Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take

Product Description
Runaway climate change and rampant inequality are ravaging the world and costing a fortune. Who will help lead us to a better future? Business.
These massive dual challenges—and other profound shifts, such as pandemics, resource pressures, and shrinking biodiversity—threaten our very existence. Other megatrends, such as the push for a clean economy and the unprecedented focus on diversity and inclusion, offer exciting new opportunities to heal the world, and prosper by doing so. Government cannot do this alone. Business must step up.
In this seminal book, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston explode fifty years of corporate dogma. They reveal, for the first time, key lessons from Unilever and other pioneering companies around the world about how you can profit by fixing the world's problems instead of creating them. To thrive today and tomorrow, they argue, companies must become "net positive"—giving more to the world than they take. A net positive company:\nImproves the lives of everyone it touches, from customers and suppliers to employees and communities, greatly increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process.
Takes ownership of all the social and environmental impacts its business model creates. This in turn provides opportunities for innovation, savings, and building a more humane, connected, and purpose-driven culture.
Partners with competitors, civil society, and governments to drive transformative change that no single group or enterprise could deliver alone.\nThis is no utopian fantasy. Courageous leaders are already making it real—and the stakes couldn't be higher. With bold vision and compelling stories, Net Positive sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.
Join the movement now at netpositive.world
Review
"The bottom line is that Net Positive clearly lays out the case that businesses should be able to do well by doing good. Drawing on the important example of Unilever during Polman's tenure, it's also a high-level guide for organizations to more aggressively contribute to combating climate change and inequality." — Charter
"It makes a more optimistic case for courageous progressive companies and their leaders, who can offer practical, positive ways of tackling environment, social and governance issues." — Financial Times
Advance Praise for Net Positive:
"A wonderful rallying call to business leaders all over the world to step up to the greatest opportunity, and responsibility, of our time." — Sir Richard Branson, founder, Virgin Group
"Net Positive will be pure heresy to all those who still subscribe to the failed dogma of shareholder primacy—which is exactly why we need it." — Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO, Thrive Global
"A compelling and inspiring case that businesses can—and should—boost their bottom lines by contributing to their communities and protecting the environment." — Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States; Nobel Peace Prize winner; Chairman, Generation Investment Management
"Carefully considered and deeply rooted in the real world of management." — Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft
"Don't call it a 'business book.' Net Positive fundamentally rethinks the way human beings—CEOs, politicians, and activists—can together reset our planet's trajectory." — Paul Hawken, author, Drawdown and Regeneration
"Polman knows that when leading CEOs stand up for a more equitable world, governments are much more likely to do the same." — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organization; Finance Minister of Nigeria, 2003–2006 and 2011–2015
"Net Positive turns courage and principled action into an electrifying strategy for business success. It's powerful, persuasive, and unlike any other book you've read." — Ken Frazier, Executive Chairman, Merck
About the Author
Paul Polman works to accelerate actio