect on the markets, can’t be ignored.
Justin Fox, in a recent Havard post, said: “… history, data-crunching, and informed opinion — (it’s) intended to be consumed and debated by an audience … far beyond (insert your academic [or other] stakeholders here) …”
Restricting communication, access to information and people networks is something I doubt you would champion as a sound business practice for the 21st century … You can resist, but your competitors and customers are moving ahead.
– Mike Langford
Investor relations might not be able to shrink from social channels even if it wanted to. Some critics will say IR should embrace social channels. It’s true that adding social media to an IR website opens new avenues for disclosure and transparency. While it’s important to have contingency plans for crises and miscommunication or poor communication, that’s true of all channels in public relations.
Social conversations and what it is to be “informed”
Shrinking away from social conversations, from the debate about what’s right regarding the future, on any issue, from dialoguing about what it is to be “informed” and how to actively listen in an increasingly digital world, might lessen the ability to formulate a sound strategy for the future. Today, it’s hard to imagine that social media won’t be involved in the future of IR.
The debate is sure to be an interesting one, and like the technology itself might be ever-evolving.
Companies worry about litigation, media flare-ups and reputational damage. But shrinking away from social lessens your ability to compete as a thought leader. Thought leadership is the evolution of conversations.
Thought leadership helps set the agenda for debate for future practice. If you’re not part of the debate, then it’s hard to claim leadership.
Has anyone ever really created a sound strategy for the future by avoiding societal debates? By avoiding internal organizational opinions?
While companies worry about disgruntled employees or consumers doing damage to corporate reputations through social media, the Royal Bank situation proved that anyone can set up a Facebook page presenting their “voice”. This isn’t new. Websites have existed for awhile.
The only thing that’s changed is the medium for the message. And the speed media can be set up at.
One thing social definitely can do is empower individuals by giving them platforms that are fast and accessible, platforms they may not have had previously, platforms with reach.
What about the advantages social media may have for IR? Best practices suggest there should be a social media policy in place at every organization to clarify things.
Many organizations are leveraging the collaborative advantages of social to learn what they already know. Organizations are enabling themselves to share information more broadly within their structures.
Because what you know may not be what I know, even though we work a cubicle away from one another.
Fear of technology, and its impact on stakeholders
Is an organization that’s shrinking away from the newest and fastest channels of communication an organization that’s going to look like it has something to fear? Fear of a social planet: What does that say to your stakeholders?
Engagement, sales, customer service, feedback — the processes that social media impacts are many. None of this is static, the processes are evolving. It’s important to remember this.
The direction an organization takes regarding social disclosure says a lot about the confidence the organization has in itself, in its people, and ultimately, in its business model.
How forward-thinking do organizations embracing social media look compared to their peers who aren’t using social tools?
It’s normal that such a disruptive process gathers attention. Critics serve a valuable function in helping to refine the steps that are creating our future. Critics focus on transparency and more level playing fields.
“An integral part of the distribution platform”
Business Wire chairwoman and CEO, Cathy Baron Tamraz, recently said:
Protecting our clients’ sensitive information is at the core of what we do, and we’ll continue to do that in the most secure and innovative way possible … Social media can be a valuable part of the investor relations ecosystem, but it should not be the core. Social media has been an integral part of our distribution platform for many years … However, we are wary of unintended consequences by limiting access to a single site that doesn’t have the security, reliability, or interface to reliably serve the entire investment community.
Best practices do indeed mean you should use all the communications channels you can flow responsibly.
Social disclosure is at a very interesting point in its brief history. How will regulatory bodies in Canada respond in light of the SEC’s decision especially with respect to future policy?
By its very nature, social media can create tremendous conversation and debate. Through its incredible speed and accessibility, it can help put ideas forward on its use with respect to disclosure. In effect, social technologies can help promote or criticize social media as tools of disclosure.
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) provided the following as the current best practice approach:
- If management of a reporting issuer becomes aware of a material change or a material fact, they should disclose it in a news release (through a widely circulated news or wire service) before posting the information on the issuer’s Twitter account, Facebook page or website
- In any social media post, include a link to the news release or other disclosure document containing the detailed disclosure
- Reporting issuers should establish policies on the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media (see the guidance on corporate disclosure policies, quiet periods, electronic communications and rumours in sections 6.2, 6.9, 6.11, 6.12 and 6.13 of National Policy 51-201)
- The issuer’s policies should address what disclosure can be made in a Facebook or Twitter post and who is authorized to make those posts and what pre-clearance they need.
You can find OSC policy on what is “generally disclosed” here.
What do you think regarding the current and future impact of social media on IR?
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- Investor Relations Leaders to Debate SEC’s Latest Ruling on Social Media for Financial Disclosure (virtual-strategy.com)
- What the New SEC Rule on Disclosure in Social Media Means for IR (edelman.com)
- Welcome to the 21st Century, SEC: How companies can work social media into their disclosure process (prsa.org)
One sector is the loneliest number when it comes to investing
Will all the gold that glitters glitter less?
My last post, One stock is the loneliest number when it comes to investing, made the case for why you shouldn’t own one stock as an investor. Diversification is an important part of your investment planning.
Similarly, today’s activity in the gold market, and really, the last few years, has demonstrated why single sectors present significant dangers to investors who overweight them.
Gold is having a massive down day. It’s dropped nearly 10 per cent as of this writing — in one day — the most since the early 1980s.
The writing was on the wall a long time ago. In Gold riot, I discussed why gold had much risk built into it for investors, especially when few were talking about this risk.
Here’s a quote from Warren Buffett as posted on my blog from a few years ago:
Buffet on gold:
“(Gold) gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
Ah, the Ziggy Stardust gold analysis …
In Fortune, Buffett recently said:
“You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all — not some — all of the farmland in the United States,” Buffett said. “Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?”
A very, very interesting illustration …
Anyone who paid attention to the wisdom above, to the valuations that Buffett drew attention to, would have known that there was huge risk in gold.
Forget all the reasons you’ve heard over the last few years for why gold was a great buy. History has proven that reasoning wrong.
The movement of gold as reflected by the SPDR GOLD TRUST (GLD)
As in many things, now that the stratospheric valuation in gold has been beaten down badly, gold is cheaper (down almost 18 per cent year-over-year). What the future holds is unknown. But what hasn’t changed is the following:
- Single sectors expose you to great risk if you haven’t built a well-diversified portfolio
- “Hot money” moves fast and takes few prisoners when it leaves a sector
Gold may be much cheaper now than it was a few years ago, but gold is only a compelling buy if the future shows it to have been cheap. Meanwhile, are there other companies out there that are actively engaged in producing goods or services that will have a better chance of creating value in the future?
By way of comparison, from gold’s peak a few years ago, the returns on dividend-payers in the U.S., Canada and globally look spectacular. The “fear trade” (buying gold) has been a poor investment.
Markets will correct. It’s inevitable. You can do your part protecting yourself by making sure you have a diversified portfolio.
Do you?
Click here for more about bonds/fixed income investments.
Click below for more about asset allocation and reallocation strategies:
A simple way to arrive at the right asset allocation for your portfolio
Plan like a pension fund manager when it comes to your investment portfolio
Asset allocation: Diversification is king
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Related articles
- One stock is the loneliest number when it comes to investing (johnrondina.wordpress.com)
- Hedge Fund Billionaires John Paulson And David Einhorn Lost $640M In Gold Market Collapse
//
One stock is the loneliest number when it comes to investing
The U.S. markets have had a great run this year. They may be entering a phase of correction as I write.
Some stocks affect markets more than others.
Falling back to Earth
Remember Apple — everybody’s darling? Have a look at a post from back in April, 2012.
What goes up spectacularly, can come down spectacularly
Over one year, Apple fell nearly 40 per cent from its peak. While Apple may have done very well long-term, if you held Apple over the last year, you’re investment dropped 40 per cent from its high. It acted as a drag on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq just as it lifted both during its run. That’s 40 per cent of your investment or very nearly the amount the broad markets came down during the financial crisis, an amount that caused many investors to rethink their risk tolerance.
One, is indeed, the loneliest number
You should never hold just one stock, no matter how well it’s done. Sure, you can do very well, but what some forget is that your risk goes into the stratosphere with your investment.
Apple as case history
Apple’s downturn presents a strong argument for diversification.
Steve Job’s heirs were being advised to sell Apple and diversify even before Apple hit an all-time high. But that story didn’t capture much attention.
One is the riskiest number
The reality is, that in investing, one is the riskiest number. There’s a reason most investment professionals own anywhere from 30 to 300 stocks or more in a broadly based portfolio. Broad indices may even go as high as 500 stocks (S&P 500) or 1,000 or more (Russel 1000).
Grow slow**
And this is why diversification is so important. While it’s true everyone’s a winner while they’re winning, it’s also true that spectacular runs in individual stocks can come to an end.
Apple’s future? Unknown. But principles of diversification are well-known, tested over time, and retested. There are aberrations, but even better, investors sleep at night when they know their risk tolerance.
As Apple stalled, the broad market accelerated
We may be overdue for a correction. U.S.-based indices like The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) hit a record while the broad S&P 500 fell from its nominal high recently. Both indices have performed very well.
Both indices were bargains after ten years of relative underperformance, especially compared to the Canadian market and a soaring Canadian dollar. After the financial crisis, and the ensuing market correction, few wanted U.S. stocks (or any equities). But they were extremely cheap.
Is big better?
As money came out of Apple, the broad markets took off. We’re not just talking big … Apple had reached monolithic proportions. Articles like this are often a warning to investors. A warning that often goes unheard.
Can’t you just see Tim Cook breaststroking through cashmoney? I can.
– The Atlantic
Was Apple absorbing a lot of investment capital? Considering the huge cash position Apple held (over $100 billion U.S.) was that capital being used well or was it being used as a buffer against the inevitable slide in Apple stock?
Investors looked out at investment opportunity, increasing competition for the iPhone and decided to take profits and put their money in more companies in different businesses. After all, while some may argue the opposite, does any country create lasting success through the overwhelming dominance of one company in its markets?
The history of antitrust law would say no. You be the judge.
You’re risk tolerance may be severely tested only once every ten years, but when it is, what you thought you knew about yourself can change as fast as the passage of that ray of light that just went by but left the sun eight minutes ago.
Click here for more about bonds/fixed income investments.
Click below for more about asset allocation and reallocation strategies:
A simple way to arrive at the right asset allocation for your portfolio
Plan like a pension fund manager when it comes to your investment portfolio
Asset allocation: Diversification is king
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* Based on an average basket of Canadian dividend-payers
** Recent activity in gold adds fuel to a philosophy of owning dividend-payers during tough times, the dangers of volatility for investors who haven’t diversified and the perils of overweighting one speculative sector or stock, no matter how “safe” the crowd thinks it is
Creators, travelling at the speed of light
Communications continue to hurtle forward.
At least, we’ve developed the capability to send data at 99.7% the speed of light, flying through previous speed and latency records.
In Digital at the speed of light: Who’s afraid of social media?, Social Media: A universe expanding at an incredible rate, and Social cosmology: Social media is creating its own multiverse, I blogged about how social is propelling us into the future. Social media, like any nascent technology, will have its successes and failures, but criticism sometimes misses the evolution in communication:
Speed.
It’s one big thing (there are others) that’s changed profoundly since the creation of the printing press.
Some criticize speed and new technologies. It’s good to consider where we’re going.
Will technology ever create us?
The way we live has always been impacted by disruptive technologies. Criticism of disruptive technologies is valid in that the pace of technological change is rampant and accelerating so fast that it’s almost impossible to know which tools will dominate in the long-term.
The long-term, the future, becomes the present. Social tools have already had tremendous impact. The future becomes the present faster and faster.
Some platforms will last and evolve even as they stake their claim for superiority, usefulness and usability. Criticizing technological change in communications is like criticizing the printing press. Necessary, but if we could jump hundreds of years into the future, the point might be moot.
The printing press was revolutionary. We know that. Every time I read a book, some kind of unconscious thanks travels from me to the ghost of Gutenburg and the ghosts of the Renaissance.
And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.
– Petrarch
Will a David ever sculpt itself?
We know what the printing press enabled. Tools aren’t what we are as creators. Tools are what enable us to realize our ideas. But the ideas are ours. Michelangelo may have said that his sculptures were imprisoned in marble, but the hammer didn’t pick itself up and begin to do the David on its own.
The printing press was revolutionary. The exchange of information it enabled, equally revolutionary. Education, for the literate, was changed forever. Literacy continues to be of prime importance today. Literacy separated what people could achieve. Often, it still does.
Tools aren’t what we are as creators. Despite how much we sometimes grow to love them. We are still the creators of ideas and content. Even if we are conduits, as some describe the experience of creation, even if the sculpture is there, imprisoned in marble, we, like Michelangelo, hold and guide the tools. We wield the tools and they enable us to work in different media, in different contexts.
We are the creators. Tools are an extension of us.
Like a paintbrush. Like a hammer. Like a keyboard.
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Impact investing: J.P. Morgan and GIIN show the positive growth of impact investments
J.P. Morgan and the GIIN release study showing the impact of impact investments on fund managers and client investors
Sailing into the future, we can no longer tilt at windmills
96 per cent of participants measure social and/or environmental impact and 75 per cent of fund managers say the impact measurement factor is important in raising capital
In 2012, impact investors moved forward gaining attention and assets.
J.P. Morgan and the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) conducted a study confirming the growth of impact investing. It’s difficult to understand what “portion of the market” the study has captured, but the survey sample has “almost doubled” from the previous year, and so, offers a “rich data set”.
Here are some of the highlights of the study:
- $8 billion U.S. went to impact investments in 2012
- $9 billion U.S. is expected for 2013 (an increase of almost 12 per cent)
- 96 per cent of participants measured their social and/or environmental impact
- 75 per cent of fund managers highlighted the importance of impact measurement for raising capital
Considering 96 per cent of participants measured social and/or environmental impact and 75 per cent of fund managers said the impact measurement factor is important in raising capital, the investing landscape looks to have changed. While participants who are already managing a significant amount of impact investments were chosen, participants weren’t exclusively impact investors, but they did see the benefit in impact investments.
Are these participants simply new impact investors? No.
- 42 per cent were making impact investments over a decade ago
Where were they located?
- 56 per cent of respondents were in the U.S. and Canada
How many were fund managers?
- More than 50 per cent were fund managers
Did these investors have a narrow focus when it came to sectoral investments? No.
- 86 per cent of investors focus on multiple sectors (top three respectively)
- Food and agriculture
- Healthcare
- Financial services (excluding microfinance)
Was social/environmental impact important? Yes.
- 50 per cent focus on social impact
- 45 per cent focus on social and environmental impact
Did participants use private equity/debt?
- 83 per cent use private equity and 66 per cent use private debt
Respondents identified the top challenges to the growth of the impact investment industry today as being:
- “lack of appropriate capital across the risk/return spectrum”
and
- “shortage of high quality investment opportunities with track record”
Government impact
… there is a crucial role for governments in facilitating the transition to an economy that is much more efficient, much more fair and much less damaging … Countries that lag behind will inevitably face increasing competitive disadvantage and lost opportunity.*
When it comes to the role of government in impact investing, respondents cited the following as “very helpful”:
- 35 per cent said “technical assistance for investees”
- 32 per cent said “tax credits or subsidies”
- 27 per cent said “government-backed guarantees”
Without doubt, government continues to be important to impact investing.
How did impact and financial performance do?
According to respondents:
Impact Performance
- 84 per cent reported their portfolio’s impact performance was “in line with their expectations”
- 14 per cent reported their portfolio’s impact is “outperforming expectations”
- Only 2 per cent said they were underperforming
Financial performance
- 68 per cent said they were performing “in-line”
- 21 per cent reported outperforming
and,
- 11 per cent underperformed
Product providers and the degree of interest by investor clients for impact investments
Obviously, product providers and investor clients play an active role in present and future impact investments.
- 86 per cent felt “many” or “some” investors are starting to consider the impact investment market
Eighty-six per cent is a large number. One that further illustrates growing transparency and volume of information is affecting investors as much as other stakeholders.
Sailing into the future
The bottom line: A wind blowing at a 12 per cent growth trajectory
The investors in the survey:
- Committed $8 billion U.S. to impact investments in 2012
and,
- Plan to commit $9 billion in 2013
… approximately a 12 per cent increase year-over-year.
Since 96 per cent of respondents measure their social and/or environmental impact, and several studies are confirming CSR as a growing business function (find one here), there is change in the scope of and business case for impact, CSR/sustainability investing.
What may have seemed like an exercise in tilting at windmills two or three decades ago is now a growing data set showing that the investing world is changing.
If the only thing we can count on is change, forecasting the future will include the impact of investments and their ability to focus the positive power of enterprise.
You can find the study here.
* Steven Peck and Robert Gibson, “Pushing the Revolution,” in Alternatives Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Winter 2000).
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Find related information on reputation and CSR/sustainability here:
- Reputation. Reputation. Reputation. Your key differntiator: Corporate Social Responsibility
- Customers continue to fuel business case for sustainability
- Should companies invest in sustainability?
- You’ve got to do something about your reputation: Why you need to pay attention to reputation management
- Brave new reputation: What CEOs need to know
Other related articles
Forget The Big Bucks…Today’s Investor Also Wants A Different Kind Of Return On His Money (forbes.com)
Canadians creating their Twitter and LinkedIn cosmologies
Is social media growing in Canada?
For Canadians, it’s often easier to get information on the digital landscape through our neighbour to the south (for obivous reasons). But what of digital Canada?
In Social Cosmology: Social media is creating its own multiverse, I blogged about the potential for social media as it accelerates into the future. You’ll find some interesting Twitter stats. In SocRev: The social revolution and its potential to revolutionize the corporation, I referenced similar statistics on LinkedIn.
Digital Canada
comScore just did a report on the Canadian digital space (or is that “Canadian digital space?”).
In Canada, with respect to unique visitors:
- Twitter grew 27 per cent
- LinkedIn grew 38 per cent
While Facebook’s growth has slowed, Twitter and LinkedIn are two growing portals in social media defining their positions in the social media multiverse. Twitter and LinkedIn have been growing at a rapid pace in Canada (and abroad), and they continued that trend in 2012.
Pinterest (especially) and Tumblr grew faster, but will they have the longevity Twitter and LinkedIn promise?
RBC did a study reporting that use of social media amongst small businesses is almost as popular as websites. *
Some say there’s no place for social media …
Have they been speaking to Canadians?
Find the report here.
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* eMarketer.com
