As the world economy starts to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, the time will soon come for leaders to look beyond safeguarding lives and livelihoods and to set their sights on a more profound challenge: bettering them.
This societal challenge might be ten times as big as the pandemic and last ten times as long. The three goals we have in mind—growth, sustainability, and inclusion—buttress one another yet don’t always pull in the same direction; we see powerful reinforcing as well as counteracting loops among them (exhibit). And so, while many might broadly agree on the aspiration, there’s a very tough question lurking in the background: How do we go about building a future that delivers growth and sustainability and inclusion?
Full disclosure: We’re not going to offer an answer. Instead, we propose a way for changemakers in business, government, and society to explore the problem, a mental model that might offer the best chance to reach the answer. It starts with this: We believe the ands are crucial and that they are in fact the means to the end. The three elements of growth, sustainability and inclusion are deeply connected and cannot be viewed as trade-offs. Consider this: Without growth, how could we achieve prosperity and well-being or pay for the transitions needed to make the economy more sustainable and inclusive? Without sustainability, how could we fashion growth for the current generation and the ones to follow? Without inclusion—an opportunity for productive work and a satisfying life for all citizens—how could we ensure the demand needed to propel growth? Indeed, getting to and—moving to a world in which growth and sustainability and inclusion form a powerful dynamic—is the imperative for the next era of business.
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