Creating Shared Value Blog

This post originally appeared on The Guardian's Sustainable Business Blog.

The most notable outcome of Rio+20 seems to have been a rash of disappointed and dispirited headlines: "Rio+20 will be remembered as the unhappy environmental summit", wrote Bradley Brooks for the Associated Press. "Rio+20 = Almost Zero," complained Claude Smadja for the Business Standard. Broader commentary was no less scalding. CARE characterised the meeting as "nothing more than a political charade".

"Latin America leads the way in creating shared value" appeared on December 22 on the Guardian Sustainable Business.

In "Creating Shared Value," the Harvard Business Review cover story written by FSG co-founders Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, the authors cite numerous examples of multinational corporations (MNCs) that are increasing their competitiveness by addressing significant social issues. Companies like Nestlé, GE, Coca-Cola, and Cisco have increased their profits by hundreds of millions of dollars and had a profound impact on poverty, health, environmental, and educational challenges, by carefully considering the intersection between their business models and global social challenges.