(Financial Times) So can investors use their muscle to counter this? Not easily: fund managers have had scant leverage in recent years, because capital was abundant. Employee protests often seemed more effective, since talent has been scarce. And Musk, for his part, has been scathing of ESG in the past – and keen to muzzle it.
But a consortium of investment funds and venture capital groups called Responsible Innovation Labs is now trying to step up the pressure for change. This group – which sprang to life earlier this year and now features several dozen members, such as General Catalyst, Oxford University Endowment, Generation Investment Management and Hall Capital – has created a five-point charter that urges tech to raise its standards.
In a report released this week, the group writes that “we are at a critical juncture in society where technology plays an outsized role in our lives…The decisions companies, founders, and investors make today will have broad, long-lasting implications on society – for better or for worse. The era of business focusing solely on growth at all costs is over.”
Read more here.