Framework Assessment Report
Whistle Stop Capital | December 2023
Key indicators and their associated infrastructure are an essential aspect of a shareholder engagement campaign. When the team reviewed the tech accountability standards and frameworks they found they were primarily focused on conceptual policies, not tangible or quantitative practices against which a company’s actions might be evaluated. While consistent themes emerged (algorithmic fairness, bias & discrimination, content moderation, disinformation, end user impact, freedom of expression, human rights, internet access and privacy), quantitative expectations were challenging to identify. Such quantitative metrics are precisely what equity investors find most actionable and relevant.
The research into the key indicators’ creation identified five gaps that would impede the development of a successful finance focused tech strategy:
The scope of concern must be defined
There are few researchers and few publications dedicated to investors’ understanding of the technology sector’s impact on society
Unlike climate activism, where the need to reduce greenhouse gasses is a clear unifying goal, technology’s wide impacts mean there is no unifying metric
Investors are most easily engaged on topic areas that are deemed to be material to stock performance; this link has not yet been formally created for technology’s impact on society
The lack of definition of issue-specific impacts means that best practices cannot be assessed.
