Why the Occupy Wall Street movement hates business

Business needs to get serious about establishing trust in business itself. Corporate philanthropy alone won't win the hearts and minds of the public. Companies need to show, right along the value chain, how societal needs are being embodied in their products, benefits being achieved and harms mitigated. They need to recognise that they pursue societal impacts because, in a competitive market, they are integral to sustaining long-term project profitability. Creating shared value is a matter of corporate self-interest.

None of this is likely to persuade those engaged in the Wall Street sit-ins to go home and embrace capitalism. Their anger will take longer to assuage. Nor will the virtues of shared value convince those business and political leaders who continue to argue, channelling Milton Friedman, that the only responsibility of business in a capitalist society is to make a profit on their investment of private capital.

The battle for hearts and minds needs to be fought. An increasing number of hard-nosed multinational companies – such a Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson and Johnson, Unilever and Wal-Mart – have begun to embark on important shared value initiatives. Indeed in a recent edition of Social Business, I interviewed Peter Kelly, Director of Corporate and External Relations at Nestlé on the way in which the company was embracing the new approach. From the support they offer to their agricultural producers in the developing world to the care with which they market their products, Nestlé has become a market leader.

What about Australia? Do we have companies that are starting to present their business in terms of the shared economic and societal value they are creating? The answer, I'm pleased to say, is in the affirmative. Over the next few weeks I'll blog about a few of our own 'shared value' companies.