The world turns, and tomorrow morning the sun will rise again. Just as it has done for billions of years. From this perspective, everything seems fine. In the meantime, however, monkeys are falling out of trees from the heat and tiny plastic particles can be found in the tissue of animals and plants. It is also becoming increasingly difficult for us humans to survive in many regions of the world.
As political decision-makers around the world are clearly not succeeding sufficiently in keeping our world, the basis of our existence, intact, we must all try to do our bit. By ‘we’ I mean all people who are willing to stand up for our planet.
The earth should also continue to turn economically. The economy should remain intact, as it provides the basis for jobs and tax revenues. However, I have an increasingly uneasy feeling when I take a closer look at the development of the relationship between the economy and society over the last few decades. At a global level, top managers in the 1950s earned around 20 to 30 times the average employee’s salary. In the meantime, this figure has risen to 200 to 500 times higher. The income distribution between managers and employees has therefore shifted significantly in favor of company management in recent decades.
The economy is inevitably at the center of world affairs. But does profit maximization really lead us to the best world we can imagine? What is the goal of the economy today and what should be the goal of the economy tomorrow?
Politicians around the world are panicking and clinging to the goal of growth. The growing problems are to be solved with familiar recipes. The population needs jobs to feed their families. Governments need tax revenues, e.g. to renovate the country’s infrastructure. It is becoming increasingly clear that the state coffers are barely sufficient to cover current needs. Schools, roads, bridges, everything needs money. And once again politicians are calling for ‘growth’, their apparent panacea. For over 100 years, the approach has been ‘more growth and everyone will be happy’. But our planet can no longer cope. Our addiction to growth has now exceeded the planetary tolerance limit. The growth approach has been exhausted, whether we want to admit it or not.
And what comes next? In many societies in the ‘western world’, young people no longer believe in a better life. The increasing impoverishment of the middle and lower income groups can no longer be denied. People give all their labor and are still poor. They know that they will not be able to live on their pensions. This discontent is leading to radicalization and extreme political positions around the world. Democracy is becoming increasingly shaky.
We can see that the old recipes no longer work, but we don’t dare to think publicly about fundamentally new approaches.
The national debt of many Western countries is rising. Public coffers are exhausted, while politicians are driven to run after their electorate – even if this is increasingly demanding simple, populist solutions. Those in power are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, they are dependent on the votes of the population, while on the other they have to create business-friendly conditions in order to keep the location attractive and prevent companies from moving away.
With the economic rise of Asia, the Western world’s financial leeway is shrinking. Competition between Western countries is becoming tougher and the unity of formerly stable alliances is beginning to crumble. Autocratic regimes are deliberately exploiting the weaknesses of democratic systems to deepen their divisions. Governments are under constant pressure: they want to support their people, but a significant proportion of the available funds are being channeled into the economy to secure locational advantages.
Trust in democracy is dwindling. Initially, people look to populist politicians for salvation. If this does not bring about any improvement, anger grows and is unleashed on the streets. Social unrest threatens, and scenes could emerge in which the burning cars of wealthy citizens symbolize a new wave of redistribution.
Meanwhile, there is hardly any room for maneuver in the fight against climate change. Politicians who take painful measures against the climate crisis are immediately punished by their voters. The economic challenges of the present seem more pressing than the threats of tomorrow – yet the climate crisis has long been approaching and is taking on increasingly threatening dimensions.
Are Western governments succeeding in sustainably improving the living conditions of lower and middle income groups? No.
Is our environment recovering? No.
If elections do not bring tangible improvements, what alternatives are there? What else can we do as a population?
In which direction should we go? Society’s course must change fundamentally: People in low-income groups must not become beggars in old age, but must be able to lead a dignified life on their pension. Higher education must not be a question of origin – working-class families must also be able to afford an academic education for their children. Instead of increasing competition, society needs a new form of cooperation.
But how can this change succeed? Where will the necessary funds come from?
Where must the journey take us? If we want to preserve democracy and social peace in the medium and long term, the economy must take on more responsibility. Pure profit maximization will sooner or later destroy both social cohesion and the ecological balance of our planet. Instead of one-sided profit maximization, a holistic value system must provide companies with orientation in order to be able to stand up for people and the planet.
What would be the best approach to achieve this? We need a strong economy, but with a different emphasis and a fundamentally different focus. The economy must become more balanced and holistic. The population is now very aware that the fundamental direction of travel is not changing. Whether they vote right or left, the elections have virtually no steering effect. The tanker continues to head in the same direction.
How can we turn this tanker around?
As politicians are clearly not able to bring about the necessary turnaround, I believe that a grassroots movement originating from the population is currently the most suitable approach. Our movement is not directed against companies per se. We want to support companies in their new direction. But how should this be done?
The question of how we turn the tanker basically touches on the prevailing global economic model, capitalism. Since 1972, the year in which the Club of Rome report entitled ‘The Limits to Growth’ was published, we have actually been forewarned. Capitalism in its purest form ultimately leads to considerable damage to the environment and society. We need to turn away from the pure pursuit of profit. Instead, we need an economy that is oriented towards the common good and takes responsibility for both society and the environment.
I see the approach of the Economy for the Common Good (ECG), which was launched by Christian Felber around 2010, starting in Austria and southern Germany, as the most suitable for this transformation process. The aim of the ECG approach is to offer a democratically defined value system so that all forms of organizations, depending on how well they operate for the common good, are advantaged or disadvantaged by the state according to their resulting score. In this context, values such as solidarity, respect for human dignity, ecological sustainability (e.g. circular economy), social justice and democratic participation should guide the design of both economic and business management processes. The price disadvantage that normally exists for companies that operate sustainably is thus largely offset in comparison to the traditional economy. Companies receive tax benefits and advantageous state loans and public contracts according to their score. The ECG score can be determined for any organization, e.g. companies, NGOs, universities or other state institutions, using an auditing procedure that can be carried out worldwide. On the basis of the ECG score, the orientation of organizations towards the common good is transparently recognizable worldwide. Corresponding QR codes can be attached to the products of certified companies so that customers can find out details about the company’s orientation towards the common good while shopping in the supermarket.
Alternatively, it would also be possible, for example, to take another certificate, such as ‘B Corporation’ from the non-profit organization B Lab, as a basis. However, the ECG approach seems more far-reaching to me because any type of organization can be certified worldwide and every participating organization is audited at least once on site. I particularly like the fact that a key aim of this movement is to fundamentally change the economic order at a political level by influencing taxes, government loans and public contracts (‘ECG levers’). The focus on the common good usually also changes a company’s choice of partner. With the increasing number of certifications for the common good, a partnership network of companies operating for the common good is thus becoming more concentrated.
On September 17, 2015, the European Economic and Social Committee deemed the ECG model suitable in principle for integration into the EU’s legal framework. An ECG chair was established at the University of Valencia in Spain in 2017 and the Burgenland University of Applied Sciences in Austria has been offering an ‘Applied ECG’ course since 2018. There are now over 1,300 companies (as at 2025) with a common good balance sheet. The focus is on Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Other countries in Europe as well as South and North America are also included.
A state ‘ECG lever’, in which the ECG score has a direct influence on taxes, state lending and public procurement, has not yet been realized at the political level and therefore remains a target vision of this grassroots movement for the time being. The predominant current goal is therefore to broaden knowledge of the Economy for the Common Good internationally within a wide range of social circles so that, for example, governmental ECG levers are increasingly implemented politically through referendums.
Until this implementation process can be set in motion, as many companies as possible worldwide must carry out an ECG balance sheet and operate in a way that is oriented towards the common good. Accordingly, the aim is to build a new relationship between business and society. Taking into account the criteria of the common good brings about a profound learning process in companies to align themselves increasingly more strongly with values such as environmental protection and the common good. A new way of doing business is thus emerging, which is spreading upwards from the bottom, starting with the population. A new type of economy in harmony with the environment and society.
As I said, this movement has been underway since 2010 and over 1300 companies worldwide have embarked on this journey based on the ECG balance sheet. But many more need to join globally so that we can build an effective counter-movement against pure, profit-maximizing capitalism. What is needed now is the global expansion of this approach into the corporate world and into society at large.
This is where the Greenvators platform comes in. On the platform, current environmental and social problems are turned into green ‘dream projects’ by an international crowd in a special co-creative development process. Ideas for sustainable products or services are developed by the crowd into detailed business concepts (‘greenovation hurricane’). These sustainable business concepts are available for commercial use worldwide without any fees (open innovation). The special feature here is that behind each of these sustainable business concepts is a committed crowd that is determined to have the respective green innovation on the market.
Start-up financing of a manufacturer or service provider selected by the crowd takes place with the help of the initial order of the market-ready solution by the crowd itself (crowdfunding). Preference is given to companies that can demonstrate a high level of orientation towards the common good, for example by submitting an ECG balance sheet. In this way, the aim is to initiate the transition of as many companies as possible around the world to public-benefit-oriented business. In this respect, Greenvators acts as a kind of catalyst for the economy for the common good. The Greenvators platform is thus becoming an important driving force for the global transformation process towards sustainable entrepreneurship.
The knowledge about self-organization described at the end of this foreword is an elementary building block for me, because in my view, freedom for creativity and self-determined work is of enormous importance for the success of an organization and the self-realization of its employees. The Greenvators organization is starting its activities on the basis of volunteers. Once we have reached the profit zone, we will start to offer deserving volunteers a permanent position with a monthly salary (including the statutory additional costs).
In the first phase, we will operate as a purely virtual organization. Later on, I would also like to set up a research and development site, as well as a manufacturing facility, in southwest France (near Soustons). Internet-based collaboration – as a remote worker or digital nomad – should still be possible at any time worldwide.
We will give our salaried employees an additional 20% share of the profits (before tax). We will use 10% of our profits (before tax) directly for projects for the common good that go beyond the scope of our platform. I choose the approach of volunteer employees with subsequent profit sharing because I want to avoid our decisions possibly being pushed in the wrong direction by the short-term thinking of external investors.
I hereby call on all interested parties, anywhere in the world, to participate in the development of the Greenvators platform. The functionality of this platform is an innovation, but the level of difficulty will probably be a challenge for the programmers. We need volunteer programmers who are comfortable pushing boundaries.
I see Greenvators as a grassroots movement that acts as a catalyst for the global transformation to an economy for the common good. What we particularly need now are courageous and creative programmers who, as volunteers, are willing to make the sometimes seemingly impossible possible in order to make this platform a reality. I look forward to everyone who registers here on the platform to make their contribution to a sustainable world.
M.Sc. Atila Uruc, Hamburg