I think this book should be a mandatory read in business school.. Future leaders need to understand the positive effects their leadership can have on the world. I thought this had so many great examples of the power of good within a company and organization.

Although a little dry in its delivery, not a bad read at all! I learned a lot from this book. If you’ve read and enjoyed Mark Carney’s most recent book, Value(s), Net Positive would be an apt addendum.

It is heartening to see trailblazers (like Paul Polman & Andrew Winston) from massive corporations (like Unilever) come around to the view that their actions DO NOT exist in some extraterrestrial, fantastical theatre of fecundity - y’know, where unicorns just shit profit, where cheap (and often free) labor effervesce from the chamber of Aladdin’s lamp; where raw goods crop up in neat, manicured rows for the taking; where the footfall of stock futures dance arrhythmically to the audible fugues from planet earth, and her downtrodden.

Shareholder primacy has seen its day. Sustainability, alas, MEANS something to the Buccaneers of venture capitalism. The exigencies of climate change, pandemics, and socio-economic inequalities are beginning to COST corporations. P&L is the ONLY language these f***ers understand.

While Unilever has her skeletons, like any enterprise, they have shown the business class that externalities can no longer be greenwashed, addressed philanthropically, or litigated away. They correlate to values happening in the market. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) are items that must be quantified. Or else they exhibit supernatural effects upon the financial system.

Outcomes MUST be adjusted. Call it social engineering, if you must. For its opposite is hardly virtuous. The opposite is fiscal engineering. No one is innocent. Markets touch real people…REAL LIVES…and they have real consequences on our home.

This may read vitriolic, but there is some light in all of this. As Net Positive makes clear, ESG matters do not pose a threat to business. ESG initiatives are PRO business and present the greatest opportunity the private sector has ever seen. It does not happen very often that you can be paid to do the right thing; to be a hero.

4 out of 5 stars. Thank you for the eARC.