David Blood (ex Goldman Sachs) and Al Gore (ex Whitehouse) are the founders of a “sustainable investment” firm called “Generation”. Apparently the other partners in Generation Investment Management wouldn’t let them name the firm “Blood and Gore” which is a great pity

I first ran across Generation while watching an interview they gave at the Skoll World Forum (ok, I admit it, I am seriously jealous of Jeff Skoll, not only does the guy run a Movie Studio, but he has a World Forum named after him)

Blood and Gore have this extremely devious plan for making the world a better place. They want to demonstrate to the investment market that an investment strategy which considers the attitude companies have to externalities before investing in them is going to be more profitable in the long term than an investment strategy that doesn’t, hence causing a change in the way major funds invest, hence causing a change in the way companies behave.

“In the end, we hope to be one of many firms in this emerging system that will make sustainable investing mainstream. We believe it is inevitable that the broader capital markets will eventually embrace not just the idea of research into non-traditional factors that impact performance, but also explicitly recognise that the way businesses manage the risks and opportunities related to global social, economic, environmental and political issues fundamentally impact the ability of companies to generate value for their shareholders in an enduring way.” – Al Gore.

Of course, you might say that sort of long term systems thinking is the reason Gore lost in 2000, because it’s utterly opaque to the average swing voter, but ironicly the thinking behind the 4-5 party line vote that really counted was surely even more opaque.

Musing on what might have been we have this great skit from Saturday Night Live.

PS: Check out the new Swicki in my sidebar. Developed by some friends of mine here in Christchurch, they’re pretty neat.