Only Companies With a Conscience Will Win

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.