With negative economic, social, and environmental indicators spiraling, there is still hope on the horizon. Hope can be found in the rise of the social purpose business: the company that uses its expertise, resources, relationships, influence and reach to help solve society’s problems. Imagine a future in which the purpose of all business was to improve society in some way, whether by addressing income inequality, tackling food insecurity, conserving the world’s forests, or hastening a circular economy. If businesses unlock their resources and assets to put society on a sustainable footing, there is hope for humanity’s future.
However, this trend, while escalating, is at nowhere near the pace needed to ensure nine billion people can live well on the planet by 2030. It took a hundred years to entrench today’s business model, but we do not have the luxury of another hundred years to transform it.
Enter the Purposeful Policy Platform—a set of measures all levels of governments everywhere can deploy to accelerate the Purpose Economy. As defined by the Canadian Purpose Economy Project, the Purpose Economy is an economy powered by the pursuit of long-term well-being for all in which business and regulatory and financial systems foster an equitable, flourishing, resilient future. And governments hold the key to its realization.