CAAG 2019

TBS Education in Barcelona warns of the low potential interest of large corporations in projecting their corporate and environmental social responsibility programs upwards. The sixth edition of the workshop on corporate governance CAAG 2019 brought together experts in sustainability from around the world.

Last week, TBS Education in Barcelona hosted the workshop on sustainability CAAG 2019, which brings together experts in business and organizational sustainability. The symposium talked about the extent to which environmental and social sustainability is present in the important decisions of large companies, above economic performance, and the conclusions reached by the panel of experts were the following:

• Large companies (and even more publicly listed companies) take little account of the opinions of the majority of the population when they have to make major decisions that affect them.

• Although large corporations favor innovation, production and investment of capital, it is a problem that they end up becoming instruments that are not yet socially useful.

• Although most of the sustainability and corporate social responsibility policies have been projected by leading companies, and compliance reports are already a standard procedure in large corporations, the fact that the benefit prevails first and foremost has not changed. Business models and operations continue to be the same as those of the beginnings of modern capitalism.

• Managers should consider their social and environmental responsibility within decision making, as part of a balanced assessment of the risks and opportunities that the company may have. Managers should not only “add” after that actions towards the “common good”, and after highlighting it in their annual reports, as “compliance” with the directives of good governance practices.

• A substantial – fundamental – redesign of the forms, objectives and corporate values is needed for them to truly comply with the emerging realities of corporate responsibility.

• Compliance itself should not be increased in companies, but there must be a real reflective attitude of the managers to comply with the social and sustainability objectives set.

The relationship of public companies with their economic and social benefits was also discussed. These companies should serve as a good example that managers work mainly for the common interest of the population. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and it can refer to the central social problem of education in general and the teaching of management in particular.