Corporations Determine Our Future
Vancouver company Invinity Energy Systems is investing heavily in large-scale batteries that can store and harness renewable energy. Each of these shipping container-sized batteries is capable of providing enough electricity to power 15 to 20 houses when the sun goes down on solar panels or when the breeze stops turning wind turbines.
How do we shift from our current economic system, which is exhausting resources and causing serious, long-term crises, to a more sustainable one? How can we establish an economy that will benefit our children and grandchildren?
What some economists refer to as the Death Economy results in resource depletion, environmental degradation, and climate change. Driven by the goal of maximizing short-term profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs, it dominates our current global economic system. The emerging Life Economy, by contrast, emphasizes long-term benefits by rewarding investors and paying people who clean up pollution, rejuvenate destroyed environments, recycle, and develop technologies that do not ravage and pollute the earth and atmosphere. Although many (including this author) have criticized global corporations for the power they wield over governments and communities, they are positioned to lead the transformation of the Death Economy into a Life Economy.
Corporations are the driving forces behind most governments, including those of the world’s two largest and most influential economies, the US and China. A growing number of private investors, financial institutions, and corporate executives in both countries – as well as many others – recognize that the future belongs to business leaders who understand the importance of earning enough short-term profits to invest in this long-term opportunity.
Combined, the US and China contribute 43 percent to the world’s GDP. Together, these two countries have been the major causes of climate change and pollution (e.g. creating nearly 40 percent of global fossil fuel CO2). Both nations also enjoy significant influence in many other countries, through their development banks, trade agreements, and investment portfolios. They set examples throughout the world. Government policies that impact the global economy and environment in both the US and China are driven by corporate policies and pressures.
Elected officials in the US depend on corporations and their stakeholders to fund their campaigns. They also know that their loyalty to corporations will land them lucrative consulting or lobbying jobs when they leave government. The relationship between government and corporations in China differs but is equally important. More than 70% of China's Fortune 500 companies are state-owned. They represent 78% of total revenue and 84% of all the assets of China’s Fortune 500 companies. Unlike Washington, Beijing isn’t dependent on corporate taxes to finance government actions because it profits from corporate successes.
Here are a few of the many examples of how global corporations in both countries (and throughout the world) can catalyze the shift from the Death Economy to the Life Economy:
Corporations have the capacity to influence people around our planet. Corporate executives, unlike politicians, do not feel they have to take xenophobic positions or pit countries against each other. They can leverage their influence and form partnerships with various stakeholders from many different cultures and nations. By collaborating with governments, other businesses, NGOs, and local communities, they play the role of global diplomats who promote collective action towards sustainable goals and best practices.
They have a role as global messengers. Through advertisements, videos, conferences, and other activities, they can educate people on every continent about the need for change. They are positioned to highlight actions they take to promote the Life Economy – and tell their stories in ways that inspire others.
Their extensive capital and other resources can facilitate research and development into innovative technologies and processes that support sustainability. For example, corporations spearheaded breakthroughs in renewable energy, non-fossil fuel burning transportation, zero-waste processes, and sustainable packaging and technologies.
Corporations can use their influence to promote transparent and ethical practices, including supporting fair wages and working conditions, eliminating child labor and racial and gender discrimination, reducing emissions, fostering responsible sourcing and supply chains, and prioritizing local suppliers and communities.
By developing goods and services that pay people to mine the plastics in the oceans, rejuvenate coral reefs, replant forests, recycle and other such activities, they contribute to economic development, social empowerment, and environmental stewardship.
They can redefine “success” to include the goal of creating a world that future generations will want to inherit. In the process, they teach investors and other stakeholders of the need to embrace long-term objectives, such as zero-waste manufacturing processes, living wages, internalizing “externalities” in accounting practices, promoting race, gender, and income equality, ending wars, and committing to a wide range of regenerative practices.
By setting ambitious sustainability goals, using metrics to track progress, and disclosing environmental and social impacts, corporations can convince governments to levelize the playing field and pass laws that foster social responsibility and environmental stewardship.
As they integrate markets and supply chains between countries that politicians denounce as “enemies” (e.g., the US and China) they demonstrate the interconnectedness of people around the world. They can spread the knowledge that people everywhere have the same needs of clean air and water, productive soils, good nutrition, adequate housing, community, and love, and that, despite the efforts of politicians to convince us otherwise, there’s no “them” and “us;” we’re all in this together. In doing so, corporations can promote peace over war and the Life Economy over the Death Economy.
Many companies have committed to activities that support the Life Economy. Various lists include those from a wide variety of businesses: Patagonia, Panasonic, New Belgium Brewing, IBM, Seventh Generation, BMW, Ikea, HP, and Ben and Jerry’s to name a few.
As I travel to many countries, giving talks about the need to transition from a Death Economy to a Life economy, I find that people everywhere are recognizing the need to change. This is reflected in ideas around and commitments to Conscious Capitalism, benefit corporations, the Green Economy, the development of renewable and alternative energy, vegetarianism, shopping consciously, and many other activities. People more and more are recognizing the power they have as consumers, employees, and investors. And smart executives are taking advantage of these ideas to act in ways they know will make a better world for their own children.
One example is HP (formerly Hewlett Packard), a Fortune 100 company that was ranked by Newsweek as the number one most responsible American company in 2022. Its chief marketing officer Vikrant Batra told me:
“We've eliminated deforestation in HP paper and packaging since 2021. We're also addressing every printed page on HP devices to counteract deforestation by 2030. We use recycled materials in our products and aim for 75% circularity by 2030. We've improved the lives of 400K supply chain workers and 100M people through education programs. In 2 years, we've impacted 20M people and plan to double that by the end of 2023. We're not stopping there. Our goal for the decade ahead is to address inequities in healthcare and economic opportunity. Bottom line, we're in it for the long haul, and our investors see the value in that.”
We live at a time of global crises, including climate change, environmental destruction, species extinctions, income inequality, and resource depletion. Corporations are positioned to lead the transition from this current degenerative economic system to one that is based on the goal of maximizing long-term benefits for people and nature, a Life Economy.
Corporations exert immense power over governments, including the two that create nearly half the world’s economy and pollution, those of China and the US. They can establish priorities that include paying people to clean up pollution, rejuvenate damaged environments, recycle, and champion social programs such as fair trade, living wages, anti-discrimination, and better education and health care. By leveraging their vast resources, global corporations are uniquely qualified to lay the foundation for a thriving future.