Country ... Bangladesh
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Following the recent building collapse in Bangladesh, the 'godfather' of microfinance talks about the garment industry, corporate social responsibility and starting up a social enterprise

Burgess COMMENTARY
Business leadership has failed abysmally to address anything except its money profit performance and the related business value to investors. This is what business schools have taught for the past 50 years without teaching much about business responsibilities and business ethics.

Some of my work over the years has been to do with 'value chain', and I have also been interested in the progress of IT in enabling new business models.

The problem with modern business metrics is that it encourages a race to the bottom for society in order to maximize the outcome for the investors. IT enables this more now than in the past.

I argue that economic activity should be optimized not merely for maximization of profit, but the maximization of good impact on people, place and planet ... and profit. This can only be done when social value is as important as money in the way decision making is done.

I would argue that Muhammad Yunus does this ... but without it being a formal system. I want value accounting to be formal and as rigorous as money accounting.

When we change the way the game is scored, we will change the way the game is played.

And the good news is that modern IT enables this in ways that could not be imagined just a few years ago.

Peter Burgess TrueValueMetrics
Peter Burgess

Muhammad Yunus: 'be clear what you want when mixing profit and social' Following the recent building collapse in Bangladesh, the 'godfather' of microfinance talks about the garment industry, corporate social responsibility and starting up a social enterprise THERE IS A VIDEO HERE David Mills, Joe Jervis and Mona Mahmood 30 May 2013 12.36 Z guardian.co.uk