Maximising Impact Optimising Profit

Humanity faces an imminent threat to its existence on this planet. The climate emergency and biodiversity crises are a direct result of our economic system. As the main instruments of our economic system, companies play a critical role in creating and solving this threat. Therefore, this book argues that if humanity is to exist on this planet, the economic system and companies, at its foundation, need to change. For this we propose an ecological and social purpose and impact driven company structure that uses profit to further the impact. A new law is needed and under this law all new and existing companies would need to structure themselves in this new way. If they cannot abide by this new law, then they will cease to exist by law, made by people, for people and this planet. This law would enable an economic system where companies instead of maximising their profits without regarding the environmental and social cost and damages, would maximize their impact, regenerating ecological and social resilience and integrity. Companies would not only have to “not harm the planet and people” but prove to be “benefitting the planet and the people” to exist and endure as an entity. Historically companies were not built on the sole purpose to maximize profit, and it does not have to be the essential component. When we look at the historical evolution of the company and company law in different geographies, from East to West, from Japan, to China, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France, the UK and the USA, we see that they were first given the right to exist to benefit society. However the rise of the chartered companies set the stage for the company as the exploiter. We see this clearly in the Dutch East India Company (VOC), East India Company, Compagnie des Indes Orientales and Hudson’s Bay Company. Unfortunately they are seen as the precursors of today's companies. Of course there have been counter measures to exploitation such as Anti-Trust Laws against Trusts being formed where and when chartered companies left the stage. Additionally, there were reform efforts against the “exploiting company” such as “Polluter Pays Principle”, the value based approaches – “Creating Stakeholder Value”, degrowth, solidarity economics, commons movement and the critique of companies, P2P – Peer to Peer, Social Enterprises and Prosumer Economy. However these reform efforts were not sufficient as we can see in the deepening of the climate emergency and biodiversity crises. Therefore a new company law is needed. As seen in our historical tour of company laws, almost all company laws in all nations have become extremely similar, therefore as an example we have amended the Turkish Company Code to reflect what we propose globally, a new company that maximises impact and optimises profit.