Two years ago, the Business Roundtable (BRT) issued a “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation,” signed by the CEOs of 184 major U.S. corporations, that rejected shareholder primacy, declared “a fundamental commitment to all [corporate] stakeholders” and linked corporate purpose to advancing and protecting the interests not just of shareholders, but of all corporate stakeholders. The BRT’s statement reflected rapidly growing momentum towards a more inclusive corporate governance regime and promised to accelerate stakeholder governance by committing business leaders to the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, communities and the environment.

The BRT statement elevated the topic of stakeholder capitalism to the top of national and global policy debate. In 2020, the World Economic Forum launched the new “Davos Manifesto” in support of stakeholder capitalism. Nearly every significant asset manager—including the “big three,” BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street—now insists that the companies in which they invest adopt sustainable stakeholder governance practices. At the urging of their investors, large companies are nearly uniformly undertaking efforts to make and measure progress in achieving sustainable, socially responsible operations. The signs of the step-up in the embrace of stakeholder governance by corporations and their major investors are everywhere.

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