Only enterprises that care for the needy, or protect the environment, or exhibit proven levels of social conscience will flourish in the next 50 years-or less

Consider these examples:

• In early November, in a sleepy town of Baramati in rural Maharashtra, a tall, old man with a long tilak on his forehead and a red turban on his head launched a high-speed wireless network to help farmers surf the Web and find the right prices at which to sell their produce. The distinctly non-Maharashtrian stranger was Craig Barrett, 67 and the project was part of Intel's $1 bn plan that the giant announced in May to help the poorest regions in the world to use technology to bridge the digital divide.

• Bill Gates has donated some $5.4 bn over the past five years to boost health standards in countries that need the most help. That's more than John D Rockefeller gave to all his causes in his 97-year lifetime, according to The Miami Herald. The World Health Organization credits the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with helping save 670,000 lives from disease and death, worldwide.

• Motorola Corp makes specially designed mobile phones priced at under $30 for people in the poorest countries who have never used them before.

• Microsoft Corp is rolling out 50,000 computer kiosks in rural India over the next three years. This will help farmers access crop prices and government land records. "This is a good way to do long, long-term business development," Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Microsoft India told The Wall Street Journal recently.

• Google's founders have set up a $1 bn seed fund to tackle poverty, disease and global warming. Its first project is to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline. The goal of the project is to reduce dependence on oil while alleviating the effects of global warming.

Is all this a big PR stunt? Have these companies discovered their hidden moral and social conscience? Or have they found the next version of corporate nirvana?

You won't be wrong in thinking there's a bit of truth in each. But there's more. The amounts involved-$1 bn and above in each case-go beyond any PR by anyone, anytime. The people involved-the leaders in their field-won't lend their name or stake their reputation on projects that don't make a big difference. And the enlightenment of the corporate soul, so to say, is something that is morally irreversible.

The fact is that our fragile planet is threatened. For one, blatant disregard for the environment has led to global warming which is upsetting the delicate balance of the earth. For another, overfishing is depleting our oceans while rapid development is shrinking our forests and decimating our biodiversity. And for a third, poverty, hunger and disease, and the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots have kept huge chunks of the earth's population in a permanent state of damnation.

Governments alone can't solve the earth's problems. Large conglomerates have to step in. They have the reach of multilateral agencies such as the WHO and WWF. All they need is the awakening of their social conscience. That seems to be happening now.

Over the next few years, expect this trend to rapidly accelerate. And companies that don't exhibit policies to specifically care for the needy, or protect the environment, or respect animals, or enhance our biodiversity, will not-and should not-survive in the tough global economy.

It makes business sense too. Investors who put their money on socially responsible firms will technically be investing in higher quality companies. A managing director who promotes ethical values and environment friendly policies is less likely to get hit by lawsuits and bad publicity.

There are also now a new breed of fund managers who invest in "ethical stocks" and shun companies that test drugs on animals, or pollute the oceans, or burn down forests...

Over the next 50 years or less, get ready to welcome a spate of companies that put ethics above profits, and concern for the environment above RoI. In the process, the chief executive officer also becomes the chief ethics officer. As for investors, they will insist on getting an audited ethics and environment report together with the annual report.

That's the only way for companies, governments-and the earth itself-to survive.

Page(s)   1