Читать книгу Fearless Innovation - Alex Goryachev - Страница 17

Thanks to a younger generation’s increasing focus on greater purpose in their work besides income, social and environmental concerns have come to play a pivotal role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As we move higher on Maslow’s pyramid, we are no longer just trying to improve life conditions for ourselves, but to ensure a better life for all, not to mention the planet’s survival. Thanks to globalization and hyper-connectivity, the environments in which many organizations exist have shifted from local to regional to global, meaning that their products and services, as well as actions and values, can now affect people all over the world.

We are witnessing the emergence of companies that are as passionate about social impact as they are about profits. These “benefit corporations,” which are popping up in the US and all over the rest of the world, are for-profit companies that produce a social or public benefit. While this definition could hypothetically be applied to a vast array of companies, those that receive Benefit Corporation designation must first meet a number of requirements, based around their impact on their community, customers, employees, and the environment.

Globally, this is turning into what’s called the “B-corp” movement, with purpose-driven companies aimed at creating benefits for all stakeholders—direct and indirect—not simply shareholders. As of 2019, there were more than 2,700 certified B-corp companies across 64 countries and 150 industries.³⁶ These companies range from household names like Kickstarter and Patagonia to others such as Animikii in Canada, a web services company owned and operated by indigenous people working to develop better economic and social outcomes for indigenous communities, and Brazil’s Natura Cosméticos SA, a publicly traded multinational worth $3 billion that has more than 2 million employees and advocates for the Amazon forest and produces carbon-neutral products.³⁷

Many of the technological, economic, and societal changes that are taking place today are truly earth-shattering, but as with everything else under the sun, they’re also somewhat temporary—there’s already talk of a fifth Industrial Revolution right around the bend. There’s no certainty about when it will begin or how it will evolve, but one thing is for sure: it will require innovation as the most crucial element for success. This is why we must always seek to understand the environment in which we live and how it’s changing. The world’s most competitive organizations, cities, and even countries have had one thing in common—they were able to anticipate and shape what’s next, while delivering value to themselves and their stakeholders. The writing is always on the wall, but if we don’t read it and act upon it, then it’s not going to do us any good.