Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World, Third Edition

10. Building the Sustainable Global Enterprise

The chapters that came before charted the course to a more inclusive and sustainable form of commerce. Exhibit 10.1 summarizes the journey that we have taken in this book. As we have seen, greening has been an important first step because it eliminated the myth that a trade-off exists between a firm’s financial and societal performance. Driven by the realization that pollution is waste and dialogue with stakeholders is superior to court battles, greening opened the door for companies to take a proactive stance toward social and environmental issues. Indeed, pollution prevention and product stewardship have succeeded in reducing waste, emissions, and impact, while simultaneously reducing cost, risk, ...