Jillian Goltz, Chair of the organizing committee for the local community of B Corps in Alberta, implicitly explains the importance for a business to aspire to be in the top-right quadrant, “I think everyone has a role to play. I think it’s one thing for businesses to say, ‘we want to align our profit with purpose’, but you also need to look at the community that the business is in. Because if they’re not addressing the needs within their communities, from a purpose perspective, then it’s kind of irrelevant.” In addition, it is the opinion of a number of the Accelerators that in the future when determining the value a business is seeking to deliver other than profits it will need to look beyond its stakeholders and consider providing value for all of society. This approach may sound rational, but there are undoubtedly challenges for business leaders to get away from the day-to-day and short-term pressures of maximizing profits for their organizations’ next quarterly report with the goal of investing more time, effort, and resources into ameliorating their stakeholders’ well-being.
5) Creating and Measuring Societal Value: The Role of the Sustainable Development Goals “If it can’t create a societal benefit, then a business does not have a right to exist.” Faisal Kazi, President and CEO of Siemens Canada If a business leader accepts that in the not-too-distant future the purpose of a business will go beyond generating profits for shareholders, owners, and/or investors and will be about creating and sharing value with society, the next question becomes ‘What type of value for society should a business create?’ A few Survey Participants submit there is a pivotal nuance to be aware of: it is conceivable for a business to be concentrated on a given purpose and to be sharing the value it is creating, yet not be creating ‘value’ that is a net positive for society. To illustrate, Kasha Huk, points out that there is an important movement afoot to have businesses internalize the externalities of creating their products or providing their services that before now, were never taken into account. A couple of Survey Participants exclaimed that if this movement picks up steam, businesses better start to ‘future prep’ as their business models will potentially be completely outdated. Some Survey Participants - like Tamara Vrooman – explain that if the true cost that goes into producing products and services would need to be paid in totality by businesses, a significant proportion of them would not be as profitable as they are with the cost of the externalities being covered by government and ultimately the general public. There are several Survey Participants, however, expressing uncertainty regarding how best to determine what is ‘value’ for society. A notable percentage of the Business Leaders argue that determining what type of ‘value’ for society is deemed positive is subjective and thus makes it difficult for a business to deliver on something that is ill-defined. Although many of the Accelerators acknowledge that it is not necessarily easy, they believe there is a way to determine what is of ‘value’ to society objectively using the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (hereinafter referred to as the “SDGs”).
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