Closing the engagement gap: How investors can reduce corporate emissions and improve capital markets

About 150 years ago, investors, business, and society struck a bargain known as 'free incorporation', meaning anyone could form a new corporation by filing some simple paperwork. Under this regime, investors hand their capital over to corporate executives in exchange for stock, and the executives build large enterprises, promising to return the profits (but not the capital) to investors. Society grants these enterprises the privileges of the corporate form, shielding the investors and executives from liability, no matter how dangerous the business is. These corporations can use state po...