Now, in 2020, we are all living through a crisis few could have anticipated. The COVID-19 pandemic has exaggerated the fault-lines across society. Business is no exception and the crisis is shining new light on the issues that have been driving the shift to purposeful business in recent years.
What does this type of business look like? How can we shift from an ecosystem of policies and practices driven almost entirely by financial goals to one focused on purposes that solve problems? Over the course of 2019, the Future of the Corporation programme explored the issues in more depth with a range of experts, business leaders and academics. The conclusion was a set of eight principles for purposeful business, illustrated here.
When working with Ethical Business Practice and Ethical Business Regulation there are a fair few frameworks one can draw on in addition to those set out in our eponymous book. One I find complementary and useful in the context of purpose comes from the British Academy’s Future of the Corporation Project:
Principles for purposeful business
The Academic Lead for the programme, defined the purpose of business as:
Profitably solving the problems of people and planet, and not profiting from creating problems.
"We are now living through a crisis few could have anticipated. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the fault-lines across society… These global issues cannot be mitigated without corporations themselves helping to drive urgent change." https://t.co/odrPKsDAqP
— The British Academy (@BritishAcademy_) July 20, 2020
