Suchergebnisse

4 June 2013 marked the formal launch of the third generation of the Equator Principles (EP III) and the tenth anniversary of the EPs – enough reasons for evaluating the EPs initiative from an economic ethics and business ethics perspective. This chapter deals with the following questions: What has been achieved so far by the EPs? Which reform steps need to be adopted to further strengthen the EPs framework? Can the EPs be regarded as a role model in the field of sustainable finance and CSR? The first part explains the term EPs and introduces the keywords related to the EPs framework. The second part summarises the main characteristics of the newly-released third generation of the EPs. The third part critically evaluates EP III from an economic ethical and business ethics perspective. The chapter concludes with a summary of the main findings.

The recent antitrust discourse in the U.S. is dominated by references to Brandeis and the New Brandeis movement. While it is laudable that many researchers acknowledge Brandeis' work and recognize its business-ethical importance, it is also a missed opportunity to refer to him en passant and not investigate his philosophy in more depth. The following sections attempt to fill this gap in the academic literature by critically evaluating—and comparing—Brandeis' social philosophy with the one of the New Brandeis movement. The research questions of this paper are twofold: First, it analyzes the parallels and differences between Brandeis and neo-Brandeisianism. Second, it addresses the question of which references to his work are valid and legitimate and which ones are not. The paper shows that Brandeis' work encompasses much more than just competition policy; reducing him to antitrust issues (only) does not do him justice as it ignores significant parts of his social philosophy. The paper also shows that Brandeis was skeptical of big business and big government. In contrast, the new Brandeis movement focuses solely on antibigness in the economy while ignoring Brandeis' demand(s) in the political sector.