From Profit to Purpose: Architecting the Purpose Economy

The single-minded drive for profits in modern shareholder capitalism exacts a heavy toll on society. Accelerating climate change, mounting biodiversity loss, widening inequality, and eroding public trust are among the most damaging consequences of this economic paradigm. Its focus on profit as the primary purpose of business is a threat to human and planetary well-being.

The Social-Purpose Economy Is Coming of Age

The purpose ecosystem is coming of age. You can see this when you start coming across academic research defining it and studying its potential and constraints, when you watch it come to fruition through your or others’ deliberate efforts, or when over 100 CEOs of purpose-driven companies endorse a Call to Purpose

5 Ways Companies Can Transform to Social Purpose

Too many companies still understand their purpose — or fundamental reason for existence — as maximizing profits or shareholder wealth. How can they move beyond that narrow definition of purpose, towards defining how their businesses help address society’s challenges?

The Purpose Gloves Are Off: How to Not End Up on the Ropes

Corporate Knights, the famed Canadian publisher that annually ranks the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations, recently released its rating of 34 Canadian companies with a social purpose (a report I co-authored). It found that only half of those with a social purpose invest in authentic implementation; half likely do not and are at risk of purpose-washing.

Jumpstarting Canada’s Purpose Economy

In the face of the troubling issues we confront daily, including the climate emergency, systemic racism, rising inequality and the pandemic – to which we now add the devastation in Ukraine – there is a glimmer of hope.