February 2024

On the last day of February 2024 I took a crowded flight from the Pacific coast of Mexico home to New York City largely composed of elderly American holiday makers and groups of exuberant students. The flight passed quickly as I was reading on my i-pad a downloaded 50 year old book by Kenneth Clark “Civilization” something that has been on my mind since returning from Rome a few months ago. The book was the result of a thirteen part TV series which I had watched as a young boy, existing all these years somewhere in my memory, so I was amazed to find it again by chance when idly scrolling through the many shows that are available on streaming services. Clark, in many ways a cliched version of an upper class gentleman and a character type that was expertly satirized by Monty Python a few years later, struggles to nail down exactly what a civilization is and goes to great lengths to offer his theories yet at the end of the day I think he is more successful in talking about what isn’t civilized behavior, which would have certainly included reading his book on an electronic device and staying in a resort hotel in Puerto Vallarta. When it comes to the latter its hard to disagree. I was in Mexico for an annual conference and this year there was a focus on ESG (Environment, Society and Governance) which I was to contribute towards in a small way, a topic that interests me and troubles me in equal measure, one that at first glance has nothing to do with civilization but now I’m beginning to wonder if that is true. Perhaps the most chilling theory in the book is around why civilizations end, for Clark it is described as fear and exhaustion “the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of prosperity”. It is a failure of confidence, a sense of pointlessness in building, learning or creating. On the plane I saw well off Americans of all ages guessing the likelihood is that perhaps only half of them would vote in November, about half again saving it for the destructive candidate, the one creating fear, promoting global isolation, the one who wants us to look back to a fictional time, bolstered by his barbarians waiting at the gate. I still hope one day we can look back and laugh at these unrealized fears because today they feel very real.

I had arrived in Mexico four days earlier on a dazzlingly bright Monday afternoon following the five hour flight down from Kennedy where I had already meet some colleagues onboard. On arrival we shared a brief glimpse of the city during the jarring ride in the mini bus, passing karaoke bars and strip clubs, deep shadows and bleached walls, dark shops without any windows displaying items on every surface. Like most towns in Mexico I’ve seen, many of the buildings were haphazardly, poorly constructed out of cheap sometimes even found materials, they lack a sense of permanence and have the depressing protective exteriors of barbed wire and iron gates broadcasting to us right away the kind of gated society we are entering. There is a sense that it could all be erased in an instance through the natural enemies of hurricanes or earthquakes and so the lack of effort in attempting structures of sophistication in one way could be understood but in another I wonder if such a goal is not such a high priority in Mexican culture. Or maybe it is just centuries of relative financial poverty and a lack of ambition. What has arrived is the gay culture from US visitors and the downtown area was decked with rainbow flags, chemist stores with signs for Cialis and Viagra and a formidable, almost prison like structure, with a large sign stating that this was the Spartacus sauna making me question how comfortably this lifestyle sits within a largely Catholic community, whether it is only tolerated because of the dollars it brings or if it is now genuinely accepted and supported.            

On the whole I hated my four days in Mexico. The conference took on a predictable air and format, occupying a vast space so artificially cold that we had to return to our rooms to find warmer garments, the irony of this when we are sitting and listening to optimistic progress reports on environmental sustainability, was not lost on most of us. One characteristic of the hotel was that all the bedrooms faced the Ocean and the roar of waves became a sonic back drop, as was the elevated, mechanical base notes from the music system by the beach, the shouts of the adults playing water volley ball against the cries of the birds which flew overheard like miniature dinosaurs. At the end of the day the sun dipped below the horizon giving us the inevitable tawdry light show and I joined the rest, a little self-consciously, taking photographs of the sunset, but for what I asked myself, what is it that propels us to glorify this evening event? a mob mentality I suppose, a collective but under challenged understanding of what constitutes beauty. Our distance ancestors would have found deeper meaning in the night sky, predicting future events, interpreting messages from their gods.

On the first day of the conference we did an activity that was intended to “give back” to the community hosting us through educational events or green activities. I had the task of helping plant tree’s in a local school to replace those damaged by a recent hurricane. It was nothing more than a photo opportunity, a staged activity that was heavy in symbolism and low on substance and we were all complicit: the participants, the school administration and even the children I suspected were mature enough to see through these privileged adults from the USA who had never held a pick axe before. As we struck into the rocky soil making a cavity large enough to hold the tree roots, some of the children gathered around and helped fill in the soil and water the tree. On another occasion a young boy, a little older than the rest, enthusiastically dug into the ground with us, already an expert and I felt unreasonably and with a sense of misery at my own prejudice, that this type of work was perhaps the extent of his aspirations. The school itself was set on a step hillside which was nestled by mountains, resting on a narrow ledge providing it with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean perhaps a mile away in the distance but it was only later that day that I found out that most of the students were orphans and so these idyllic surroundings are no compensation for the sadness I imagine is contained within this community. At least I reassured myself, if was better than the previous year in Costa Rica, where we unwittingly had to “go teach” children as young as twelve how to work in a business selling ugly souvenir’s to tourists rather than attend school, something that still occupies nightmares of mine.

One of the topics I had in mind to discuss during the meeting was the backlash against ESG from the political right in America who had lumped the topic with the other acronym DEIB (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging) as an evil force entering our business, political and education institutions. From a pure business perspective the goals of both these seemingly non-profit related movements could be perceived as outside interference and overreach and critics may argue that the cost of installing programs and reporting structures could outweigh the benefits of transparency, risk management or innovation. I have left out the obvious benefits of social and environmental justice deliberately because I believe that the topic of ESG should be seen through a very narrow lens, one of an investor who is trying maximize their wealth over the long term. I tried to get this point across but one of the many frustrations of working for a large international corporation is that the information we receive and share often covers what we need to do or the actions we need to take but rarely why it is important or where it came from. The “why” and “where” are the most interesting side of the story and the least told, piecing together the background strikes me as a way to inform and enrich the topic of ESG.    

A good starting point to the story is 1994, an essay written by John Elkington coining the phrase “Triple Bottom Line” which was a call to action for business leaders to look beyond profit and to consider the environmental impact (Planet) and the well being of its employee’s (People). It was not intended as an accounting exercise but as a sideways shift in thinking and corporate strategy it was heavily embraced almost immediately. For accountants it was important as it’s only the second really major change since the invention of double entry bookkeeping five centuries ago, the other being the introduction of standards, I was not surprised by the cynicism of some of my colleagues whose reluctance to change was predictable. I imagine the origin of Elkington’s thinking has deep roots and hints are given when looking at the resume of its author, an incredibly open person, his website rich in detail covering both his professional and personal life but it’s just supposition on my side. I found myself grinning at his interests which include riding a bicycle around London, photography, art and design, 20^th century music and Johann Strauss, which mirror my own with the exception of cycling around New York rather than London and Mozart rather than Strauss.

I am interested in cultural interests because these frequently inform goals and objectives which in Elkington’s case I believe have some links to Kenneth Clark and his ideas about what constitutes a civilization. Clark argues that Civilizations are a combination of forces, military, political and cultural where something happens to move the world forward through a wave of energy and confidence. It is neither an art movement nor political one but it does frequently embolden architecture, literature, art and therefore to some extent is evaluated by what is left behind when its time is over. His survey ends in 1914 and he admits bafflement at the contemporary art of fifty years ago a stance which is in turn perplexing to myself and a modern audience. His is a very western interest which covers the Roman Empire and the Greco Roman influences on European culture as well as the Renaissance, the predominant focus of his academic and curatorial work, a highly Euro-centric view of what constitutes a Civilization. A contemporary viewer without my sense of nostalgia might be enraged at its highly privileged, colonial and myopic world view and turn to Edward Said for comfort or at least balance, I however, only see charm in his appearance and delivery and when the series ended I was struck overall by his lack of snobbery and kindness. 

I suspect we are living in the closing decades of what he would have called a civilization, the period from 1945 to about 2001, where New York City was unquestionably the center of the art and culture world. In painting and sculpture Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism and what we might bundle as Conceptual movements dominated the global art scene. Exciting developments in Cinema, Dance, Writing the Theatre took place in that time and in music, Rock and Roll, Blues, Tamala Motown, Soul, Jazz, Rap and Hip Hop all developed out of its black origins and from white settlers came Folk and Bluegrass. Sometimes they merged; Bob Dylan famously mixed Folk with Rock and Roll, a risky move that caused the same negative audience reaction that faced Stravinsky when he presented the Rite of Spring. When Joni Mitchell sang “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot” she sang to a generation which included students who possessed a new attitude and very different priorities from their parent’s generation, they wanted love not war. This rebellion was easy to understand, their parents were from the war generation who either served in the military or endured the lean years of rationing and austerity afterwards. This backdrop spurned a cultural revolution, kids didn’t want to become their parents, and the business world also had leaders that would not allow them to be immune from such a pronounced societal shift, a concern for the environment, for wider and more creative thinking and inclusion of all.

In the 1960’s tentative steps towards social justice could be observed in real time thanks to technology which already feels antiquated to us, the television set, a tool also used by Clark as he recognized its power over society. The celebrity of the Beatles for example meant that everyone knew not just the names of the band members but their interests, personalities and creative process and in many ways they were the perfect team, you had the cynical one, the dreamer, the technician, the grounding force, the one seeking his spiritual side and towards the end the fierce competition between three song writers pushing them to new highs before burning out. Business leaders who are always looking for high performance teams took note. The bands from the 1960’s had huge influence on culture, few could have missed the Beatles public embrace of the African America musician Billy Preston as a fifth Beatle and more powerfully, the skinny white working class kids, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones sitting sometimes literally at the feet of their black hero’s; Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry. The British musical invasion of the USA was the perfect example of the ebb and flow of ideas flowing across the Atlantic, the UK bands embracing everything they heard from the USA in the 1950’s reselling them back with a twist in the 1960’s eventually pushing music forward in unexpected ways. The dialogue between the Beatles and the Beach Boys was particularly strong and the albums of 1968 were the pinnacle of creativity, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Sargent Pepper by the Beatles feel like they were love letters across the Atlantic between Brain Wilson and Lennon/McCartney. When Elkington wrote that we must be concerned about People in the triple bottom line I think these influences matter, it’s not just a matter of preserving the bottom line from class action law suits, it is about finding cognitive diversity within decision makers to generate unpredictable and exhilarating outcomes, it’s about including unrepresented voices and most critically to be free from group think. It was a generation young enough to have escaped participation in the War but old enough to see a country like Germany taken over but a handful of evil leaders whose intransigent self-belief and narrow minded arrogance lead to their demise.     

The origins of social justice frequently start with artists and then gain wider political currency. In almost all cases it comes from activism within the United States whether it is woman’s rights, those of the disabled, LGBTQ members and freedom from discrimination based on age, race, religion or national origin. Progress is made but it sometimes feels like it is at a snail pace and sometimes it doesn’t feel authentic at all. When I used to teach compliance to America audiences I tailored the training to cover this activism and the resulting lives lost in the USA in order to force lawmakers to pay attention. I encouraged the audience to feel a sense of pride towards Black activism in the 1960’s, LGBT activism in the 1990’s and covered briefly, perhaps a little inexpertly, the history of gender rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In particular I talked about the security many felt within the USA compared to the rest of the world. 

The ESG journey through the United Nations (mainly thanks to Kofi Annan),through European lawmakers, through BlackRock under Larry Fink and the work of others in NGO’s is for another post. It has captured the imagination of young (and perhaps overly idealistic people) and yet I can see that point of view; there are around 8 billion people in the world, around 3.5 Billion work for Corporations that have their own Code of Conduct or are obliged to sign one of their customers. These internal corporate standards that we are strictly adhered to come mainly from the United Nations Global Compact which many of the largest companies in the world signed up for and covers anti-corruption, human rights and anti-discrimination topics. They send a robust message; imagine for example, a woman in the middle east not being allowed to drive, a gay person in central Africa who could be legally stoned to death, the fear of Christian persecution in Egypt and continued discrimination against black and brown people all over the world and consider that they have a high degree of protection at least when at work. And so it could be argued that global corporations are a civilizing force after all and these ideas have a wider reach and impact than any of the civilizations preceding it over the last 5,000 years. At their very best Global Companies can be a force for good, at their worst they can be cynical vessels that use data and rhetoric for their own self-aggrandizement and profit and it’s up to us to learn to read the data, know what exists between the lines, identify their tricks and decide for ourselves.