EoM Featured in DBS Asian Insights Conference 2020 Panel

Published July 2020

Jay Jakub, Chief Advocacy Officer for the EoM movement, recently participated in a live DBS Asian Insights Conference 2020 panel entitled ‘Economics of Mutuality: Finding Profitable Solutions to the Problems of People and Planet’. He was joined by Robin Hu, Senior MD and Head (Sustainability and Stewardship Group), Temasek; and Gavin Long, Co-Founder and Partner, The Acacia Group. The panel was moderated by Timothy Wong, Managing Director, Head Group Research, DBS Bank.

A short extract from Jay’s contribution has been transcribed below:

‘We co-created the concept of mutual profit with our partners at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and Robert Eccles from Harvard University. It is about creating another line in your management accounts and your P&L that can be compared with the financial P&L. It measures the impact your business activity is having on human, social and natural capital.

We find there is an amazing lack of transparency in the traditional financial P&L because we know from our work over the years that human, social and natural capital are correlated strongly – and perhaps even causally – with releasing financial capital. If you grow human, social and natural capital, you are going to create conditions that lead to more economic output, which generates financial capital as a result.

And the opposite also takes place. When you have lower social, human and natural capital, you tend to damage your financial returns. But this is entirely invisible to the managers and CFOs because they don’t have a concept of mutual profit where they are seeing what they are creating or destroying – and what they could leverage in terms of non-financial value.’

Many other fascinating speakers took part in the virtual event, including MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg, former US Vice President Al Gore, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, former IMF Chief Economist Raghuram Rajan and many more. Jay took the opportunity at this influential gathering to share how the Economics of Mutuality can empower companies to navigate the post-pandemic world in ways that deliver more responsible and mutual outcomes.

In the lead up to the conference, Timothy Wong wrote an opinion piece for the Business Times of Singapore, in which he spoke about the Economics of Mutuality:

“A key question asked is whether it is possible to take a wicked problem and pivot it into a sustainable business solution. Bruno Roche and Jay Jakub answer this by introducing a concept known as the Economics of Mutuality (EoM). Their book, ‘Completing Capitalism: Heal Business to Heal the World’, provides a blue-print on how businesses can meaningfully put purpose before profit, not just for shareholders but all stakeholders. 

It is not just a woolly concept. The authors propose that such holistic value creation can be captured through a strategic alignment process from board mandates down to line-manager key performance indicators. The end goal is a mutual bottom line which combines financial and non-financial metrics in a coherent manner.”