Media Releases

Action plan for sustainable capitalism tackled at Rotman International Centre for Pension Management and Generation Foundation workshop

June 20, 2013

TORONTO, ON – For two days ear­li­er this month over 80 board mem­bers, senior exec­u­tives and invest­ment pro­fes­sion­als from 40 pen­sion orga­ni­za­tions in 12 dif­fer­ent coun­tries gath­ered at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment. The pur­pose was to exam­ine and dis­cuss five action steps invest­ment insti­tu­tions could take for the good of their own ben­e­fi­cia­ries that would at the same time pro­mote “the greater good” by fos­ter­ing a more sus­tain­able form of cap­i­tal­ism. Among the actions was a call for a rethink of exec­u­tive com­pen­sa­tion prac­tices as there seems to be no rela­tion­ship cur­rent­ly between exec­u­tive pay and per­for­mance. Anoth­er action call was to design and imple­ment con­cen­trat­ed, long hori­zon invest­ment man­dates that require con­struc­tive investor engage­ment.

The work­shop was orga­nized by the Rot­man Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Pen­sion Man­age­ment (ICPM) and Gen­er­a­tion Foun­da­tion, which is fund­ed by Gen­er­a­tion Invest­ment Man­age­ment found­ed by for­mer U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent Al Gore and invest­ment banker David Blood. The focus point for the work­shop was a White Paper from Gen­er­a­tion Foun­da­tion on “sus­tain­able cap­i­tal­ism.” Gore kicked off the work­shop with a review of the key mes­sages from the White Paper.

“Pen­sion orga­ni­za­tions must walk the talk them­selves if they are to be cred­i­ble change agents,” says Kei­th Ambacht­sheer, Rot­man ICPM direc­tor and adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Rot­man School. “For each of the steps they advo­cate for exter­nal orga­ni­za­tions, they must be tak­ing the same actions with­in their own orga­ni­za­tions.”

Work­shop par­tic­i­pants also dis­cussed three addi­tion­al “actions” which includ­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion that investors must address strand­ed asset risk result­ing from the impact of cli­mate change; ini­ti­ate inte­grat­ed report­ing which com­bines mate­r­i­al finan­cial and non finan­cial infor­ma­tion in a sin­gle doc­u­ment; and a call to end the prac­tice of pro­vid­ing quar­ter­ly earn­ing guid­ance.

“One of the most help­ful ele­ments dur­ing the work­shop was the healthy dose of skep­ti­cism about the val­ue and fea­si­bil­i­ty of some of the pro­posed actions,” adds Ambacht­sheer. “While all of the atten­dees may have not agreed on all aspects of the actions, the work­shop did raise the col­lec­tive under­stand­ing of what each of the five action steps were real­ly about and how they might be best addressed.” Click here to access the Key Find­ings and Actions result­ing from the work­shop.

The mis­sion of the Rot­man Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Pen­sion Man­age­ment (Rot­man ICPM) is to be an inter­na­tion­al­ly-rec­og­nized, high-impact cat­a­lyst for fos­ter­ing effec­tive pen­sion design and man­age­ment. Its four pri­ma­ry tools to achieve this goal are the fund­ing of objec­tive and trans­for­ma­tive research, the orga­ni­za­tion of inter­ac­tive, action-ori­ent­ed dis­cus­sion forums, the pub­li­ca­tion of a read­able jour­nal rel­e­vant to pro­fes­sion­als in the pen­sions and relat­ed fields, and the deliv­ery of the globe’s lead­ing gov­er­nance edu­ca­tion pro­gram for Board mem­bers of pen­sion and oth­er long-hori­zon invest­ment insti­tu­tions. Fur­ther details on the Cen­tre, includ­ing access to the Rot­man Jour­nal of Inter­na­tion­al Pen­sion Man­age­ment, are avail­able at www.rotman.utoronto.ca/icpm/.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions. The School is cur­rent­ly rais­ing $200 mil­lion to ensure Cana­da has the world-class busi­ness school it deserves. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool