Nouvelles diverses

actualités internationales Gouvernance Normes d'encadrement objectifs de l'entreprise Responsabilité sociale des entreprises

État : le grand retour dans l’économie ?

Un peu ancienne, cette tribune de Jean Peyrelevade mérite à coup sûr dêtre lu : « L’inéluctable retour de l’Etat dans nos économies » (Les Échos.fr, 29 octobre 2019).

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Une thèse se répand avec de plus en plus de force : les grandes entreprises capitalistes joueraient un rôle sans cesse accru dans le fonctionnement global de nos sociétés, au point de dépouiller les Etats d’une partie significative de leurs prérogatives.

Les Gafa américaines (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) fournissent la contribution la plus sérieuse au caractère convaincant de cette théorie. Elles élaborent leurs propres lois de fonctionnement et donc, pour partie, leur propre droit, accumulent les données personnelles concernant chacun d’entre nous et en tirent profit en les vendant, échappent à la fiscalité en optimisant à l’échelle mondiale leurs implantations et leurs flux de facturations internes. Grâce au rendement croissant de leurs activités, elles exercent un effet de domination sur leurs marchés, rachètent systématiquement leurs concurrents potentiels ou, à défaut, s’efforcent de les faire disparaître. Enfin l’arrivée éventuelle du libra, la monnaie privée inventée par Mark Zuckerberg, constituerait, si elle voyait le jour, une atteinte directe à la souveraineté des Etats.

Cette menace est à coup sûr bien présente. Je ne crois pas, cependant, qu’elle puisse vraiment se concrétiser. Les Gafa chinois (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi), sans avoir encore la puissance de leurs rivales américaines, s’en rapprochent de plus en plus. Or, loin de faire de l’ombre à l’Etat chinois, elles sont devenues un élément clef de sa stratégie. Rappelons au passage que la Chine représente environ 20 % de la population de la planète et 15 % des richesses produites chaque année dans le monde. L’Etat-parti y exerce un pouvoir total pour ne pas dire totalitaire et toutes les entreprises, quel que soit leur statut public ou privé, y sont au service d’une politique clairement nationaliste.

(…)

Evolution du capitalisme

Un mouvement plus doux est à l’oeuvre au sein du capitalisme traditionnel des pays occidentaux. Les entreprises, jusqu’ici soumises aux marchés financiers et aux désirs de rendement de leurs actionnaires, se détachent soudain, au moins en paroles, du modèle qui les gouvernait. Milton Friedman n’est plus à la mode, et l’entreprise doit désormais se préoccuper de l’intérêt général, sinon l’incarner. La loi Pacte, en France, les oblige depuis mai dernier à intégrer les enjeux sociaux et environnementaux dans leur objet social et les encourage à définir leur raison d’être, voire même leur mission, ce qui donne un parfum de transcendance à leur activité.

Ces belles prises de position seraient-elles le signe d’un recul des Etats, voire de leur impuissance ? Je n’y crois pas une seconde. Elles marquent plutôt la prise de conscience par les chefs des grandes entreprises que le capitalisme traditionnel, dont ils ont tiré grand profit, est critiqué de maintes parts. Toutes ces bonnes intentions sont en fait la marque d’une faiblesse reconnue, et non d’une prise de pouvoir sur la société. Leur lobby, pour demeurer efficace, doit devenir plus vertueux.

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Nouvelles diverses objectifs de l'entreprise

Quel rôle pour les entreprises ? Extrait d’une entrevue

Dans Fortune, le président du CA de AT&T revient sur le rôle des grandes entreprises dans nos sociétés contemporaines (Alan Murray et David Meyer, « AT&T chair Bill Kennard: ‘Legacy businesses have to disrupt themselves’ », 23 mars 2021)

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« The board at AT&T, like all boards today, is focused on the role of corporations in society. Increasingly you are seeing corporations step into the vacuum where government leadership has sometimes failed or just can’t get the job done, and you are seeing corporations stepping up…Corporations are increasingly questioning, what is their role in society?  How do corporations help solve the challenges of income inequality and racial inequality in the country, and political instability? These are questions that corporations have to address in order to be successful in society.”

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actualités internationales autres publications Gouvernance Normes d'encadrement objectifs de l'entreprise Publications

Bien distinguer le purpose, la mission, la valeur et la vision

L’University of Oxford, l’University of California, Berkeley, BrightHouse, la British Academy, Federated Hermes EOS et Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz ont publié un excellent rapport dont je recommande fortement la lecture : « Enacting Purpose within the Modern Corporation: A Framework for Boards of Directors ». En plus de revenir sur le purpose, ce rapport offre une distinction entre des notions souvent confondues…

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  • « Purpose. Purpose States « Why » an Organization Exists: As Professor Colin Mayer, one of our co-chairs puts it, “the purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems”. This statement deliberately leaves open the question of the specific purpose of each organisation, but does deliberately and carefully demand a reason for existence alongside the pursuit of profit. Purpose sets out the reasons why the organisation conducts its various activities, articulating what societal challenge, need or benefit the organisation seeks to address. This sets it apart from the three other important concepts for organisations below. Once this purpose has been debated and formally agreed, the board should not only publish it but also ensure that its internal governance and external reporting evaluate its activities and the outcomes generated against its stated purpose.
  • « Values. Values Describe « How » the Organization Behaves : These are often short and punchy bullet points, detailing specific expectations and principles of interaction within the organisation’s internal or external operating environment. More importantly they should be a call to action. These values should inform and guide the specific day to day behaviours and decisions taken by every member of the organisation. They should be articulated in a way that the intent is clearly understood, and the board of directors should ensure that the organisational culture embraces these values and enables them to be put into practice by every member of the organisation. Boards of directors also need to ensure that employees are empowered to ensure that key suppliers act in compliance with the organization’s stated values.
  • « Mission. Mission Sets Out « What » the Organisation Does: It captures the day to day activities of the organisation, defining quite literally what business it is in. It is directly linked to the strategy of the organisation and is underpinned by the values deployed to deliver the mission. It is very practical and descriptive in nature. Mission therefore sets out specifically and practically what the organisation aims to do in pursuit of its stated purpose. Mission statements provide an opportunity for boards of directors to set out what they specifically intend to deliver to each of the organisation’s different key stakeholder groups.
  • « Vision. Vision Describes « Where » the Organisation Intends to Have Impact: It describes the outcome that the organisation wants to see from the successful delivery of its stated purpose. Put simply, vision captures what success looks like. By its nature, vision statements are aspirational, large scale and usually long-term.

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actualités internationales Gouvernance objectifs de l'entreprise Structures juridiques

Retour sur Danone et l’entreprise à mission

Bel éditorial du journal Le Monde du 3 mars 2021 sous le titre « Danone : la pression de rendements insoutenables ».

Quand, en juin 2020, Emmanuel Faber est parvenu à faire de Danone le premier groupe coté de taille mondiale à se doter du statut juridique d’entreprise à mission, le volontarisme du PDG avait ouvert de nouvelles perspectives sur l’évolution du capitalisme. L’entreprise n’avait plus pour unique horizon le retour sur investissement des actionnaires, elle devait parallèlement se fixer des objectifs sociaux et environnementaux ambitieux. Huit mois plus tard, la crise de gouvernance que traverse le géant des produits laitiers et de l’eau en bouteille résonne comme un dur rappel aux réalités de la primauté des actionnaires sur les autres parties prenantes : salariés, consommateurs, fournisseurs et citoyens.

Lundi 1er mars, sous la pression de deux fonds d’investissement, le conseil d’administration de Danone a réduit les responsabilités d’Emmanuel Faber. Le patron se voit retirer la direction opérationnelle pour se concentrer uniquement sur la présidence du groupe. Cette dissociation des fonctions vise à répondre aux inquiétudes des actionnaires sur les performances de Danone. Le cours de Bourse a chuté d’un quart en 2020, tandis que sa rentabilité reste inférieure de quatre points à celle de ses principaux concurrents comme Nestlé ou Unilever qui affichent des marges autour de 18 % du chiffre d’affaires.

Même si les deux fonds n’ont pas obtenu entière satisfaction dans la mesure où ils réclamaient le départ pur et simple du PDG, la décision de limiter le pouvoir d’Emmanuel Faber révèle ainsi la difficulté de concilier les intérêts des actionnaires, qui réclament un niveau de rendement maximum, avec une croissance plus responsable. Déjà, en novembre 2020, l’exercice avait montré ses limites lorsque Danone avait annoncé la suppression de 2 000 emplois malgré un bénéfice net stable sur l’année à près de 2 milliards d’euros.

Emmanuel Faber n’est, certes, pas exempt de tout reproche. En interne, son exercice du pouvoir, autoritaire et solitaire, fait grincer des dents. Quant à sa stratégie, qui consiste à réorganiser le groupe par pays et non plus par marque pour mieux répondre aux attentes locales des consommateurs, elle suscite le scepticisme des cadres d’un groupe qui s’est construit sur le marketing. Les actionnaires peuvent être fondés à exprimer des critiques sur ces choix et sur cette concentration des pouvoirs.

Interrogation sur la soutenabilité des exigences

En revanche, au-delà du cas particulier de Danone, cette crise amène à s’interroger sur la soutenabilité des exigences de rentabilité des fonds d’investissement. Est-il raisonnable que les rendements des entreprises restent aussi élevés que dans les années 1990, alors qu’entre-temps les taux d’intérêt à long terme sont tombés à zéro et que le rythme de la croissance économique a singulièrement diminué ?

Hormis dans certains secteurs innovants ou dans celui du luxe, de tels retours sur investissement ne peuvent être obtenus impunément. Sur le plan environnemental, ils conduisent à générer des dommages qui sont incompatibles avec ce que la planète est capable de supporter. Sur le plan social, ils ont abouti, ces dernières années, à une déformation spectaculaire du partage de la valeur au détriment des salaires.

Fonds de pension et fonds souverains arbitrent de plus en plus leurs investissements en fonction de critères sociaux et environnementaux. Mais tant que cette évolution ne s’accompagnera pas d’une modération des rendements exigés, le développement durable s’en trouvera d’autant limité.

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Gouvernance Nouvelles diverses objectifs de l'entreprise

L’actionnariat familial a-t-il un avenir ?

C’est à cette question que répond le professeur Pierre-Yves Gomez dans un billet fort intéressant dont je relaie un extrait ci-dessous (ici).

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Gouvernance : Actionnariat anonyme vs Actionnariat Familial

C’est à partir de ce moment, au tournant des années 1930, que la société anonyme (et plus tard la SAS)  s’est aussi imposée comme la forme juridique dominante : ni l’actionnaire, ni le dirigeant ne sont plus responsables sur leurs biens propres. Sans attaches, ils peuvent entrer et sortir de l’entreprise en utilisant les mécanismes du marché des capitaux ou du travail.  Le lien substantiel entre le décideur et l’entreprise se distend. Parallèlement, parce que les actionnaires sont devenus anonymes et que leur responsabilité se limite à leurs apports financiers, la demande de responsabilité s’est déplacée vers les entreprises elles-mêmes. D’où l’exigence contemporaine d’une Responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) associée à une mission ou une raison d’être. Ce que la famille propriétaire portait naguère est désormais attendu de l’entreprise prise comme individu doté d’une personnalité morale.

Pour autant, au delà de cette fiction juridique, l’actionnariat reste massivement familial dans les sociétés anonymes et la famille demeure l’institution sociale de référence comme le montrent régulièrement les sondages d’opinion. Ce paradoxe invite à réfléchir sur l’avenir d’un pouvoir actionnarial fondé encore sur l’héritage. Que peut signifier « hériter d’un capital » au 21ème siècle et comment le destin de l’institution  » famille » et celui de l’institution « entreprise » pourraient-ils être encore liés ?

Si l’actionnariat familial ne se réduit plus qu’à un simple transfert générationnel de patrimoine en vue d’accumulation de richesses et de rentes, il achèvera certainement de perdre toute légitimité. Dans les années futures, des réformes de gouvernance s’imposeront comme nécessaires pour limiter l’acquisition de parts sociales d’entreprises par le hasard injuste de l’héritage. Mais si un tel héritage est assumé comme une charge engageant à maintenir un projet social, des savoir-faire ou une communauté de travail, l’actionnariat associé au destin d’une famille pourrait apporter aux parties-prenantes une caution bienvenue de continuité dans la durée. Dans une société fractionnée et rongée d’incertitudes, il associerait le pouvoir souverain du capital à une communauté humaine tenue par des liens non-capitalistes. A la croisée des chemins, cette forme de gouvernance ancienne peut s’inventer une nouvelle pertinence ou sombrer avec l’idée même de famille traditionnelle.

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actualités internationales Gouvernance Normes d'encadrement objectifs de l'entreprise Responsabilité sociale des entreprises

Profit Keeps Corporate Leaders Honest

Article amenant à réfléchir dans le Wall Street Journal de Alexander William Salter : « Profit Keeps Corporate Leaders Honest » (8 décembre 2020).

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(…) As National Review’s Andrew Stuttaford notes, this vision of wide-ranging corporate beneficence introduces a host of principal-agent problems in ordinary business decision-making. Profit is a concrete and clarifying metric that allows shareholders—owners—to hold executives accountable for their performance. Adding multiple goals not related to profit introduces needless confusion.

This is no accident. Stakeholder capitalism is used as a way to obfuscate what counts as success in business. By focusing less on profits and more on vague social values, “enlightened” executives will find it easier to avoid accountability even as they squander business resources. While trying to make business about “social justice” is always concerning, the contemporary conjunction of stakeholder theory and woke capitalism makes for an especially dangerous and accountability-thwarting combination.

Better to avoid it. Since profits result from increasing revenue and cutting costs, businesses that put profits first have to work hard to give customers more while using less. In short, profits are an elegant and parsimonious way of promoting efficiency within a business as well as society at large.

Stakeholder capitalism ruptures this process. When other goals compete with the mandate to maximize returns, the feedback loop created by profits gets weaker. Lower revenues and higher costs no longer give owners and corporate officers the information they need to make hard choices. The result is increased internal conflict: Owners will jockey among themselves for the power to determine the corporation’s priorities. Corporate officers will be harder to discipline, because poor performance can always be justified by pointing to broader social goals. And the more these broader goals take precedence, the more businesses will use up scarce resources to deliver diminishing benefits to customers.

Given these problems, why would prominent corporations sign on to the Great Reset? Some people within the organizations may simply prefer that firms take politically correct stances and don’t consider the cost. Others may think it looks good in a press release and will never go anywhere. A third group may aspire to jobs in government and see championing corporate social responsibility as a bridge.

Finally, there are those who think they can benefit personally from the reduced corporate efficiency. As businesses redirect cash flow from profit-directed uses to social priorities, lucrative positions of management, consulting, oversight and more will have to be created. They’ll fill them. This is rent-seeking, enabled by the growing confluence of business and government, and enhanced by contemporary social pieties.

The World Economic Forum loves to discuss the need for “global governance,” but the Davos crowd knows this type of social engineering can’t be achieved by governments alone. Multinational corporations are increasingly independent authorities. Their cooperation is essential.

Endorsements of stakeholder capitalism should be viewed against this backdrop. If it is widely adopted, the predictable result will be atrophied corporate responsibility as business leaders behave increasingly like global bureaucrats. Stakeholder capitalism is today a means of acquiring corporate buy-in to the Davos political agenda.

Friedman knew well the kind of corporate officer who protests too much against profit-seeking: “Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.” He was right then, and he is right now. We should reject stakeholder capitalism as a misconception of the vocation of business. If we don’t defend shareholder capitalism vigorously, we’ll see firsthand that there are many more insidious things businesses can pursue than profit.

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actualités internationales Gouvernance Normes d'encadrement normes de droit objectifs de l'entreprise Responsabilité sociale des entreprises Valeur actionnariale vs. sociétale

50 years later, Milton Friedman’s shareholder doctrine is dead

Belle tribune dans Fortune de MM. Colin Mayer, Leo Strine Jr et Jaap Winter au titre clair : « 50 years later, Milton Friedman’s shareholder doctrine is dead » (13 septembre 2020).

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Fifty years ago, Milton Friedman in the New York Times magazine proclaimed that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. Directors have the duty to do what is in the interests of their masters, the shareholders, to make as much profit as possible. Friedman was hostile to the New Deal and European models of social democracy and urged business to use its muscle to reduce the effectiveness of unions, blunt environmental and consumer protection measures, and defang antitrust law. He sought to reduce consideration of human concerns within the corporate boardroom and legal requirements on business to treat workers, consumers, and society fairly. 

Over the last 50 years, Friedman’s views became increasingly influential in the U.S. As a result, the power of the stock market and wealthy elites soared and consideration of the interests of workers, the environment, and consumers declined. Profound economic insecurity and inequality, a slow response to climate change, and undermined public institutions resulted. Using their wealth and power in the pursuit of profits, corporations led the way in loosening the external constraints that protected workers and other stakeholders against overreaching.

Under the dominant Friedman paradigm, corporations were constantly harried by all the mechanisms that shareholders had available—shareholder resolutions, takeovers, and hedge fund activism—to keep them narrowly focused on stockholder returns. And pushed by institutional investors, executive remuneration systems were increasingly focused on total stock returns. By making corporations the playthings of the stock market, it became steadily harder for corporations to operate in an enlightened way that reflected the real interests of their human investors in sustainable growth, fair treatment of workers, and protection of the environment.

Half a century later, it is clear that this narrow, stockholder-centered view of corporations has cost society severely. Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, the single-minded focus of business on profits was criticized for causing the degradation of nature and biodiversity, contributing to global warming, stagnating wages, and exacerbating economic inequality. The result is best exemplified by the drastic shift in gain sharing away from workers toward corporate elites, with stockholders and top management eating more of the economic pie.

Corporate America understood the threat that this way of thinking was having on the social compact and reacted through the 2019 corporate purpose statement of the Business Roundtable, emphasizing responsibility to stakeholders as well as shareholders. But the failure of many of the signatories to protect their stakeholders during the coronavirus pandemic has prompted cynicism about the original intentions of those signing the document, as well as their subsequent actions.

Stockholder advocates are right when then they claim that purpose statements on their own achieve little: Calling for corporate executives who answer to only one powerful constituency—stockholders in the form of highly assertive institutional investors—and have no legal duty to other stakeholders to run their corporations in a way that is fair to all stakeholders is not only ineffectual, it is naive and intellectually incoherent.

What is required is to match commitment to broader responsibility of corporations to society with a power structure that backs it up. That is what has been missing. Corporate law in the U.S. leaves it to directors and managers subject to potent stockholder power to give weight to other stakeholders. In principle, corporations can commit to purposes beyond profit and their stakeholders, but only if their powerful investors allow them to do so. Ultimately, because the law is permissive, it is in fact highly restrictive of corporations acting fairly for all their stakeholders because it hands authority to investors and financial markets for corporate control.

Absent any effective mechanism for encouraging adherence to the Roundtable statement, the system is stacked against those who attempt to do so. There is no requirement on corporations to look after their stakeholders and for the most part they do not, because if they did, they would incur the wrath of their shareholders. That was illustrated all too clearly by the immediate knee-jerk response of the Council of Institutional Investors to the Roundtable declaration last year, which expressed its disapproval by stating that the Roundtable had failed to recognize shareholders as owners as well as providers of capital, and that “accountability to everyone means accountability to no one.” 

If the Roundtable is serious about shifting from shareholder primacy to purposeful business, two things need to happen. One is that the promise of the New Deal needs to be renewed, and protections for workers, the environment, and consumers in the U.S. need to be brought closer to the standards set in places like Germany and Scandinavia. 

But to do that first thing, a second thing is necessary. Changes within company law itself must occur, so that corporations are better positioned to support the restoration of that framework and govern themselves internally in a manner that respects their workers and society. Changing the power structure within corporate law itself—to require companies to give fair consideration to stakeholders and temper their need to put profit above all other values—will also limit the ability and incentives for companies to weaken regulations that protect workers, consumers, and society more generally.

To make this change, corporate purpose has to be enshrined in the heart of corporate law as an expression of the broader responsibility of corporations to society and the duty of directors to ensure this. Laws already on the books of many states in the U.S. do exactly that by authorizing the public benefit corporation (PBC). A PBC has an obligation to state a public purpose beyond profit, to fulfill that purpose as part of the responsibilities of its directors, and to be accountable for so doing. This model is meaningfully distinct from the constituency statutes in some states that seek to strengthen stakeholder interests, but that stakeholder advocates condemn as ineffectual. PBCs have an affirmative duty to be good corporate citizens and to treat all stakeholders with respect. Such requirements are mandatory and meaningful, while constituency statutes are mushy.

The PBC model is growing in importance and is embraced by many younger entrepreneurs committed to the idea that making money in a way that is fair to everyone is the responsible path forward. But the model’s ultimate success depends on longstanding corporations moving to adopt it. 

Even in the wake of the Roundtable’s high-minded statement, that has not yet happened, and for good reason. Although corporations can opt in to become a PBC, there is no obligation on them to do so and they need the support of their shareholders. It is relatively easy for founder-owned companies or companies with a relatively low number of stockholders to adopt PBC forms if their owners are so inclined. It is much tougher to obtain the approval of a dispersed group of institutional investors who are accountable to an even more dispersed group of individual investors. There is a serious coordination problem of achieving reform in existing corporations.

That is why the law needs to change. Instead of being an opt-in alternative to shareholder primacy, the PBC should be the universal standard for societally important corporations, which should be defined as ones with over $1 billion of revenues, as suggested by Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In the U.S., this would be done most effectively by corporations becoming PBCs under state law. The magic of the U.S. system has rested in large part on cooperation between the federal government and states, which provides society with the best blend of national standards and nimble implementation. This approach would build on that.

Corporate shareholders and directors enjoy substantial advantages and protections through U.S. law that are not extended to those who run their own businesses. In return for offering these privileges, society can reasonably expect to benefit, not suffer, from what corporations do. Making responsibility in society a duty in corporate law will reestablish the legitimacy of incorporation.

There are three pillars to this. The first is that corporations must be responsible corporate citizens, treating their workers and other stakeholders fairly, and avoiding externalities, such as carbon emissions, that cause unreasonable or disproportionate harm to others. The second is that corporations should seek to make profit by benefiting others. The third is that they should be able to demonstrate that they fulfill both criteria by measuring and reporting their performances against them.

The PBC model embraces all three elements and puts legal, and thus market, force behind them. Corporate managers, like most of us, take obligatory duties seriously. If they don’t, the PBC model allows for courts to issue orders, such as injunctions, holding corporations to their stakeholder and societal obligations. In addition, the PBC model requires fairness to all stakeholders at all stages of a corporation’s life, even when it is sold. The PBC model shifts power to socially responsible investment and index funds that focus on the long term and cannot gain from unsustainable approaches to growth that harm society. 

Our proposal to amend corporate law to ensure responsible corporate citizenship will prompt a predictable outcry from vested interests and traditional academic quarters, claiming that it will be unworkable, devastating for entrepreneurship and innovation, undermine a capitalist system that has been an engine for growth and prosperity, and threaten jobs, pensions, and investment around the world. If putting the purpose of a business at the heart of corporate law does all of that, one might well wonder why we invented the corporation in the first place. 

Of course, it will do exactly the opposite. Putting purpose into law will simplify, not complicate, the running of businesses by aligning what the law wants them to do with the reason why they are created. It will be a source of entrepreneurship, innovation, and inspiration to find solutions to problems that individuals, societies, and the natural world face. It will make markets and the capitalist system function better by rewarding positive contributions to well-being and prosperity, not wealth transfers at the expense of others. It will create meaningful, fulfilling jobs, support employees in employment and retirement, and encourage investment in activities that generate wealth for all. 

We are calling for the universal adoption of the PBC for large corporations. We do so to save our capitalist system and corporations from the devastating consequences of their current approaches, and for the sake of our children, our societies, and the natural world. 

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