DISCUSSION The Better Business Act – a charter for pie splitters?

Last week I was invited by the UK’s Institute of Directors (IoD) to hear a discussion about the proposal for a Better Business Act (BBA)

This comes from the UK branch of the admirable B Corp movement, which has attracted 3720 companies in 74 countries who are committed ‘to meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose’. B Corps see themselves as a community of leaders driving a global movement of people using business as a force for good.

I was intrigued to see that the B Corp movement had the support of the IoD in putting its case for a Better Business Act In 1995 the then Director-General of the IOD, Peter Morgan , expressed his outrage to me that the 1995 RSA Tomorrow’s Company report, which placed  purpose, values and relationships at the heart business success, was suggesting that business needed to earn its ‘licence to operate’ from society. (He saw this as a rejection of free enterprise.)

Instinctively I want to support B Lab and the IOD in their efforts to improve the law in ways that strengthen business as a force for good. Yet I am unconvinced.

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