Abstract
In this chapter, I engage with two leading and complementary contemporary theories of economic and business sustainability – the macroeconomic concept of sustainability as an intergenerational equity of transferring wealth from present to future generations, and the microeconomic approach of Creating Shared Value that offers new ways of connecting business strategy, economic growth and social prosperity. In both theories, I explore the idea of positive investments and their innovative distributive strategies that pursue sustainable long-term growth and offer solutions to existing and future economic, societal and environmental risks. These approaches re-envision the way we can think of and measure sustainable development at national and corporate levels, prompting governments, local communities, investors, citizens, and businesses to find novel forms of participation and collaboration in global and interconnected markets.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Rockefeller & Co. or its affiliates.
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The idea of sustainability as positive investments is implied in other literature on sustainable forms of capitalism. For example, some authors consider positive investments as the ability of the market system to “engage and deliver positive results for an ever-growing number of the world’s citizens.” This notion refers to the ability to better manage capitalism’s damaging environmental and other impacts, while amplifying and disseminating the benefits of capitalism more widely (Bower et al. 2011). According to others, positive investments should serve as a means to stop diminishing economic prosperity that is thought to be a result of an oversupply of destructive products like “bad” loans (i.e. over creation of “bads”) and undersupply of “good” products (i.e. under creation of “goods”) – products that have authentic benefits like health foods. Sustainable capitalism requires reversing this imbalance by increasing investments in global public “goods” and mitigating the risk of global public “bads” (Haque 2011).
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Vargova, M.M. (2013). Sustainability and Business at a Crossroads: The Idea of Positive Investments in Creating Shared Value. In: Taticchi, P., Carbone, P., Albino, V. (eds) Corporate Sustainability. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37018-2_4
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