In response to the central questions posed on the forceforgood.com website, Philip Sadler CBE - the Senior Fellow of Tomorrow's Company - reviews the books that can provide detailed answers.

Formerly philip was Chief Executive of Ashridge Business School for twenty years. He was also Senior Research Fellow for the recent inquiry - Tomorrow’s Global Company.

Why we need companies to be a force for good - The Civil Corporation, by Simon Zadek

Writing just after the turn of the century Zadek set out the challenges facing human society and argued that the successful companies of the future would be those that acted responsibly in face of these challenges.

‘Success in the ‘New Economy’ is as much about a corporation’s ability to build a sense of shared values with key stakeholders as it is about the technical quality of products and services. Corporations that achieve this will extract the maximum premium for their branded lifestyle products, get the best employees on terms that secure their committed labour to the business, and most effectively offset criticism from increasingly globalized networks of non governmental organizations.’

What is a ‘force for good' company - Built to Last,  by J Collins and J Porras

In the early 1990's researchers at Stanford University Business School (1997) carried out a study of large US businesses which have been more or less consistently successful over 50 years or more, and had become the undisputed leaders in their industries.  Characteristics of these companies were compared with those of other companies which had been less successful but which, nevertheless had also lasted well and had generally outperformed the stock market - the silver medallists as distinct from the gold medallists.

The leading companies and the others were compared on 21 characteristics. The biggest differences were found in the strength and continuity of the firms' systems of values. The most successful firms were founded on clear statements of mission, and showed historical continuity in acting in accordance with their ideologies.

Collins and Porras define corporate ideology as a combination of core values and core purpose. Core values are the organisation's guiding principles and deep-seated beliefs, which are not to be compromised for financial gain or short term expediency. Core purpose is the organisation's fundamental reason for existing beyond simply making money.

The set of values developed by Hewlett Packard serves to exemplify the approach of the ‘built to last’ companies. It is well expressed in Bill Hewlett's own words:

"I want to discuss why a company exists in the first place…. I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being…. We inevitably come to the conclusion that a group of people get together and exist as an institution that we call a company so that they are able to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish separately – they make a contribution to society."

How one company became a ‘force for good’ company - Mid Course Correction; Towards a Sustainable Enterprise: the Interface Model by Ray Anderson

Interface Flooring Systems Inc. is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial floor coverings and as a company have a long standing commitment to not only becoming fully sustainable but also to becoming a 'restorative' company, i.e. one which enhances the environment rather than depletes it.

Chief executive Ray Anderson, had an epiphany, and his response was like few others. In an address to a task force convened by Interface employees, he challenged them to make Interface a sustainable, even restorative company.

‘Take nothing more than we can give back. Close the loop and create no waste. That's the vision.’ With that, Interface and its 7,500 employees began what Anderson calls ‘the climb’ towards becoming a zero waste company.

What would that business be like? Anderson presented a seven-point plan:

·         Eliminate waste, with zero waste as a goal.

·         Benign emissions to both the biosphere and lithosphere.

·         Renewable energy (Interface just recently inaugurated a plant that uses only solar energy).

·         Close the loop on waste, with less energy used to recycle and reuse than to extract the resource.

·         Resource-efficient transportation.

·         Sensitivity hook-up: get suppliers, employers, and all the links moving in the same direction

·         Cradle-to-cradle responsibility, what we know as upstream and downstream supply chain management.      .