美国校园枪击案推动商界反思社会责任

    谢林指出，联合国（UN）在最近的人权指导手册中描述了企业在应对暴力方面的职责。事实上，这个指导手册的第二使命就是激发“企业尊重人权的责任感，它意味着企业应该严格规范自身行为，避免侵犯他人权利以及解决这些问题的负面影响。”这对于任何公司而言都是一个很高的标准。

    很多养老基金和投资管理公司仍在制定自己的社会可持续发展定义和投资经理执行细则。加州教师退休基金（CalSTRS）可能就是这样，它通过塞伯勒斯持有的投资就包括枪支制造商。

    投资顾问可能也是问题的一部分。（养老基金聘请投资顾问，为他们选择投资管理公司提供建议。）但上周，可持续投资倡议团体Ceres在华盛顿召开了一系列圆桌会议，讨论这些问题。Ceres今秋的一项调查显示，大多数投资顾问都缺乏必要的技能或倾向，无法为真正注重环境、社会和治理的客户提供协助。

    历代养老基金经理受到的教育都是要尽一切可能实现多元化，不管这些决定产生怎样的社会影响。但这种方式无论是对基金自身，还是对社会而言都行不通。

    处在某种赚钱模式下，资本家们依托于于工人和社区赚钱，然后再以慈善形式做出回馈。（比如，安德鲁·卡内基。）

    但其他人认为，结果正确并不能让手段变得正当；好人应该善始善终。因此，高盛（Goldman Sachs）在金融危机中备受诟病后，推出了针对小企业的慈善努力。这些并非都不靠谱。

    纽敦镇悲剧之后，我们能不能变得更强大？是的。难道非得出现更多的伤害，我们才能更坚定地走上这条道路？希望不是如此。

    本文作者埃莉诺•布洛斯汉姆是董事会咨询公司价值联盟与公司治理（http://thevaluealliance.com）的首席执行官。 

    译者：杨智

    Schilling points out that the recent UN guidance on human rights describes the role of business in addressing violence. In fact, the second pillar of the guidance invokes the "corporate responsibility to respect human rights, which means that business enterprises should act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others and to address adverse impacts with which they are involved." That's a tall order for just about any company.

    Many pension funds and investment managers are still working through their own definition of social sustainability and the disciplines to enforce those definitions with the investment managers they hire. This may have been what happened with CalSTRS (California teachers' pension fund), which held investments with Cerberus that included holdings in gun manufacturers.

    Investment consultants may be part of the problem as well. (Pension funds hire investment consultants to advise them on their choice of investment managers.) Just last week, sustainable investment advocacy group Ceres convened a series of roundtables in Washington DC to discuss the issues. A Ceres survey this fall showed that most investment consultants don't have the skills or inclination to assist clients who care about ESG issues.

    Generations of pension fund managers have been trained to diversify at all costs, regardless of the social impact of their decisions. But this approach has failed to deliver, both to the funds themselves and to society.

    Under one model of making money, capitalists make money at the expense of workers and the community, and then turn around and give that money away as philanthropy later on. (Think Andrew Carnegie.)

    But others argue that the ends do not justify the means; that a life lived well means authenticity the whole way through. That's why Goldman Sachs' (GS) philanthropy efforts for small businesses in the wake of the financial crisis were criticized. They were not viewed as whole cloth.

    Can we emerge stronger after the Newtown tragedy? Yes. Let's just hope we don't need any more traumas to set us more decidedly on that path.

    Eleanor Bloxham is CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance (http://thevaluealliance.com), a board advisory firm.