OUR WORK
Research and Publications
We conduct large-scale and ambitious workstreams that bring together our focus on research and innovation. The common thread that connects all the work of Tomorrow’s Company is a belief in the human purposes of business.
Our primary audiences have stayed the same:
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Business leaders
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Investors
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Government
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Regulators
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Policymakers, and
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Educators
Business leadership
In the original RSA Tomorrow’s Company Inquiry report we focused on business leadership. We developed the idea of an inclusive approach to business success. (See About Us - Our History) This was widely taken up and its fruits can be seen today in the number of people and organisations championing Purposeful business.
In 2007 we published Tomorrow’s Global Company – challenges and choices. In our original (1995) report we had made popular the concept - previously only used in extractive industries of a ‘licence to operate’. In the 2007 inquiry, a group of leaders of global companies and civil society organisations called for global companies to be proactive in ‘expanding the space’ they shared with civil society organisations and governments on issues from climate to human rights.
This led later to work on Tomorrow’s Global Talent (2010) and Tomorrow’s Global Leaders – how to ensure that women reach the top (2014).
Government
Our theme was taken up by the then Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the Company Law Review. This lead to the adoption in Section 172 of the 2006 Companies Act of what was described by the DTI as an inclusive definition of directors’ duties. We refreshed our agenda for government with Promoting Long-term Wealth: Reshaping Corporate Governance (2017).
In 2014 we started a campaign – which continues to this day - to persuade government to be more rigorous in public procurement and undertake due diligence into the character of the companies with which the public sector does business.
Investors
We went on to engage the investment community together with business leaders to develop an agenda around investment and ownership.
The term ‘stewardship’ was often used in the context of a family business, but our 2008 report ‘Tomorrow’s Owners – stewardship of Tomorrow’s Company’ suggested that stewardship was a duty of the shareholder. The publication of our report coincided with the 2008 banking crisis. The UK government initiated a review into its causes and, picking up on our work, the reviews chair Sir David Walker put the stewardship agenda at the heart of his recommendations.
These included the suggestion, implemented soon afterwards and imitated around the world, for the world’s first investor stewardship code. Together with a group of investment institutions Tomorrow’s Company formed the 2020 Stewardship Group, later the Stewardship Alliance, which helped to influence regulators in improving the UK Stewardship Code and the practice of institutional investors. The report Better Stewardship (2018) summarises its work.
Prompted by investors, in 2010 we published Tomorrow’s Corporate Governance: Bridging the UK Engagement Gap Through Swedish style Nomination Committees. In partnership with the then Institute for Family Business we published Family Business Stewardship in 2011.
Boards, governance, culture, and risk
Our ‘Lessons from Enron’ 2002 report was groundbreaking in the agenda that it set for the role of the board in upholding values and promoting the right culture.
With the help of the Good Governance Forum a powerful network of directors, chairs, company secretaries and governance experts we published practical guides and research outputs on key issues such as board purpose, culture and values, and the role of the NED. To read more about our work in this area, including, the case for the board mandate, and a guide to improving boardroom conversation, click here.
The most important of these makes the case for every board to spend time defining its board mandate. Others cover board chairmanship, board evaluation, the governance of innovation risk, and culture.
In 2003 we published Redefining CSR, expressing unease about the apparent, and perhaps too easy, victory of CSR. This suggested that corporate social responsibility might be too much about compliance and not enough about conviction. Twenty years on we were expressing the same anxieties about ESG.
In 2013 our report on Tomorrow’s Business Forms – making the right choices of ownership, structure and governance to deliver success for business and society suggested that boards needed to keep their current model of ownership and governance under review so it was consistent with its purpose.
Reporting
Our agenda-setting work on reporting started in 1998 with Sooner, Sharper Simpler – a lean vision of an inclusive annual report. This in time led to further work which paved the way for the Integrated Reporting movement.
Mental health and financial inclusion
In 2019 nearly 2.8 million people were in work but living in poverty, and four out of every five low-paid workers fail to escape poverty after ten years in work. How can industry help to find better ways to make work pay? How can we help build financial resilience for those facing in-work poverty? How can we build a movement for change to enable this to happen?
Through 2019 we held roundtable events and innovation labs with employers, providers of financial wellbeing products, and other experts in financial inclusion. The final report was launched on 30th January 2020 at a Financial Inclusion Summit, hosted by the City of London. The final publication can be found here.
Education
In partnership with the University of East Anglia, we started to concentrate on how students learned about business and enterprise. We partner with UEA to run a compulsory module for first year students which is focused on business as a force for good in society.
By 2021 we decided to devote energy to how younger students were prepared by education for the world of work and business.
Under the leadership of Jon Maguire this work has grown so well that it has become a separate charity - Tomorrow’s Enterprise Foundation. You can read more about it here.
Meanwhile Tomorrow’s Company has continued its agenda setting work. Starting with its participation in the three Anthropy conferences, it has begun to bring together a growing group of organisations dedicated to responsibility and sustainability and to seek solutions at the level of the system for some of the problems that all those groups have experienced.
Latest work
Alongside our current developments in our education projects, there are two linked streams of work conducted by Tomorrow’s Company:
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'Better Business Through Public Procurement'
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'Which companies should I buy, work for and invest in?'
They both carry forward the agenda setting work on purpose, values, governance, stewardship and business-as-a-force-for- good which Tomorrow’s Company has undertaken since its foundation in 1996. You can find further information on each of these streams below.
This work is carried out in partnership and dialogue with leaders in business and investment, and particularly engages policymakers, NGOs, research organisations and representatives of all key stakeholders. This reinforces the work on Purposeful Business and Sustainability which Tomorrow’s Company pioneered by its original 1995 report with the RSA.
The fruits of all our work over 30 years can be found on our Publications page.
Better business through public procurement
Ten years ago, before all the scandals associated with ‘VIP lanes’ and poor public procurement during the pandemic, Tomorrow’s Company came up with the idea of a ‘Trust Test’ by which private sector organisations could demonstrate their robustness and good character in bidding for public sector work. You can read more about The Trust Test here.
Mark Goyder, Founder of Tomorrow’s Company, then chaired a working group within the British Standards Institution (BSI) which developed the idea into a British Standard 95009.
The UK public sector spends over £300bn on the private sector, and the purpose of this programme of work by Tomorrow’s Company is to ensure that this spending power is used wisely. There is a huge opportunity to underpin the move towards a responsible wealth creation by applying the criteria which Tomorrow’s Company has developed. You can read more about this in Mark's blog here.
Which companies should I buy, work for and invest in?
In November 2023 at the Anthropy Conference, Mark Goyder of Tomorrow’s Company partnered with Michael Solomon of Responsible 100 to invite five organisations involved in assessing or promoting purposeful and responsible business to explain their approach. The event explored the underlying principles behind each approach. You can read more about it on Mark's blog post here:
What is corporate responsibility and how can I identify it?
In May 2024 with the support of law firm RPC, Tomorrows Company convened a larger gathering of likeminded organisations. The aim has been to
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Deepen mutual understanding between different frameworks and approaches
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Find common ground and understand how the efforts of each may be complementary
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Promote these different approaches to enable all to raise their profile in a connected way
And through all of this
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Better equip people to make informed choices about the companies they deal with.
All this in the face of mounting evidence about the combined impact of the crises of climate, bio-diversity, war, famine and future pandemics. The meeting discussed lethal threats that may lie ahead.
There was much support for the view that there needs to be dramatic change in how companies see their purpose and how they behave; how government budgets and acts and regulates and conducts its procurement; how investors and insurance companies assess risk and reward; how house builders, and infrastructure planners and project managers operate; how public health priorities are set; what we teach in schools and colleges; how food and agriculture operates.
Discussions at the meeting and after it have been focused on how to work effectively together to influence government, business, finance, health and education to commit to an agenda of substantial change.
All participants felt they wanted to work for a wealth creation system that puts these imperatives at the top of the agenda, not on its periphery.
As one put it ‘We don’t want to destroy capitalism: we want it and its engines of invention to be contributing the solutions that human wellbeing demands.’
Work continues on how to make the most of the potential combined impact of such a group.
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