This automated translation of the original
message in French has been
revised only to correct the mistranslations.
This text
is also available in French.
(Synthesis by Pascale MORAND)
International
meeting, Geneva March 30-31, 2001,
Moderator: Pascale MORAND
The
responsible investment articulates around three axes:
1. the
selection founded on social, ethical and environmental criterias entering in
the composition of the securities portfolio
2. the
solidarity in the investment consisting to provide funds to people who don't
have access at the conventional institutions of credit, using the expedient of
development banks communal, of cooperative societies of credit or credit fund
or venture capital
3. the
responsible shareholding, or the exercise of the rights to vote associated to
the detention of actions of societies.
These
various aspects have been evoked in the discussion in order to surround the
potential and the limits of the responsible investment better in the promotion
of the common good.
It was very
important to recall, as Luca Pattaroni (University of Geneva) made in the
introduction of the debate, that all power has for counterpart a
responsibility. The ethics of the responsibility doesn't amount solely to
accept the rules of the game fixed in the law, but it implies a worry of the
consequences of the exercise of a power - the research of the individual
interest by the slant of an investment aiming a profit - on others. This ethics applies of various manners in
the responsible investment, either by the exclusion of some sectors, either by
a politics of dialogue with the enterprises whose stocks compose the
portfolios. One of the limits of the investment based on the simple exclusion
is " to appropriate in an undue manner the definition of the common
good" or, in the terms of Jacques Generous, to create a "market of
the values".
This
objection finds an echo in the exposition of Pierre Weiss (Adviser at the
Federation des Syndicats Patronaux), that wonders on the dangers -
"monopoly of the vote of politically correct investors "or"
dogmatism" - that represents the constitution of alliances of committed
shareholders.
It is
important to know, specify Edouard Dommen (Actares), that the question of
ethics arises differently depending on whether it was about an investment to
promote new economic activities or of an investment to make fructify a
capital. The English terminology, made
no distinction, the two being designated by the term of "investment
". In the practice, this
distinction is translated, for example, by the refusal of some alternative
banks to acquire the actions, the stock activities being to their eyes
disconnected of the economic realities. Concerning the shareholding, the
exercise of a responsible engagement, well implanted in the Anglo-Saxon world,
can be hindered by legal obstacles - in Switzerland, for example, we are far
from the principle of an action = a vote.
In order to
try to set the concept of the common good operational to the enterprise, Helen
Alford (Pontifica Universitŕ San Tommaso) proposes a simple model permitting to
establish a hierarchy of the objectives in the decision making. The research of the structural goods
(fundational) as the profit must be conjugated to the realization of
"excellent goods", that means the development of the person and the
community. On the other hand, a balance
between the shared goods and the particular goods must be found. The research of the common good finally
requires a discernment, in the level of goods produced by the enterprise,
between those that are "obvious" and those that are "true"
depending on whether they contribute or no to the development of the human
person.
In spite of
the present obstacles for the responsible investments and a growing
shareholding activism, is difficult to value the real effect of it on the
social and environmental performance of the enterprises. France, for example,
saw during these last two years a strong progression of the responsible funds,
grace notably to the key role played by the agency of notification ARESE. Martial Cozette (French Center of information
on the enterprises, France) remark however that the quantitative information
collected on the big enterprises are even incomplete and the portfolio managers
are often little aware of the questions of sustainable development. However these are the questions on which
lean the assessment criterias used in the analyses of enterprises.
To
appreciate the effect of the responsible investment on the behavior of the
enterprises is especially difficult when they are implanted in the emerging
countries, as Victor Quintana (Equipo Pueblo, Mexico) reminds it describing the
conditions of working in some multinationals in his country. The famous cases
of Shell, Nike, the Gap and Triumph indicate that in a globalized society where
information circulates freely, it will be more and more difficult for the
societies to conceal some violations concerning human rights, environment and
the work of the children. Nevertheless,
these cases are the trees that hide the forest and Rudolf Müller (Secretariat
of state to the economy, Switzerland) observes that the countries that make a
keen competition to attract multinationals often make it to strong price to the
tax system, the handling conditions and the pollution.
The
responsible investment is a important component of the set of the impulses that
is necessary to put the investments system and financial investments to the
service of the common good. Nevertheless it doesn't replace the indispensable
democratic process by which the society must make of a real political choice an
objective.
The
observatory of the Finance can contribute to establish the bases of a
collective gait elaborating, in view of the "World Assembly of the
Citizens for a Responsible, Plural and United World" that will be held in
Lille in December 2001, of the propositions permitting to answer the following
questions,:
- Them what
principles are susceptible to found a global gait aiming to orient the
investment toward the common good?
- What
vehicle would be able to best formulate these principles (chart, quotation
criterias, international conduct code, etc.)?