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From Corporate Responsibility to Good Governance and Scalable Solutions

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Abstract

In 1999, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan set out a vision for the Global Compact2 — calling on business leaders ‘to join the United Nations on a journey’. Five years later, the secretary-general commented that at the time, globalisation had appeared like ‘a force of nature’ seeming to ‘lead inexorably in one direction: ever-closer integration of markets, ever-larger economies of scale, ever-bigger opportunities for profits and prosperity’. However, even ten months before the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation (WTO), he also felt it necessary to warn that globalisation would only be as sustainable as its social foundations. ‘Global unease about poverty, equity and marginalisation’, he stressed, ‘are beginning to reach critical mass.’

John Elkington is co-founder and Chair of SustainAbility; Seb Beloe is Director of Research and Advocacy; Jodie Thorpe led the Gearing Up project and is evolving SustainAbility’s global governance work.

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© 2006 Seb Beloe, John Elkington and Jodie Thorpe

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Beloe, S., Elkington, J., Thorpe, J. (2006). From Corporate Responsibility to Good Governance and Scalable Solutions. In: Kakabadse, A., Morsing, M. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599574_17

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