In a Reuters piece on the prospective court battles in response to the Business Roundtable's (BRT) recent announcement of new corporate objectives, Tensie Whelan is quoted on how sustainability investments can drive profits. Read an excerpt:

A pledge by an influential forum of top U.S. business leaders to consider the interests of a broad range of stakeholders and social issues in addition to shareholder earnings may lead to more legal disputes over board decisions. And many of those disputes would likely be heard in the state of Delaware, the legal home to many U.S. corporations...

“To be clear, Delaware law does not enshrine a principle of shareholder primacy or preclude a board of directors from considering the interests of other stakeholders,” the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz said in a client memo. “The fiduciary duty of the board is to promote the value of the corporation. In fulfilling that duty, directors must exercise their business judgment in considering and reconciling the interests of various stakeholders – including shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the environment and communities,” the firm said.

Still others argue there is ample evidence that a company's longer-term focus on multiple stakeholders provides investors with greater returns. "Managing for multiple stakeholders and related environmental and social issues leads to innovation, operational efficiency, lower risk, employee retention and other benefits that translate into improved corporate financials," writes Tensie Whelan, director at NYU's Stern Center for Sustainable Business, in a new article, citing research that found a significant return on so-called "sustainability investment."

To read the full Reuters article, click here.
To read Tensie's article in Worth on the BRT announcement, click here.