For pioneering work in developing standards and methods that today enable and encourage thousands of enterprises worldwide to pay attention to, measure, report, benchmark, and improve their environmental and ethical “footprints,” a joint award of the Society’s Medal (Society for Progress) is made to Robert K. Massie and Allen White, co-founders of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); and to Jean Rogers, for creating the independent Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) which helps firms to better measure and disclose, on an industry-specific basis, sustainability information that is material to the proper pricing of their securities by investors and creditors.

About the ‘Progress Medals’

The INSEAD Society for Progress is an academically diverse and independent group of scholars and leaders.  The Society has awarded a set of medals for pioneering research and leadership in developing the economic system to achieve greater fairness and well-being.

The inaugural ‘Progress Medals’ honor four contributions to scholarship and one for leadership. Each contribution is honored with a formal certificate, a gold medal, and an award of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars.

The challenge of improving the current economic system is immense and intricate. This work would benefit greatly from attention and contributions of the best and brightest around the world. In order to encourage and recognize attention to how actors in the economy (especially enterprises) may better integrate performance and progress, the Society, with the support of donors from around the world, is establishing a set of “Progress Medals.” The hope and hypothesis is that these medals will help attract and accelerate intellectual and practical attention to the moral dilemmas emergent in our modern economy. As this effort yields the elements—models, methods, and measures—of a more evolved and satisfactory paradigm, it can help us evolve curricula in business schools. In turn, business leaders and entrepreneurs may become more attuned to their roles and not only their goals. Gradually, this should influence practice and help bring about greater fairness and well-being in the economic system.