Stakeholder Capitalism

Conclusion: The Road to Stakeholder Capitalism

In the immediate months that followed the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world as we knew it was turned upside down. Like most people, I was constrained to observing the situation from inside my home and our empty offices, and I relied on video calls to know how others were doing. In Geneva, as in so many other cities around the world, the eerie silence on the streets, devoid of cars, commerce, and the hustle and bustle of people, was only equaled in intensity by the stir in hospitals, where entire wards were hastily transformed in to makeshift COVID facilities.

In those moments of crisis, it was hard to be optimistic about the prospect of a brighter global future. Several million people lost their lives or were severely ill. Tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people lost their livelihoods. And probably well over a billion children and elderly people were cut off from the outside world, unable to learn or see their loved ones for months. The only upside, perhaps, was the temporary drop in greenhouse gas emissions, which brought a slight relief to the planet's atmosphere. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, then, that many started to wonder: Will governments, businesses, and other influential stakeholders truly change their ways for the better after this, or will we go back to business as usual? Can we, in other words, make the turn to stakeholder capitalism, or are we doomed to revert to more short-term and selfish ...