The last couple of days, the news has been full of reports that approaching 40 US billionaires have pledged to give away at least half of their wealth. I welcome the news that continues and perhaps even expands a great tradition.

But lets ensure the focus on giving money away doesn’t overshadow the importance of how money is made. Each dollar in these fortunes represents but a tiny fraction of many hundreds, thousands or perhaps even millions of dollars of investment decisions, product and marketing decisions, R&D decisions, lobbying and advertising decisions, made or influenced by the donors during their careers. They clearly made those decisions well from a commercial perspective, but when it comes to public responsibility we also should take into account the impact of those decisions from a societal and environmental perspective; whether to invest in a sustainable or unsustainable business, whether to launch services that help or harm economically deprived communities, ethical supply chain strategies, the list goes on through the whole gamut of corporate responsibility issues.

This principle of course applies not just to the super wealthy, but to all individuals and all companies. Our legacy is not how we gave it away, but how we made it.

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