What global issues face us and how can large corporations help us solve them?

 Yes, there are many global issues, because we all share the “Commons:” air, water, soil, flora, fauna, and the underprivileged. Most people don’t care about the Commons and abuse them. Some, a few, do care and are working to protect rather than abuse the Commons. IMO every person, group, company and nation share “citizenship” responsibilities to protect not abuse the Commons. Abuse of the Commons continues mostly unabated today. Millions of tons of plastics being dumped into the oceans, CO2 concentrations rising in the air, toxic landfills overflowing on the ground, destruction of atmosphere renewing flora, poor management of fauna, and mass poverty and starvation in various parts of the world. And it’s all interrelated with local intensities.

So long as corporations continue to hold sacred the VABE What are VABEs? “maximize profits” they will continue to abuse the Commons. IMO only when an alternative VABE “to maximize sustainable profits” will things change. By “sustainable” I mean profits that protect not abuse the Commons. With that VABE in hand, corporations would acknowledge their social responsibility for end-of-life recycling of their products and packaging. Imagine how that would change the design of products and packaging. I’ve noted elsewhere in Quora macro and micro examples of this need. (another one was evident on my way to see the Great Pyramids of Giza and observing the canals in Giza filled not with water but with trash—to the brim as far as one could see. )

Changing VABEs is very difficult. Humans tend to be creatures of habit at three levels, Visible Behavior, Conscious Thought and VABEs. Almost 100% at the VABE level. CULTURE is a collection of shared VABEs. So not just one person or one CEO must change for us to address these problems, rather whole teams and regions and cultures must examine and adjust their dysfunctional VABEs. Very unlikely—even in the face of death: observe the number of people won’t wear masks and yet who while dying of COVID say this can’t be happening, what is this? VABEs “trump” solid evidence. Nobel Prize went to Kahneman for that confirmation.

As long as people have implicit VABEs that allow them to abuse the Commons and take more than they give, to be net extractors, things won’t improve. We need more people in power who want to be net contributors rather than net takers. Leave your “campsite” (the space around you) cleaner than you found it. Simple VABE. Not widely shared.

That said, I think business people have a better chance of working toward “world peace” (if not cleanliness) than political or religious leaders who both continue to press for conflicts to prove their righteous correctness. At least business people are willing to compromise to make a (profitable) deal. Which most religious and political leaders are not.

In retirement I wrote a book about these issues, A Song of Humanity: A Science-based Alternative to the World’s Scriptures. Available everywhere and introduced at my website(s) Level Three Leadership