"CEOs of World's Largest Corporations: Shareholder Profit No Longer Sole Objective," 20 Aug 2019

In a 1970 Times magazine article, economist Milton Friedman stated that corporations exist solely to serve their shareholders and must maximize shareholder financial returns to the exclusion of all else... [N]early 200 CEOs of the world’s largest corporations did an about-face with an updated “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” from the Business Roundtable... Shareholders alarmed by growing global social and environmental risks have been vociferously raising these issues — and it is a welcome sight indeed to see that the Business Roundtable has been listening. The question is: will action follow?... Over the past few years, the Business Roundtable has been spearheading efforts to deny shareholders the right to raise the very concepts that the Roundtable has now adopted. If the Roundtable’s new statement is to be taken seriously, we expect to see it withdraw its ongoing attempts to eliminate shareholders’ voices...

... Treating employees well, with strong policies around healthcare, sexual harassment, gender equality, diversity, and justice not only attracts the best and the brightest employees, but helps to retain them over the long term, saving on a corporation’s single largest cost... Allowing slavery in supply chains, not paying living wages by suppliers, purchasing from companies that expose their workers to environmental toxicity, and cruel working conditions are practices that must end... Now that the new “Statement of the Purpose of a Corporation” has been adopted by key business leaders, and will soon be in the bylaws of all major companies, shareholders are ready to put these words into action for the benefit of all.