Financial analysts, the readers of this newsletter, have often limited their remarks strictly to the financial activities and performance of companies they follow. That is their mandate and, perhaps, by law or company policy that is all they should do.
This got me to thinking. In the long term, a company's policies and performance concerning personnel safety and environmental compliance should appear in their results. After all, if they are operating in an unsafe manner or receiving onerous fines as a bad environmental player, it will ultimately show up in their financial results. However, could these matters be a leading indicator? Should analysts be looking at these matters in real time for a clue as to future financial performance?
In the fine print, companies disclose pending lawsuits, fines and so forth, but this is almost after the fact. Future economic performance could be better predicted, perhaps, by looking at real time reports on accidents, reported environmental excursions and so forth.
Perhaps I just expanded your job description...
