Anjali,

Excellent piece and great comments by Robert Walker at NEI. I think we have to remember that there is still an "agency problem" in corporate America in which, unfortunately, some business leaders put their own personal interests ahead of the longer-term benefit of the corporation, its employees, customers and the communities they serve or do business in.

In these circumstances, "shareholder value maximization" if often incorrectly used by the bad actors to justify wrong actions that even run counter to the published corporate ethics statements that all employees are generally required to sign. For example, it wasn't the right thing to falsify vehicle emissions data at Volkswagen...though somebody, somewhere was probably trying to increase market share, drive profits and "maximize shareholder value." But in the end, shareholder value was destroyed.

So, what we really need are true leaders of integrity. Call me the optimist but its a lot more fun to design great products and services that really add value and win in the marketplace honestly, which will ultimately benefit the shareholders, employees, customers and the communities that make it all possible.

ESG and SRI are helpful frameworks for management to use to overcome agency problems as well as to help investors direct their capital away from the bad actors and toward the better performers, who are more likely to win without a major lawsuit, disaster, fraud, etc...

Bob