JONATHAN COOK: The business of having a positive effect on your environment

I don’t know how many lives Bill and Melinda Gates have saved through their foundation, but it runs into many millions. Gates is one example of successful business people doing good after accumulating a fortune.

Some entrepreneurs do this intentionally in what are called social enterprises. These companies make a profit but have a mission to improve some aspect of life and are willing to put mission above profit when necessary to provide a service or product that a purely commercial enterprise might not. Some business schools encourage this in their MBAs.

EthioChicken uses an innovative model of agents to sell chickens to small farmers in Ethiopia. It supplies chickens that yield up to five times as many eggs and mature in a quarter of the time of domestic strains. By rearing chickens for the first 40 days and training their customers, agents have reduced the mortality rate from 80% to less than 5%.

As a business owner, you add social value when you treat your staff with dignity often denied them outside your business; when you grow your staff through training; when you pay a living wage to staff who earn the least and insist that your suppliers do the same; when you innovate; when you donate time and resources to organisations improving the wider community; when you protect the environment through energy saving, recycling, and responsible waste disposal; when you are a daily example of...

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