12.05.07

More on Social Market Infrastructure: B Lab and Fast Company

Posted in exchanges, rating agencies, transparency at 12:54 am by Andrea McGrath

Fast Company magazine has just announced this year’s winners (45) of its annual FAST COMPANY/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards. OF NOTE this year is the inclusion of 10 for-profit social capitalists, and the introductory article presents a good opening/overview of the thoughts behind the addition of the for-profit category and emerging developments in this ‘social capital markets’ (recommend a quick read-through all the articles in this edition)
There’s much to discuss from the articles in this edition, but one comment that caught my eye was a quick quote from Andrew Kassoy from B Lab, who notes that “Traditional capital markets have a massive amount of infrastructure built up over the years. Capital, laws, tax codes, research, ratings. This sector needs that sort of infrastructure.”

To that end, the B Lab team has been actively working on developing that infrastructure through its innovative efforts in developing the survey, methodology and tools to identify “B corporations” - companies who demonstrate transparent, comprehensive reporting on social and environmental performance and also restate their articles of incorporation to reflect nonfinancial stakeholders’ interests. The co-founders - Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan, and Andrew Kassoy - and some partners are now thinking through how to possibly create a dedicated stock exchange for B companies and lobbying for changes in state laws that would make it easier for hybrid for-profits to incorporate. (if you haven’t yet - check out www.bcorporation.net)
 

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