Dialog
Joss Tantrum

Message from Joss Tantrum reference to '7D capitalism - your latest piece' December 2014

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Gmail Peter Burgess
7D capitalism - your latest piece
Joss Tantram
Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 7:27 AM
To: Peter Burgess

Dear Peter,

Hoping you are well.

I just wanted to send you a note to say how much I enjoyed your recent piece “7 Dimension Capitalism and MDIA”.

The topic you cover was the subject of a very interesting set of activities over the past few days in the UK “Rethinking Capitals” – convened by ICAEW – where the challenge and opportunities of using a multi capitals model were explored from a number of dimensions (http://www.icaew.com/en/technical/sustainability/accounting-for-nature).

I am currently writing a think piece on the conference event and wondered if you would be happy for me to mention (and point to) your piece – if that’s OK – what is the best url to use?

As I have written about before –the key challenge I see in a multi-capitals approach is that of recognising dependency relationships – where the continuing existence of one (or more) capitals is dependent upon the continuing health of another equivalence is not really possible – how should we deal with such issues?

I cover this issue (a little polemically) here: http://www.terrafiniti.com/blog/sensational-against-the-tide-of-shallow-value-part-2/

Best wishes (as ever).

Joss
Joss Tantram FRSA, MICRS*, Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar
Partner, Corporate Sustainability
Terrafiniti LLP
Just how do we Value Natural Capital? Our asset classes show how investors can innovate to recognise natural value:
http://www.terrafiniti.com/valuing-natural-capital.html
Tel: 0044 (0) 1483 531 766
Mob: 0044 (0) 7974 385 322
Skype: Joss.tantram
Email: joss@terrafiniti.com
Web: http://www.terrafiniti.com/index.html
Blog: http://www.terrafiniti.com/blog/
Twitter logo@terrafiniti
Towards 9 Billion small ... New items monthly!
Terrafiniti's Towards 9 Billion blog - big ideas, practical advice and innovation for a sustainable future:
http://www.terrafiniti.com/blog/
*MICRS – Member of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability

Peter Burgess
Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 11:25 PM
To: Joss Tantram

Dear Joss

Thank you for your encouraging feedback ...

A URL for the essay I wrote is http://www.truevaluemetrics.org/DBpdfs/MDIA/TVM-Short-Introduction-to-7D-Capitalism-and-MDIA-141212a.pdf

I am pleased that the issue of improved reporting by the corporate world is now increasingly on the agenda. Andrew Winston in his book 'The Big Pivot' reports on the agenda of a lot of CEOs and their commitment to being more responsible corporations when it comes to environment, workplace conditions and so forth ... but I have argued with him that until we have metrics to go along with this, there will not be much traction. What the CEO says must also be how the CFO does the numbers, and conventional accounting does not yet do this very well.

I want to look into what the ICAEW is doing ... thanks for the link ... but my experience up to now is that accounting firms and accounting institutions working on improving the reporting without doing very much to improve the underlying way that accounting is done, In other words the impact accounting is not integrated with the financial accounting ... at best, all that is being done is to integrate the reporting. In my early career ... I did my articles with Cooper Brothers in London a long time ago ... and as an engineering graduate I did a lot of work on 'cost accounting systems' and later on when I had a stint as VP Manufacturing in a fairly large US factory I became a big advocate for systems of 'standard costing' with active variance analysis. Fast forward, I see something like this as a way to integrate value accounting into modern systems of financial accounting.

Please feel free to make reference to what I am doing to the extent that it fits in with what you are doing.

Also, please stay in touch ... I can benefit from blunt critical feedback. I think I am on the right track, but it is always helpful to get others to validate this.

Best wishes for Christmas and the Holiday Season

Peter
____________
Peter Burgess
TrueValueMetrics ... Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
http://www.truevaluemetrics.org
linkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peterburgess1/
twitter: @truevaluemetric @peterbnyc
mobile: 212 744 6469 landline 570 431 4385
email: peterbnyc@gmail.com
skype: peterburgessnyc

Joss Tantram
Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 5:30 AM
To: Peter Burgess

Dear Peter,

Thank you very much for your reply and the further thoughts. Please excuse the brevity of this mail as I need to turn my thoughts to time off from work!

I have written up my thoughts on the conference I mentioned and some of the challenges I believe that multiple capitals face to become truly meaningful.

This is here: http://www.terrafiniti.com/blog/capitals-unequal-unequal-others/

I very much look forward to chewing things over in future where it is useful!

Wishing you a great Christmas.

Joss