There is an emerging consensus that all is not well with today's market-centric economic model. Although it has delivered wealth over the last half century and pulled millions out of poverty, it is recession-prone, leaves too many unemployed, creates ecological scarcities and environmental risks, and widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Around $1 trillion a year in perverse subsidies and barriers to entry for alternative products maintain "business-as-usual" while obscuring their associated environmental and societal costs. The result is the broken system of social inequity, environmental degradation, and political manipulation that marks today's corporations.

We aren't stuck with this dysfunctional corporate model, but business needs a new DNA if it is to enact the comprehensive approach we need. Pavan Sukhdev lays out a sweeping new vision for tomorrow's corporation: one that will increase human wellbeing and social equity, decrease environmental risks and ecological losses, and still generate profit. Through a combination of internal changes in corporate governance and external regulations and policies, Corporation 2020 can become a reality in the next decade--and it must, argues Sukhdev, if we are to avert catastrophic social imbalance and ecological harm.

Corporation 2020 presents new approaches to measuring the true costs of business and the corporation's obligation to society. From his insightful look into the history of the corporation to his thoughtful discussion of the steps needed to craft a better corporate model, Sukhdev offers a hopeful vision for the role of business in shaping a more equitable, sustainable future.
About the Author: Pavan Sukhdev is the Founder-CEO of GIST Advisory, an environmental consulting firm that helps governments and corporations value and manage their impacts on natural and human capital. A former banker at Deutsche Bank, he founded and chaired Global Markets Centre - Mumbai, a leading-edge front-office offshoring company. He has been Special Adviser and Head of UNEP's Green Economy Initiative, lead author of their "Green Economy Report", and Study Leader for the G8+5 commissioned project on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity ("TEEB"). Pavan chairs the World Economic Forum's "Global Agenda Council" on Biodiversity and serves on the boards of Conservation International and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.