Panellists including musician Brian Eno, two life peers, and Bayes Business School’s Dean discuss the concepts of ethical finance and banking explored in Professor Shah’s new book.
By Eve Lacroix (Senior Communications Officer), Published
Finance has become detached from indigenous wisdom, morality and the limits of nature, argues Research Fellow Professor Atul K Shah in his new book Organic Finance (Routledge, 2025).
He launched the Routledge research monograph at a busy event in June on campus at City St George’s, University of London, where he teaches accounting and is a member of ETHOS, the research Centre for Responsible Enterprise.
The event welcomed a panel of eminent speakers to discuss the book’s themes of ethical finance and its critiques of capitalism:
- Brian Eno, pioneering musician, activist and environmentalist
- Lord Professor Bhiku Parekh, political scientist, life peer and advocate for racial justice
- Lord Prem Sikka, fellow life peer, accountant, critic of the accounting profession and political activist
- Professor André Spicer, Dean of Bayes Business School and expert in organisational behaviour.
Organic Finance argues that money is a human construct, yet its science has detached trust, relationships and community altogether from the equation.
He argues that by bringing human, animal and natural wellbeing to the fore of finance and banking, the fields could better address major issues like poverty, sustainability and climate change.
Many of the theories are inspired by the values of Professor Shah’s Jain tradition. The ancient Indian faith teaches nonviolence, a deep respect of all forms of life, and most of its followers practice vegetarianism. Pluralism is also central to Jain philosophy, and in the book, Professor Shah weaves together very diverse perspectives.
Professor Shah described it as the result of “30 years of homework and lived experience.”
The event was attended by members of the public, musicians, students, staff, journalists, economists, accountants, members of the Jain community and more.
Speaking to the audience, Professor Shah said:
Fixing finance and banking’s culture problem
Investigations into the 2008 financial crash found a broken work culture which allowed unethical practices in banks to be a key cause of the crisis.
Yet culture remains a missing topic in the finance and banking textbooks being used to teach in universities today.
“Families and communities are ways of hedging risk,” Shah explained. “Enterprise is not just something we need to go to business school to learn but something that is part of our traditions and our DNA.”
It is these stories of community and culture that Professor Shah wants added into the finance curriculum to fix the culture problem.
“There is a reason they don’t feature – somehow culture doesn’t fit into the abstract language of maths and equations so we just ignore it,” he said.
Professor André Spicer described the book as a “difficult read for a business school Dean” but welcomed its challenge.
Musician Brian Eno echoed Professor Shah’s sentiment that ethics are lacking in the finance sector.
Eno shared a personal story about asking his accountant to pay all his taxes – rather than trying to find any workarounds – and his accountant confessing no-one had asked him to do that before.
“The 2008 financial crash should’ve ended with nearly every economist and auditor fired,” he said, citing the massive blunder of auditor KPMG stating the Lehman Brothers’ financial future looked stable and bright the week before they collapsed.
The pursuit of wealth is at odds with the natural world
Eno likened capitalism to a “the most powerful car you’ve ever seen with no brakes.”
“The pursuit of wealth is killing us. There must be wealth caps,” Eno said.
For accountant and life peer Lord Sikka, who is one of the co-founders of the Tax Justice Network, Organic Finance offers a clear-eyed view of the ways in which business practices and the education system have become divorced from the natural world with its finite resources. He said:
Lord Parekh, a global expert on multiculturalism, explained that context matters in finance. The monoculture of finance presented in the textbooks is simply not the reality, and Lord Parekh said the book has done justice to this by exposing the diversity of belief in financial practices.
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