For over a decade we've worked with a wide range of people who share our view that companies succeed in the long-term when they serve the interests of employees and societies as well as their shareholders. We have been pioneers in examining what this means in practice with regard to issues from company law to climate change. Our success is attributable to the relationships we have forged with members, partners, friends and supporters.
 
 

Tomorrow’s Company Programmes 2010-11


Economy

Our economic programme looks at what companies can do to be more successful in the future, what this means for investors and how the financial system as a whole can be improved. Our current areas of interest include looking at what is wrong with the financial system we have and how it can work better and how long-term investors can improve their performance.

Tomorrow’s ‘Good Governance’ Forum
Project Leaders – Tony Manwaring

The financial crisis has cast doubt over the existing governance structures of companies and financial institutions leading to a number of major reviews including those being undertaken by the FRC and Sir David Walker. Tomorrow’s Company has been at the forefront of this thinking, feeding into both reviews, in particular through the publication of Tomorrow’s Innovation, Risk and Governance published in partnership with BIS in November 2009.

Our follow up project, which is supported by BIS, capitalises on the report by bringing together a number of businesses through 2010 to explore what good governance means in practice. The current work streams for the forum are as follows:
•    Strategy and mandate
•    The boardroom conversation
•    Leadership, behaviours and culture
•    Relationship with investors (including Stewardship)   
 
We have over 20 organisations represented on the forum including listed companies, investors, auditors and legal professionals. The spirit of collaboration between the forum members, some of whom are competitors, is encouraging and we have had very positive feedback from those who have participated so far.

Tomorrow’s Owners – Stewardship of Tomorrow’s Company
Project Leaders - Mark Goyder

In October 2008, Tomorrow’s Company published the findings of the first stage of the Tomorrow’s Owners Programme, which concluded that the success of companies and the societies in which they operate depends on the exercise of ‘stewardship’, the process through which shareholders, directors or others seeking to influence companies in the direction of long-term, sustainable performance that derives from contributing to human progress and the well-being of environment and society.

In the next stage of the programme, we will be seeking to:
a)    Generate a demand for responsible stewardship amongst the business community and policy-makers
b)    Find practical ways of putting responsible stewardship back at the heart of ownership and direction of companies.

Tomorrow’s Corporate Reporting: Systems, architecture and stakeholder behaviours
Project Leaders –Tony Manwaring

The financial crises of the last decade have demonstrated serious shortcomings in the understanding of corporate business models, the alignment of incentives, and the management of risk. The current corporate reporting model has not highlighted where these shortcomings exist. This landscape provides a compelling reason to review what the major barriers to effective reporting are and how these might be overcome.

Corporate reporting should set out a company’s strategy and business model, assess historic and future performance, discuss how its activities will be funded and describe how risk is being managed:  in short, it should provide the building blocks of data necessary for effective decision-making by investors and other key stakeholders. 

Sadly, reporting today falls far short of the mark. The information presented often leaves the reader struggling to understand even the underlying performance of the entity – let alone assess the sustainability of that performance. We are therefore undertaking a programme of work in collaboration with PwC and CIMA (the chartered institute of management accountants) which will ask:

What aspects of the current systems architecture and the behaviours, values and cultural dimensions of its stakeholders, prevent or support the effective development of corporate reporting?



Society and People

This Programme looks at how businesses can better engage with people at the societal, community and individual level. Current areas of interest include Tomorrow’s Global Talent, looking at how business can radically change and improve their relationships with employees, and collaboration between NGO’s and business.

Tomorrow’s Talent – ongoing
Project Leader - Grahame Broadbelt

This is a hugely ambitious programme which examines the changing nature of demand and supply in the global labour market and seeks to transform our understanding of how organisations can be far more effective in getting and keeping the talented people they need to deliver business success.  The initial phase of this research, Tomorrow’s Global Talent (2009), identified the systemic and dynamic problems in the global labour market and the structural weaknesses of traditional HR responses.

Tomorrows Global Talent: UK good practice case studies
Project Leaders – Grahame Broadbelt

In the work that Tomorrow’s Company has just completed on the Talent practice in the UK we built arguments that discuss the dangers of UK insularity and fortress mindsets to UK Plc. We also know that there are many stories of real innovation and success amongst UK companies in their talent management and development practices.

We now want to collect as many positive UK corporate case studies as we can and publish a new supplement to the TGT UK report showcasing the best of British practice; we want this collection to act as a source of inspiration and guidance to all UK companies struggling with the challenge of making real and lasting changes to the ways in which companies respond to the talent imperatives. We are looking for companies who think they have case materials that they wish to showcase.

Tomorrow’s Force for Good - NGOs and business working together on global development
Project Leaders – Grahame Broadbelt

The project aims to bring together influential leaders from business and NGOs to develop a common approach to human development needs that will lead to corporations, NGOs and governments working more collaboratively to realize the presently untapped potential for the private sector to contribute more positively to global human development and poverty reduction.



Environment

The future of business is fundamentally intertwined with the future of the environment. If the environmental system fails, due to pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity or climate change, business will also fail. The environment programme is examining a number of issues that will have a serious impact upon business and the environment in the 21st Century and new ways of thinking about how business will operate in the future green economy.

In March 2010 Tomorrows Company created a practical, easy-to-use guide called Running a
Successful Business in the Low Carbon Economy with the Department for Business (BIS) designed to help businesses reduce their emissions, improve energy efficiency, and integrate low-carbon thinking.

energyrethinking.org
Project leader – Neil Walmsley

Energy is a big part of our lives. It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without it. But energy is also a major cost – at home, at work, and while we’re travelling. energyrethinking is all about finding ways to use energy better.  It offers tips and simple advice that help save money by using less energy, reducing waste or – sometimes – not using energy at all. This is a space for learning from others, sharing your own views, and making new connections. energyrethinking is a joint initiative underpinned by Shell, and independently managed by Burson-Marsteller, a leading communications agency, and independently edited by journalist Natalia Gameson.  Other partners including the Energy Saving Trust (EST), the Institute of Directors (IOD), and Michellin.


Building on our experience of creating the guide Running a Successful Business in the Low Carbon Economy, Tomorrow’s Company is creating the website’s section on advice for the leaders of Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMEs), ranging from advice on cost-saving measures to new business opportunities, briefings on the global low carbon economy, sources of finance and regulation.


For more information please visit www.energyrethinking.org


The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
Project Leaders – Tony Manwaring,

A European Union supported global project to analyse the economic benefits of biological diversity, the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation.

 

If you would like any information on Tomorrow’s Company projects, please contact Neil Walmsley –

neil@tomorrowscompany.com Tel: 020 7839 4040.



forceforgood.com

Tomorrow’s Company, in partnership with Heidrick & Struggles, has created a cutting edge web 2.0 site that is going to bring to life, in a practical and innovative way, the themes from our latest inquiry Tomorrow’s Global Company: challenges and choices. Our ambition is that this site builds a global community of interest using the inquiry report as a framework and platform for demonstrating why and how business can be a force for good.

 

It will highlight great practice, provoke debate and provide the first truly global and interactive online space to drive the agenda forward on the role of business in society, both in theory and in practice. Through this we hope to engage the many leaders, change agents, teachers, students and activists who share our belief that business has the potential to create positive change and want also to learn from each others’ experiences.

 

We aim to capture, generate and sustain the interest and energy of a wide constituency of people; from top executives to young leaders in business, investors to social entrepreneurs, opinion formers to MBA students. Therefore accessibility is a high priority; themed categorisation, user generated tagging and personalised accounts will make it easy for people to navigate directly to their areas of interest while user posted content will make the site thoroughly relevant to its users.

 

So please visit the site, contribute good examples and great content, and take part in the debate.

 

To find out more go to www.forceforgood.com or contact Ivor at ivor@tomorrowscompany.com

 
 
Tomorrow’s Global Company – the inquiry
The ideas that we are now discussing with companies spring from our two year Tomorrow’s Global Company inquiry. Tomorrow’s Global Company: challenges and choices is a major report we launched in the UK and India in 2007. The report was the result of two years of deep dialogue and extensive research by an Inquiry Team of senior figures from companies and civil society organisations based in Europe, Asia and North America. Members of the Tomorrow’s Inquiry Team came from companies and organisations including: ABB, Alcan, Anglo American, Amnesty International Business Group, BP, Dr. Reddy’s, Ford, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Infosys, KPMG, Leaders’ Quest, McKinsey, Standard Chartered, SUEZ, and SustainAbility. As well as meetings of this team, 16 consultations were held in countries including Australia, China, France, India, South Africa, the UK and the US. We also conducted 55 interviews with business leaders, stakeholder organisations and experts from across the world.

The Tomorrow’s Global Company team explored the issues which they saw as being most significant for global business, and what needed to be done to address them. The conclusions on current trends were challenging:

 • That current patterns of consumption are unsustainable – which presents major challenges to business because global economic, social, political and environmental systems are interdependent; and

 • That the market remains the most powerful mechanism for delivering prosperity – but that the frameworks within which it operates are leading to unsustainable outcomes.

How can these challenges be tackled? The Inquiry Team considered factors such as talent and technology but eventually decided that the focus of leaders of global businesses should be on three specific and related priorities:

1. Redefining success – measuring business success not only in terms of financial and operational results but in ways that take account of social and environmental factors that affect long-term performance;

2. Embedding values – setting an example and using values as the ‘glue’ to unite complex organisations; and

3. Creating frameworks – working with governments, policy-makers and civil society to create international agreements, national legislation and voluntary frameworks needed to direct markets to sustainable ends– taking a proactive approach and therefore avoiding having regulation imposed without business involvement.

The report concluded that a change in mindset is needed. The Inquiry Team called this expanding the space – meaning that business should take on a larger role, extending its definition of success, applying its values more widely and creating frameworks that harness the power of business to bring wider benefits to society.
 

Some of our achievements
To read a summary of our achievements since 1995 click here.

Our recent publication Ageing Population, Pensions and Wealth Creation argues that there is no 'pensions crisis' and that as a society we can afford to grow old.

Alan Pickering CBE, praised Tomorrow's Company for challenging conventional wisdom and enhancing the contemporary debate by 'asking the right questions and coming up with the right answers'. 

John Neill, of Unipart Group, states that Tomorrow's Company "has played an important part in demonstrating to companies how an inclusive approach to business can improve competitiveness".

In a recent speech, Paul Myners described the work of Tomorrow's Company as "a beacon in directing the UK to evaluate the importance of values in corporate behaviour."
 
The RSA Tomorrow's Company Report (1995) has been the inspiration for many company change programmes, and led to proposals in the UK's Company Law Review to redefine the duty of directors.
 
The repealed Operating and Financial Review, which was going to be required of all large companies, had been strongly influenced by Sooner Sharper Simpler (1998), which described the annual report of the future. 

Tomorrow's Company starts partnering with Business in the Community, providing criteria and judging their 'Company of the Year' award (2002).

Redefining CSR, published in 2003, has initiated a fierce debate among business leaders and the media about current developments in corporate responsibility. 

Former Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore, gives annual lecture (2006), followed by the report Climate Change - The Role of Global Companies.

In every case the impact has come not simply from publications but from the actions of members and supporters in turning the ideas into practice.
 

Tomorrow's Company e-bulletins
The e-bulletin covers a range of areas including any new developments, press articles, current research, events, membership news and people. Published every 8 weeks our e-bulletin keeps you up to date with the work of Tomorrow's Company.

If you would like to receive a copy of the latest e-bulletin please contact gerard@tomorrowscompany.com