Makower completely misses the point in his analysis. Allow me to take this opportunity to pick out the two key statements he makes which are most misguided:
- "All of the scores are relative, not absolute. That is, companies are judged not on how well they do, but on how they fare in comparison to their peers." What this means is that each company's alleged progress towards becoming a truly sustainable business doesn't really matter. What matters is the incremental innovations which can set them apart in their industry. Kind of an issue.
- "The work that goes into some of the rankings’ components is subjective, meaning that individual judgment calls are turned into numeric scores that ultimately determine a company’s ranking." So much for the methodology behind the rankings, then. Of course, subjectivity always plays a role in any decision made. But in a ranking that Makower declares has 'become a major metric in corporate America'? Imagine if the Dow Jones included a subjective factor. Right.
I'm disappointed to see this lack of critical perspective from Makower.
What I want to know is why are the Americans so obsessed with measuring the clearly unmeasurable? It must be a cultural phenomenon. Interested in your views on that.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point. I think it does come from a profoundly American need for corporate sustainability to 'prove' its relevance in the business community. It's a well-intentioned but pretty misguided desire to treat these environmental and social metrics in the same way as basic financial metrics--the DJSI, for example, has shown how awkward it can be to try to make this work in practice. Insisting on measurement is an approach that was highly effective in raising awareness/shifting business priorities about a decade ago, but I think is increasingly irrelevant now.
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