Capitalism at the Crossroads : The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems

by Hart, Stuart L.

• ISBN13: 9780131439870
• ISBN10: 0131439871
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-01
• Publisher: Wharton School Publishing

Summary

Global capitalism stands at a crossroads-facing international terrorism, worldwide environmental change, and an accelerating backlash against globalization. Today's global companies are at a crossroads, too: finding new strategies for profitable growth has never been more challenging. Both sets of problems are intimately linked, says Stuart L. Hart-and so are the solutions.

Author Biography

Stuart L. Hart is one of the world's top authorities on the implications of sustainable development and environmentalism for business strategy

Table of Contents

About the Author	xvii
Acknowledgments	xix
Foreword: Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.	xxxi
Prologue: Capitalism at the Crossroads	xxxv
PART ONE MAPPING THE TERRAIN
chapter 1 From Obligation to Opportunity	3	(28)
The Great Trade-Off Illusion	5	(2)
The Greening Revolution	7	(2)
Shattering the Trade-Off Myth	9	(1)
Breaking Free of Command-and-Control	10	(4)
Beyond Greening	14	(3)
Raging Against the Machine	17	(2)
Smart Mobs Versus Smart Globalization	19	(2)
Becoming Indigenous	21	(2)
The Road Ahead	23	(1)
Overview of the Book	24	(4)
Notes	28	(3)
chapter 2 Worlds in Collision	31	(26)
The Three Economies	33	(7)
The Money Economy	34	(2)
The Traditional Economy	36	(2)
Nature's Economy	38	(2)
Collision Course	40	(1)
New Lenses on the Global Market	41	(3)
Developed Markets: Reducing Corporate Footprint	44	(3)
Emerging Markets: Avoiding the Collision	47	(3)
Traditional Markets: Understanding Real Needs	50	(4)
The Value Proposition	54	(1)
Notes	54	(3)
chapter 3 The Sustainable Value Portfolio	57	(28)
Sustainability Buzzwords	58	(2)
Elements of Shareholder Value	60	(2)
The Buzzword Sort	62	(3)
Connecting the Dots: The Sustainable Value Portfolio	65	(8)
Growing Profits and Reducing Risk Through Pollution Prevention	66	(1)
Enhancing Reputation and Legitimacy Through Product Stewardship	67	(2)
Accelerating Innovation and Repositioning Through Clean Technology	69	(2)
Crystallizing the Firm's Growth Path and Trajectory Through Sustainability Vision	71	(2)
Charting the Sustainable Value Portfolio	73	(3)
The Road to Sustainability	76	(2)
Pursuing the White Space	78	(2)
Notes	80	(5)
PART TWO BEYOND GREENING
chapter 4 Creative Destruction and Sustainability	85	(22)
Continuous Improvement Versus Creative Destruction	86	(7)
Greening = Continuous Improvement	87	(2)
Beyond Greening = Creative Destruction	89	(4)
From Textile Dyes to Biomaterials	93	(2)
Using Carbon Dioxide to Change the World	95	(1)
Whole Systems Thinking	96	(3)
Reinventing the Wheels	99	(3)
Technologies of Liberation	102	(1)
Eating Your Own Lunch	103	(2)
Notes	105	(2)
chapter 5 The Great Leap Downward	107	(28)
On the Horns of a Dilemma	109	(1)
The Tip of the Iceberg	110	(3)
Creative Creation	113	(4)
Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid	117	(2)
Connecting the World	119	(3)
Power to the People	122	(4)
Food, Health, and Hope?	126	(3)
A New Development Paradigm	129	(2)
Taking the Leap	131	(1)
Notes	132	(3)
chapter 6 Reaching the Base of the Pyramid	135	(28)
BOP Pioneers	136	(2)
It's the Business Model, Stupid	138	(13)
Removing Constraints	140	(4)
Increasing Earning Power	144	(4)
Creating New Potential	148	(3)
Assessing Sustainability Impact	151	(2)
Village Phones: The Triple Bottom Line	153	(3)
The MNC Advantage	156	(2)
A Common Cause	158	(1)
Notes	159	(4)
PART THREE BECOMING INDIGENOUS
chapter 7 Broadening the Corporate Bandwidth	163	(22)
Learning from Ladakh	164	(3)
The Post-Development Challenge	167	(4)
Radical Transactiveness	171	(2)
Fanning Out: Extending the Scope of the Firm	173	(3)
Fanning In: Integrating Diverse and Disconfirming Information	176	(4)
From Transparency to Transactiveness	180	(1)
From Alien to Native	181	(2)
Notes	183	(2)
chapter 8 Developing Native Capability	185	(28)
Expanding Our Concept of the Global Economy	186	(4)
Engage First, Design Second	190	(4)
Coinvent Custom Solutions	194	(2)
Experiment with Low-Cost Probes	196	(3)
Fly Under the Radar	199	(2)
Work with Nontraditional Partners	201	(3)
Build Social, Not Legal, Contracts	204	(3)
Moving Beyond the Transnational Model	207	(2)
Notes	209	(4)
chapter 9 Toward a Sustainable Global Enterprise	213	(26)
Draining the Swamp	214	(2)
The Next Tsunami	216	(2)
Becoming Indigenous	218	(3)
Avoid the Top-Down Bias	221	(2)
Think as a Disrupter	223	(1)
Reinvent Cost Structures	224	(2)
Transform the Meaning of Scale	226	(1)
Align the Organization	227	(6)
Building the Cathedral	233	(2)
Postscript	235	(1)
Notes	236	(3)
Index	239

Excerpts

Foreword Foreword For those of us unwilling to stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich, Stuart L. Hart's new book gives voice to an inescapable reality: that the corporate sector can be the catalyst for a truly sustainable force of global development for all on the planet. As the chairman and CEO of a consumer products company with global operations, I see every day the value that business can bring. I see that its products can improve the health and safety of people around the world. I see that its jobs enable parents to support their children, and allow children to achieve dreams not even imagined by their parents. I also recognize that business has provided fuel for the growing antiglobalization outcry. But despite what some see as the inevitable stain of "progress," I know there are many business leaders who share my belief that you cannot purely pursue greater profitability every quarter and have that be an acceptable mission statement. Or that improving the lives of workers in one country while degrading the environment in another is an unacceptable demonstration of civic responsibility. Short-term quarterly profits cannot trump long-term sustainability. As the author makes clear inCapitalism at the Crossroads, there is no inherent conflict between making the world a better place and achieving economic prosperity for all. Maintaining a principled commitment to global sustainability is not a soft approach to business--it is, in fact, the only pragmatic approach for long-term growth. Capitalism at the Crossroadspresents a scenario in which business can generate growthandsatisfy social and environmental stakeholders. By focusing on the four billion people currently at the "base of the pyramid," Hart contends that companies can reap incredible growth while sowing tremendous improvement in people's lives and at the same time preserving the other species that live on this planet. Business driving sustainability is not a new concept to me. The seed was planted and then cultivated throughout a lifetime of conversations with my father, Samuel C. Johnson. He shared stories about my grandfather, who traveled to Brazil in the 1930s in search of a sustainable source of wax for our products. He described his own 1975 decision to voluntarily and unilaterally ban CFCs from our products despite fervent opposition from colleagues and competitors alike. My father's pioneering social and environmental efforts led to his selection as an original member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development and as a founding member of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development. He led our family company, SC Johnson, to new heights of corporate environmental and social achievement. Perhaps most important, my father ensured that the dialogue on sustainability would continue. In 2000, he endowed the Samuel C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise, and it is this Chair that Hart now so ably and deservedly occupies. He also endowed the new Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise of the Johnson School at Cornell University. By doing so, he was fulfilling a vital obligation that Hart sets forth for business in this book: being optimistic about the future and the opportunities inherent in the global challenges we face. I share that optimism. That is why in 2001 our company unilaterally developed the Greenlist environmental classification system to institutionalize the selection of environmentally preferred raw materials and packaging components, far exceeding government regulation and driving our business with better products. It is why in 2003 we launched programs to attack the menace of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and the misery of asthma among Hispanic children in Miami. It is why in 2004 we joined with Conservation International's C