The convergence of financial and societal value - and what it means for businesses

It is time to act now

It is only in recent years that financial markets and society more generally fully understood the broader positive and negative externalities that businesses can create as a result of their activities. Before this, a lack of general awareness resulted in the absence of a pricing mechanism enabling the 'internalisation' of these externalities preventing their measure from being priced into market value.

Today, specific measures and mechanisms, like a carbon price, are being explored as ways to enable a more accurate and quantified picture of the societal costs of specific business activities. Greenhouse...