Why doing good business?

There is a high chance that if you’re reached here, you already know. But here’s a quick overview on why you should do good business:

Doing "good business" is nothing more than limiting the negative overall impact your business can have on the environment and society and instead enhance the positive impacts you business can bring to communities and society in general. It doesn't matter if you are a multinational or a small retailer or service provider, all businesses inherently create an impact. It is up to every company to decide the type of impact we want to create - knowing that it will shape our communities and society. 

Having said that, citizens are urging companies to become better "corporate citizens", who actively  contribute to society, and who have values, duties, and responsibilities.  Citizens want companies to create “shared value” between businesses and the communities these are established in.

Consumers increasingly form relationships with a company on a set of expectations of how the company should behave. They also want to be able to identify with the companies' values.

It all comes down to business choices and how such choices will reflect on the type of citizen companies want to be: What are your personal and business values? What impact do you want to have in your community? What is important to your clients/users and how can you accommodate these things into your business goals? What is the corporate culture you want to have?

Close to citizens, companies can help do a lot to create positive impact via their business: from building sustainable brands which protect both consumers and the environment, encouraging ethical behaviour, setting new societal and environmental standards, creating new lifestyles or new ways of doing business, and setting practices which act as safeguards for various social issues such as child labour or corruption.  

Business survival to start:  nowadays reputation is strongly linked to business behaviour - issues the company stands up for, values it transmits, overall purpose, ethical culture. Through this new social contract, companies can also leverage the social impact they create to achieve business benefits such as enhanced reputation, employee retention, higher quality products and/or reduced costs, sustainable growth, and enhanced investor relations.

Doing good business makes business sense.  The feel-good factor of bringing value to society and knowing you’re creating positive impact through your company is indescribable (and helps you get up in the morning). So if it feels good, is profitable and can change the lives of the communities your business is in, give it a try.