Business leaders and policymakers often find themselves in a quandary when they attempt to anticipate or evaluate the long-term consequences of their decisions for all stakeholders. This is not only due to the uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity and pace of change that characterise today’s environment, nor the turbulence of their ecosystems, pressure from shareholders or a lack of the appropriate tools, measures and methods to assess the impact of their decisions. The reason is actually more fundamental; it is due to their reliance on an obsolete paradigm.1
Between profit, people and our planet they privilege the first, guided by short term objectives and the implicit assumption that “growth” will be indefinite. As we now know, the effect of this is threatening the future of generations to come. Today, when the house – our ‘Common House’ – is burning, fundamental questions must be asked and the old models challenged, and quickly, in order to save both people and the planet.
It is not only our gospel of “growth” that is being questioned, but... our basic model of management, of income performance distribution and of the Man-Nature interface.
Given this high-risk context, it is not only legitimate but imperative that we question whether or not business schools, public affairs institutions and universities in general are doing a good enough job when it comes to producing rigorous and relevant knowledge 2 and developing responsible leaders willing and able to take the decisions and actions our society urgently needs. Based on many years’ experience in management education, I propose first to share some of the lessons I have learned along the way, and then develop the argument that a mindset change is a categorical imperative if we are to manage the transition to save our planet, protect future generations and ensure that business becomes a force for good.
A monumental victory for our planet
Oil giant Shell was ordered by a Dutch court in May 2021 to slash its emissions harder and faster than planned. Shell had pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% within a decade, and to net-zero before 2050. But the court ruled that Shell must reduce its emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels by 2030. Photo: Dreamstime
THE PANDEMIC AS AN OPPORTUNITY
The COVID-19 pandemic – the cause of over five million deaths (so far) – is a powerful and timely reminder of our fragility as human beings, of our interdependence as countries and of the vulnerability of our economies. The COVID-19 crisis has been an experience rich in lessons, its effect compounded by rapidly increasing anxiety over an even more burning issue – that of climate change. The outcome has been to push the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries into recognising the imperative for change and progressively raise global awareness of the fact that something is wrong with the dominant model in our societies 3 In the ASEAN region, businesses are learning from both the transformation process currently taking place among their ten countries and from the efforts, experiments and measures they observe occurring in the world outside their region. Today, confidence in the dominant neo-liberal paradigm that economic growth will “lift all the boats”, that human capacity will drive “progress” and that technological innovation will be conducive to greater human happiness – all these are increasingly being challenged. Moreover, it is not only our gospel of “growth” that is being questioned, but the very foundation and mindset that drives not just our search for “performance” and constant “productivity gains”, but also our basic model of management, of income performance distribution and of the Man-Nature interface.
Breaking the economic wheel
With today’s climate crisis, debates around degrowth have been reinvigorated: many major figures such as Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis and Anthony Giddens have expressed support for the idea. For others though – especially business leaders – degrowth is completely unthinkable, not least because of the anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist roots of the term.
Photo: Paul Sableman / CC by 2.0
The pandemic’s dramatic impact worldwide has brought home to us not only the vanity of our confidence in a capitalist model4 meant to drive our civilisation toward better times, but has forced us to rethink our concept of sustainability. It is not a question of pessimism, of falling victim to catastrophism or to collapsology ideology.5 Rather, the growing frequency of extreme events, the clearly Anthropocene origin of this zoonosis pandemic,6 the rapid shrinkage in biodiversity and the dramatic income disparities between and within countries, all these are forcing us to question the way we lead and manage corporations and society and to doubt our belief in the endless pursuit of “growth” in a world of finite resources.
The clear imperative to “reimagine capitalism”7 represents a serious challenge for everyone – including (and particularly in) the ASEAN region – where economic growth is the cornerstone of the development process. There, the small voice of degrowth advocates goes unheard (and in any case would be judged irrelevant) while frugality is seen as an imperative only for rich countries.
THE DOMINANT NEO-LIBERAL MODEL CHALLENGED
Today, income disparities, climate change, fragility and the risks linked to the financialisation of the economy underline the fact that the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of government have too often proved (with the possible exception of Singapore) to be inefficient and ineffective in addressing the societal and environmental challenges we face. Trust in government and in corporate leadership has been progressively eroded and, in some countries, has disappeared altogether. The corporation’s negative externalities – of corruption and corporate malfeasance – have been increasingly exposed,8 strongly damaging the corporate image. Given the ruthlessly competitive global environment in which corporations find themselves trapped and the uncertainty and volatility of the business context, the temptation to cut corners, to avoid taxes through fiscal paradises, to pay bribes, to treat people as “resources” to be used (and abused) – are common throughout the world and well-documented.
Innovation for a renaissance is needed – if not a “revolution” – both in our thinking and in our actions. The dominant model can no longer be maintained under the slogan “There Is No Alternative”.
Operations in the shadow
Although lobbying can be a positive force in democracy, it can also be a mechanism for powerful groups to influence laws and regulations at the expense of the public interest. In 2021, major corporations including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, backed a clutch of corporate lobby groups to oppose the proposed USD3.5 trillion budget bill which contains unprecedented measures to combat the climate crisis.
Photo: Chris Leboutillier / Unsplash
Awareness of these dysfunctions and knowledge of their multicausality have resulted in a patchwork of proposals that, too often, fail to address the roots of the problem, while confidence in our complex global system – that the hand of government cannot really control (Guéhenno, 2021) – has been shaken or destroyed. Today, the situation makes change imperative. Sustainability and energy transition will require massive investment in infrastructure and innovation (for example for shifting from brown to green to decarbonise our economies) besides support from governments and a transformation in consumer behaviour.
Hence, innovation for a renaissance is needed – if not a “revolution” – both in our thinking and in our actions. The dominant model can no longer be maintained under the slogan “There Is No Alternative”. The pandemic experience, together with its social, economic and geopolitical consequences, has illustrated the limits of some tools and practices, like environmental, social, and governance (ESG), corporate social responsibility (CSR), impact investments, and so on. In such a context the temptation to return to the world before COVID-19 (to ‘business as usual’) would be suicidal. Imagination, together with a willingness to take risks, to act with ‘discernment’ and courage, are desperately required. We urgently need to adopt a new paradigm, as we now understand that the cost of inaction will be larger than the cost of action, and that we are very late in inducing the changes necessary to solve the many problems we have created.
BP or not BP?
Activist theatre group BP or not BP? mounted the biggest protest in the British Museum’s 260-year history in February 2020. The three-day action began with a 13-foot Trojan Horse being hauled into the Great Court by activists, and culminated in a protest of 1,500 people at the BP-sponsored exhibition “Troy: Myth and Reality”. The British Museum, Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery have been widely criticised by artists, activists and many others for lending legitimacy to a corporation that contributes to environmental disasters and climate change.
Photo: Mike Goldwater / Alamy Stock
THE NEED FOR A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE
To organise training in ethics,9 to promote CSR (beyond greenwashing), to better measure ESG,10 to claim good intentions or engage in impact or globally responsible investments, could help curb the temptation to cut corners. Such measures might help improve the corporate image and possibly the morale of employees11 but, in truth, they will only represent a modest attempt to empty the lake (or sea) of negative externalities with a spoon. We urgently need to address the origin of the water – the source – that fills the lake.
The source is now commonly identified as the dominant model of capitalism which – despite its well-recognised achievements – has driven corporate behaviour towards a single-minded pursuit of a single goal: to maximise the benefit for a privileged stakeholder, the shareholder. The obsolescence of the Friedman model is now clearly visible, abundantly documented not only in the OECD countries (where every day we see its negative human and societal consequences, along with the perverse relationship between Man and Nature) but also observable in emerging economies often keen to emulate the dominant model. We must therefore re-think and re-define the purpose of the corporation12 and identify the many implications of a move from a shareholder to a stakeholder model.13 Nothing less than a revolution is required: the change of mindsets, priorities, values and of the model itself has become an imperative, albeit one difficult to translate into action. In reality, changing the ‘purpose’ of the firm will have an impact on a number of the firm’s systems (leadership, information, decision-making, supply chain, data mining and usage, motivation, management control).14 However, the natural human allergy to change,15 the desire of those in power to maintain their positions and influence,16 the reluctance to take risks, the short-term view and selfish individualism – these are just a few of the obstacles on the road towards an effective paradigm shift.
A DIFFICULT PARADIGM SHIFT
This will require, as Rangan states17 so well, a shift in emphasis from output to outcome, from productivity to protectivity, from incentives to roles, from regulation to education and training, from centralisation to decentralisation. In many organisations that have already gone down that road, these changes have had an impact on the models, methods and measures previously used and have ultimately nurtured a different corporate culture.18 Looking at the Southeast Asian region – where the entrepreneurial drive is so prevalent, where respect for hierarchy, compliance with authority, attachment to family, a sense of belonging to a community and the importance of relationships are so visible and effective – these are features that could be leveraged in the required transition process. But to achieve such a transition process, the faculty – whether in universities, departments of economics or business schools – need to engage in research to find how to embed a paradigm based on purpose, outcome, protectivity and roles in the cultural context of the country and in the firm’s culture. This in turn means that additional resources would need to be allocated to universities in the ASEAN region to allow them to produce robust and relevant research19 that does not simply clone western studies but identifies factors in the local environment that can facilitate or hamper the necessary paradigm shift and then explore the appropriate actions to be taken. It further requires that higher education ministers remain engaged in reforming the institutional set-up. Their role should include modifying control regulations and the incentives system for faculty, encouraging the judicious cost-effective use of digital technologies and rewarding performance in the production (through research) of relevant knowledge, all while fostering efforts for self-development and the professional training of educators.
The required paradigm shift – which will hopefully become (over time) worldwide – will remain a challenge unless a country’s education system becomes an investment priority and university administration heads fully support research output, curriculum changes and faculty development. From cloning to innovation,20 the road is demanding. From docile listening to critical and creative thinking, the path is narrow. From routine to change, the slope is steep.
The need for transparency
Blockchain is revolutionising food supply chains by providing traceability, security and decentralisation when dealing with data around food. Not only does it help the industry deter food tampering, fraud and false advertising, identify wastage in food supply chains and reduce chances of food spoiling, it also allows consumers to trace their food products from farm to fork and identify greenwashing when they encounter it. Source: www.geeky.news
THE ROLE OF LEADERS
In order to initiate a paradigm shift based on a defined ‘purpose’ for the firm, giving it its own identity and providing meaning, business leaders must be in the driver’s seat. Relationships with all stakeholders and transactions between the enterprise, government and society – within the rules of the game as defined by governments and international organisations – all these will flow from the defined purpose.21 Crucially this should include the firm’s relationship with nature – a stakeholder too often neglected but at the core of the de-carbonisation transition process.22 Firms that have taken the risk and made this journey (for example B-Corp) have demonstrated the way23 – and also shown the pain a leader might face while on the road!
The challenges and difficulties en route should not be underestimated, as such processes will have a significant impact on the way things are done in the firm, on its corporate culture. The pressures linked with tradition and habits, with shareholders and financial analysts’ expectations (inducing business leaders’ short-term results focus shaping the vision), along with a possible hubris, all these may act as obstacles and handicaps that must be overcome on the road to implementation.
In OECD countries, criticisms from civic society, social network pressures for change, a new generation of investors, whistleblowers, boycotts and street noise and violence, all these act as yeast or levers for such a change process. But nothing will replace an enlightened leader willing to take risk and driven by a humanist vision, a sense of responsibility for future generations and courage.24
To aid the journey down the transformation path, we can look to a growing number of business leaders who, aware of the dangers on the sustainability road and of the lethal impact of the status quo, have already transformed their enterprises. Leaders do have power and as we know, “with power comes responsibility”. We also have some academic research and publications, education and training that can play a critical role in encouraging and possibly catalysing such a change process. The knowledge produced by academics can induce and facilitate discernment before action is taken, and provide examples and vitamins to nourish pioneer business leaders who set out on this journey.
Management educators should take a non-neutral position toward the sustainability agenda, explicitly campaign for it, and engage in engendering radical change... eventually contributing to make their institution a real force for good.
The imperative for sustainable development (as opposed to growth measured in terms of GDP) will hopefully help facilitate and accelerate the transition. The pressure for de-carbonisation, examples of effective moves toward a circular economy,25 impact investments and the many initiatives to contribute to the implementation of the 17 long-term UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), illustrate that progress is now visible along that road. The paradigm shift is on its way!
THE ROLE OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS
Business schools have a critical role to play in the paradigm shift and its implementation. They must engage in re-thinking not just the purpose and nature of their academic research but also the content and process of their teaching.26 Business schools produce knowledge, they groom future leaders, train managers, and try to enlighten current leaders, so they ‘programme’ decision makers – the men and women who have or will have power and influence. Hence, they carry a huge responsibility.
To quote Moratis and Melissen, “[i]mplementing the UN SDGs will require a more radical approach that urges business schools to develop an activist posture towards the urgent and complex challenges represented by this agenda. In the end, the SDGs call for nothing less than a thorough rethink of economic, political, social and cultural systems, and we should recognise that business schools have a key role to play in challenging and changing these systems… Consequently, management educators should take a non-neutral position toward the sustainability agenda, explicitly campaign for it, and engage in engendering radical change”,27 eventually contributing to make their institution a real force for good. The authors conclude: “As management educators, we need to encourage and enable our students to dig as deep as possible in the concept to truly foster understanding and incite action. Only then will we succeed in creating transformational and systemic change making ‘business as usual’ a thing of the past”.28 In reality, “some business schools increasingly use SDGs as a guiding framework for integrating sustainability in their curricula, but often frame them as market opportunities, sources of innovation or impact investments, thus misusing or underusing their learning potential”.29
Responsible management education
The UN Global Compact has set up a community specifically for business schools called Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). This community outlines what business schools should be teaching and how they should work towards integrating sustainability across curricula. As of today, it has over 800 signatories worldwide. Photo: iStock
Acting as a stimulus for change, universities – and, in particular, business schools – are reviewing their mission and re-thinking the messages conveyed in their graduate programmes and executive education courses, giving – for example – more importance to political economy.30 They need to be led by enlightened deans31 willing to take risks, perhaps initially working with a small group of faculty who are willing to challenge the neo-liberal model and significantly change their curriculum.32 This will possibly involve a change in their teaching methods and technologies – and certainly in the models they promote and the means and tools they offer. In short, it becomes imperative to jettison mantras such as the maximisation of value creation for shareholders, ceasing to treat human beings as a resource to be exploited for productivity gains, no longer taking a short-term horizon for return on investment, or being overconfident in technology to solve negative externalities, using accounting and tax creativity to escape regulation, outsourcing to government efforts to reduce income inequality, increasing the use of data management and algorithms to enhance the consumer’s propensity to consume or to influence children, employing subtle techniques to boost lobbying results, and so on. All these are examples that should not be part of the new paradigm, which will instead link the ‘purpose’ of the enterprise to the objective of making business the force for good it should be.
Sustainable company
Vestas Wind Systems from Denmark has been named the most sustainable company in the world in the 18th annual Global 100 ranking published by Corporate Knights in 2022. The company has successfully helped its partners avoid more than 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon emissions over the past four decades. It aims to reach the goal of carbon neutrality by 2030 without carbon offsets and produce zero-waste wind turbines by 2040. Source: Vestas
SOCIETAL CHANGE TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY
With such fundamental change in the new stakeholder’s paradigm, the environment – and attempts to measure carbon footprint33 – will necessarily become core in the strategy definition34 in the brown-to-green transition and its implementation processes. The media and citizens’ increased concern about the environment is not just a passing interest at the time of COP26: scientific articles detailing how we and earlier generations have damaged the earth abound, and they are both very explicit and data-rich. These articles make clear the quasi-inevitability of a chain reaction that will push the earth’s system beyond a threshold preventing the maintenance of the climate at a temperature compatible with human life. Since 1900, the temperature has increased by 1.1°C and if it goes beyond 2°C by 2030, we will be unable to stop the destruction of the ecosystem. A look through recent scientific observations illustrates the dangers already present: extreme events multiply in Asia (and throughout the world), animal and vegetal species are rapidly disappearing, sea levels are changing, and coral reefs are being destroyed.35
We should aim to free children from the present multiplication of needs that alienate them, ensuring that the child’s desires will no longer be transformed into needs through advertising or subliminal influences.
We cannot continue to steal from future generations: as tenants of an earth we have inherited we all have a responsibility to future generations (not yet present to raise their voices in anger at our profligacy). The house is burning, and academics – particularly in business schools which have inculcated the present crop of world business leaders with the old paradigm – should not look at the fire through the comfortable cocoon of their bubble, outsourcing action to the streets. Their responsibility is at stake. The push for change should not be left to the yellow vests or the Extinction Rebellion radicals.
CHANGE IN THE EDUCATION PROCESS
We are late. The change required which should have been initiated long ago is now, finally, leading to engagement throughout the planet. Homo sapiens is, progressively, no longer defining himself as ‘master of nature’ but as ‘part of’ nature, living in our ‘Common House’. This new definition of the Man-Nature interdependence should be on the teaching agenda from early childhood. However, implementing the new message will not be easy, as the teacher’s role is also changing.36 In educational institutions, at every level, teachers can no longer act as if authority and knowledge were coming vertically from the top (and this brings today the frequent questioning of the ‘lecture’ method’s effectiveness). Pupils now have access to knowledge through the internet and particularly through social networking, and are less willing to learn from those who have created the mess we are in and who will not be the ones to endure its consequences. Educators will have to become ‘guides’ rather than ‘masters’ (maîtres).
Ever since the “Siècle des Lumières” – the Age of Enlightenment – education (and science) has made possible emancipation, escape from superstition and from some ignorance. But at the same time, it has accompanied and fostered the development and blooming of the capitalist society based on the exploitation of natural and human resources. Today, the emphasis needs to be on relationships, interdependence and solidarity, on care and learning from each other. We should explain the benefits of limiting our consumption, of frugality, of moving toward sobriety37 in order not to further exhaust the planet’s resources. These may be difficult messages to convey: who is willing to limit himself or herself? The dominant neo-liberal model with its flow of negative externalities – today under challenge,38 sometimes violently, in many countries – is a system that aims at promoting consumption, at creating an inflation of needs, fostering mimetism (with the smart phone as its Trojan horse), exhausting natural resources and transforming the person into a consumer whose hunger is constantly fed through omnipresent advertising pressures and particularly, through the media and the screen. We should therefore aim to free children from the present multiplication of needs that alienate them, ensuring that the child’s desires will no longer be transformed into needs through advertising or subliminal influences. Schools should be a place where children can weave a relationship and solidarity with nature, and understand that we should not turn nature into a means for production, growth and profit, but that nature is an end in itself, a source of life, and that we are all part of it.
Sustainability education should be initiated from the kindergarten level. The school would then promote an understanding of the Anthropocene and become a place to discuss how scientists explain its dynamics, the potential of a circular economy based on sobriety and technological innovation, the imperative of solidarity, and cooperation in the ‘Common House’ in which we all share a common destiny.
Reimagining capitalism in a world on fire
In Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson argues that only a new form of capitalism can drive the innovation we need to build a just and sustainable world, and play a leading role in solving the three great problems of our time: climate change, inequality and threats to democracy. Source: Tobias Rademacher / Unsplash
TO CONCLUDE
The wise whistleblowers of The Limits of Growth39 warned us 50 years ago, but nobody listened to them. Today, we know that growth will not continue at the same pace and that – although for some it is still anathema to talk about its limits – amidst a global slowdown and risk of a depressed future growth potential (due to climate change, social unrest and geopolitical instability), we must carefully explore alternatives. Whether it is a proposal for “degrowth”, “a-growth”, “green growth”, we must make sure that we do not shift pollution costs to a different part of the world or just be self-covered in a greenwashed veil (which NGOs and the media will quickly uncover).
In summary, the argument proposed began with how we should use the opportunity provided by the pandemic – and the fact that it has shaken some of our strongly-held beliefs about the economy, the role of government, about society and the relationship between humans and nature – to rethink the dominant neo-liberal model paradigm. This implies taking action to correct its negative effects and engage in a revolution in our thinking. The task of defining a new paradigm to guide us – and it must be done quickly before it is too late – on the sustainable development ocean (not a blue one), imposes a change in our way of defining business, its purpose and its role in society.40 In the new model the ‘purpose’ of the enterprise is redefined as the creation and sharing of value for the good of all stakeholders. This redefinition of purpose will in turn impact the different systems within the organisation and their management, and transform the corporate culture. The paradigm shift proposed will also have a significant impact on education – particularly on higher education and specifically in business schools. These institutions will have to review and rethink their curricula, pedagogical methods and their use of digital technologies. From among the different socio-economic development and political models observable on the planet today, ASEAN countries are able to learn, not to clone one or the other, but to define the type of society they wish to develop according to their values, vision and cultural heritage.
In order to create and share value for and with all their stakeholders, corporations around the world could benefit from mutual exchanges of experience with, and learning from, companies already seriously engaged in their own transformation along the difficult road to sustainability. On that path, rethinking the complex interdependence between the person, the organisation, the society and nature will be a critical step forward. A challenging journey, but the survival of our planet as a community, as our ‘Common House’, comes at that price. And it is already very late. Is it too late?
REFERENCES
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PROF HENRI-CLAUDE DE BETTIGNIES
Prof Henri-Claude de Bettignies is the Aviva Chair Emeritus Professor of Leadership and Responsibility and Emeritus Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management at INSEAD.
He is also the Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Globally Responsible Leadership at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and former Director of the Euro-China Centre for Leadership and Responsibility (ECCLAR) that he created in Shanghai, at CEIBS, in 2006. Between 1988 and 2020, with a joint appointment at Stanford University (Graduate School of Business), he shared his time between Europe, California and the Asia Pacific region.
Many of Prof de Bettignies’ contributions have been published in nine books, and in more than 50 articles in leading business and professional journals.
MARCH 2022 | COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
Healthcare and Education for Asian Development
- “Paradigm”: a model which is “implicit” and “shared”.
- Owen, R., Macnaghten, P. & Stilgoe, J., Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society, Science and Public Policy, 39 (2012), pp 751-760.
- Porter, M. (2021), The Changing Role of Business in Society, HBS Working Paper, 30p.
- Giraud, G. & Picketty, T., Le capitalisme est-il réformable, Etudest, March 2021, pp 49-61
- Servigne, P. & Stevens, R. (2015), Comment tout peut s'effondrer, Seuil, 282p
- Keck, F. (2020), Avian Reservoirs, Duke University Press, 240p.
- Henderson, R. (2020), Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, Public Affairs, NY, 322p.
- Epstein, M. J. & Hanson, K. O. (2021), Rotten: Why Corporate Misconduct Continues and What to Do About It, Lanark Press, 183p.
- Ethical Corners, Sloan Management Review, Summer 2021, pp 18-20.
- Kaplan, R. S. & Ramanna, K., Accounting for Climate Change, Harvard Business Review, November-December 2021, pp 120-131.
- Smith, I. H., & Kouchaki, M., Building an Ethical Company, Harvard Business Review, November-December 2021, pp 132-139.
- Mayer, C. (2018), Prosperity, Better Business Makes the Greater Good, Oxford University Press, 261p.
- Porter, M. (2021), The Changing Role of Business in Society, Harvard Business School, Working paper, 30p.
- Samuelson, J. (2021), The Six New Rules of Business, Berrett-Koehler, Publishers, 202p.
- de Bettignies, H. C., L'allergie au changement, Revue Française de Gestion, Novembre 1975, 2, pp 27-36.
- Battilana, J. & Casciaro, T., Don't Let Power Corrupt You, Harvard Business Review, September-October 2021, pp 94-101.
- Rangan, S. (2018), Capitalism Beyond Mutuality, Oxford University Press, 399p.
- Polman, P. & Winston, A., The Net Positive Manifesto, Harvard Business Review, September-October 2021, pp 125-131.
- George, G., Howard-Grenville, J., Joshi, A. & Tihanyi, L., Understanding and Tackling Societal Grand Challenges Through Management Research, Academy of Management Journal, 2016, Vol 16, No 6 1880-1895.
- Voegtlin, C. & Scherer, A. G., Responsible Innovation and the Innovation of Responsibility: Governing Sustainable Development in a Globalized World, Journal of Business Ethics, 2017, 143:227-243.
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- Lovins, A., Decarbonizing Our Toughest Sectors – Profitably, Sloan Management Review, Fall 2021, pp 46-55.
- de LaTaille-Rivero, Entreprises, RSE et au-delà, Futuribles, July-August 2019, 431, pp 89-96.
- Jonas, H. (1998), Das Prinzip Verantwortung, Frankfurt, Insel Verlag, 1979, 470p.
- Atasu, A., Dumas, C. & Van Wassenhove, L. N., The Circular Business Model, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2021, pp 72-81.
- Admati, A. R., How Business Schools Can Help Restore Trust in Capitalism, Harvard Business Review, September 03, 2019.
- Moratis, L. & Melissen, F., Tapping the Hidden Potential of the SDGs, GRLI, 9/24/2021. https://responsibility.global/tapping-into-the-hidden-potential-of-the-sdgs-1876f8fb0c08
- Ibid, p. 4.
- A GRLI is study is explicit. https://responsibility.global/tapping-into-the-hidden-potential-of-the- sdgd-1876f8fb0c08
- Admati A. R., Political Economy, Blind spots and a Challenge to Academics, Chicago Booth Stigler Center, https://promarket.org/political-economy-blind-spots-and-a-challenge-to-academics
- Samuelson, J. (2021), The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World, Berrett-Koehler, 202p.
One example could be: Saul Klein, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria.
Kaplan, R. S. & Ramanna, K., op. cit, 126p.
Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H., Strategy as a way of life, Sloan Management Review, Fall 2021, pp 56-63.
And the Glasgow meeting was not very reassuring. It has been calculated that the 2022 Winter Olympics will need about 49 million gallons of water to create the required artificial snow which is both water- and energy-intensive, damaging soil health and causing erosion. According to one commentator: “These could be the most unsustainable Winter Olympics ever held... These mountains have virtually no natural snow.”
Hétier, R. & Wallenhorst, N., L'éducation à l'heure de l'anthropocène, Etudes, Mars 2021, pp 63-73.
Le Teno, H., La mutation de l'économie à l'ère de la rareté, Futuribles, Juillet-Aout 2019, pp 73-86.
In fact, recent demonstrations and media platforms reveal that many children have already digested this message and recognise only too well that the greed of earlier generations is responsible for the critical state of the planet. The many adolescent followers of Greta Thunberg show that environmental activism today begins early among the young, who are aware that their futures are at stake, and are more than ready to challenge those in positions of political and economic power who have been too slow to take action and ensure the transition toward a sustainable future.
Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. & Behrens III, W. W. (1972), The Limits to Growth, New American Library, 200p.
King, M., Stakeholder collaboration will help companies and society thrive, Financial Times, May 24, 2021.
