Reflections

Short reflections - on books I've read and on wider experiences - a paragraph or two on what stuck with me. See also my Bookshelf and Questions.

Building blocks and eating the elephant

Someone asked me recently how you build a standard or a benchmark that stays technically rigorous while remaining simple enough that people will actually use it. It's probably the biggest challenge with a lot of these. After thinking about it, and reflecting on what worked well for us as we were building out the ISSB standards (IFRS S1 and IFRS S2), I think two things in particular disproportionately help.

Structure first. Simple frameworks that can be easily communicated help a lot, especially in a building blocks format (e.g. GICS sectors → industries → sub-industries, or the TCFD's four pillars of Governance, Strategy, Risk Management and Metrics). At the ISSB we actually maintained the TCFD architecture within our standards as it was a familiar blocking & hierarchy for the industry, versus trying to start with something that wasn't yet widely conceptually understood. Pulling back out of the weeds and organizing the complexity into a structure or hierarchy as a starting point is immensely helpful. Humans are wired to do this anyway. A "leg", an "arm" - these are humans coming up with concept blocks to describe / present a conceptual hierarchy for something much more complex (hundreds of bones, billions of cells). This structuring lets the rigor then sit inside the blocks rather than in front of them.

Then start simple and build over time. Following on blocking, one of the hardest things for any implementer is starting. If you can make it easy to onboard with a simple starting point and guidance, and then provide the option for deeper work in future, it makes it all much easier. Just like you'd be immensely overwhelmed going into a 400-level CompSci class and trying to ace the test versus starting at CompSci 101. We did this at the ISSB by instituting "transition reliefs" for more complicated disclosures, starting with climate (already relatively established) before broadening out to other topics, and encouraging gradual adoption.

Building blocks, one thing at a time. These are really the same move on two axes: spatial and temporal decomposition. Blocking in space, blocking in time. The more simple and structured you can make it from the outset, the more likely people are to grok your framework and explore deeper as they get more comfortable. As the joke goes, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time".

Essays in Persuasion - John Maynard Keynes

Reading Keynes today is almost like using a time machine. So many of his reflections are mirrored in our own public problems that at times I felt I was reading an op-ed in a modern newspaper, written by a thoughtful and sometimes comic economist (I laughed out loud at a few of his comments).

His writing on the productivity lost to high unemployment and to poorly matched work landed particularly hard in the context of my work at Better Society Capital. Many of the social enterprises we support exist precisely to help people who have lost their livelihood, or their footing, after a destabilising life event (e.g. Emmaus UK) and to help them become contributing, earning members of society again.

It makes me wonder what it would look like to have adequate systems in place so that the floor does not fall out from under people in the first place: support through the destabilising moment, and then a gentle route back into work. I suspect the reduction in the long-run burden on the welfare system, and the public savings that would follow, would be substantial.

Emmaus UK site visit (Emmaus Bristol)

A few weeks ago we visited an Emmaus UK site in Bristol. Emmaus is a concept that started in France in 1949, founded by a priest called Abbé Pierre, to support unhoused men following World War II by providing safe accommodation and support. When the initial founder struggled financially to support the community the members of Emmaus went out into Paris, searching for trash and scraps that could be repurposed and recycled to provide a steady income stream. This model not only helped to financially support those living at Emmaus but gave "companions" (the name for residents) meaningful employment and work.

It's worth noting that in 2024 Emmaus International published an independent report containing allegations of sexual assault and harassment against Abbé Pierre, and Emmaus has said that it believed the victims. It strikes me that the movement has carried on and been successful regardless, which suggests it was never really built on or reliant on the founder in the first place. The companions run the enterprises, always have, and the model functions successfully on its own merit.

The model was adopted by a number of countries and social enterprises in the following years, and the first Emmaus site came to the UK in 1989. The Emmaus site in Bristol today houses 56 companions - staying from anywhere from one year to twenty years - and the site runs not only a successful on-site thrift store, but also sells through eBay stores, has a number of companions building furniture, lamps, art, has members working in the kitchens, gardens, and overall sustains the community by doing so. Generally about 10 companions will move on in a year, some planned departures and others unplanned. From 2018 to 2021 93% of Emmaus households (a family, a couple or a single person) successfully managed their licence or tenancy, either staying in employment at Emmaus or moving on in a planned way.

Speaking to companions at Emmaus I not only heard a deep love for their community, but also how much pride many members had in their work when given the opportunity to do so. Many members found their way to Emmaus after traumatic experiences including losing loved ones, sudden loss of employment, challenges with mental health, sudden relationship challenges, among other reasons. The grounds were beautiful with large sculptures, beautifully tended-to gardens; it was clear a lot of love had been poured into the site. One of my favourite things to see was beautiful artistic lamps created from scraps by an in-house artisan, and a list of community activities and competitions hosted for companions living on-site. It seemed like a fun and lively place to live!

I deeply feel that this kind of support through difficult moments - safety, shelter, community, meaningful work - can be incredibly effective at bringing people back into society. I wish all those who have had to go through these experiences could have some place of peace in which to recover.

Something that challenged my thinking was that some companions stay for twenty years, and that the 93% figure counts staying at Emmaus and moving on from Emmaus as the same success, when they are really opposite outcomes; almost every framework I work with is built to reward people moving on, and I am not sure any of them would know what to do with someone who arrives at forty and is still there, settled and contributing and earning, at sixty. I do not think that person has failed, and I do not think Emmaus has failed them, but with the metrics we use to gauge success in the social investment space these nuances are not always so clear.

Their stores are well-loved contributors in the local community and help to reduce waste that otherwise would find its way to landfills. Places like Emmaus and the network it has become today feel like progress towards a better society, and I come away thinking that shelter, community and meaningful work are a powerful combination / recipe that can accelerate success. It also led me to reflect a bit on the measures we use that can only see one at a time, or that might lead us to certain conclusions that don't give us the full picture.

Great Britain? How to Get Our Future Back - Torsten Bell

I found this to be a useful and eye-opening read on the UK's economic predicament: flat productivity, a long and slow recovery since 2008, and ageing infrastructure.

Bell's central analysis is a simple one: Britain does not invest in itself. It is interesting to see that diagnosis being more widely accepted as a key contributor to Britain's economic malaise in economic and policy circles. The Mansion House Accord and the broader re-examination of where British pension capital actually goes both point in the same direction.

The point that stayed with me is where those savings end up. Only a small fraction of UK pension assets is invested domestically; a great deal flows into US markets instead, lowering the cost of capital for American businesses rather than funding British infrastructure and local enterprise. The savings of hard-working British citizens are, in effect, subsidising the US economy.

That is particularly painful when reading about and comparing to countries that have done this differently and succeeded (e.g. Singapore).

Despite the headwinds and challenges, I came away optimistic. There is a bright future ahead for Britain if it can get a handle on this.