The Economy for the Common Good compared with corporate sustainability strategies (GIVUN)

‘All economic activity serves the common good.’ – so the Bavarian Constitution states. In many places, however, the reality paints a different picture: the pursuit of profit and obligations to shareholders dominate business conduct; employees, suppliers, the climate and the environment are often sidelined. A contemporary approach that makes a radical attempt to bring economic activity more into line with fundamental democratic values and the social and environmental objectives of modern Western societies is the concept of the Economy for the Common Good (GWÖ). Its core idea is that monetary profit should no longer be the purpose of business activity, but merely a means to achieve the actual purpose: to make the greatest possible contribution to the common good.

The aim of the research project ‘The Economy for the Common Good in Comparison with Corporate Sustainability Strategies’ (GIVUN) is to contextualise the concept of an economy oriented towards the common good within a historical and business-ethics framework, and to conduct empirical research into it. To this end, the concept of the GWÖ and other relevant CSR instruments are being evaluated in terms of their transformative potential for aligning corporate practice with sustainability objectives. The research project focuses on investigating the effects of a corporate orientation towards the common good on specific working and production conditions (particularly with regard to environmental impacts), as well as exploring the conditions for scaling up and disseminating the Economy for the Common Good within large enterprises.

The project is led by Prof. Dr Harald Welzer and Dr Bernd Sommer in collaboration with Prof. Dr Ludger Heidbrink, Chair of Practical Philosophy at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Whilst a systematic comparison of the GWÖ with historical and contemporary strategies for the common good and sustainability is being developed in Kiel, the NEC is responsible for the empirical part of the research: Practice partners such as the outdoor equipment supplier Vaude, the printing company Oktoberdruck, the Demeter-certified bakery Märkisches Landbrot and the supplier of organic frozen foods Ökofrost are being interviewed in qualitative interviews about their efforts to promote the common good. Together with major companies such as Deutsche Post, dm-drogerie markt and the OTTO Group, the research team is using a backcasting approach to identify possible and feasible pathways towards a stronger focus on the common good.

Further project-related publications can be found here.