Society is undergoing a silent revolution. It is not led by governments, though it has political ramifications; nor is it led by religious or academic institutions, though it has spiritual and intellectual dimensions. Leadership is coming from a far less likely sphere - business.

It’s a revolution I witness almost daily. Two of the processes in which I’ve recently been involved are examples. The first is the consultations that led to the newly published report ‘Tomorrow’s Global Company’, which concludes on the evidence of case studies that companies of all sizes can offer solutions to some of the world’s most serious problems - poverty, climate change, human-rights abuses and corruption.

The second is the assessments leading to the recent Awards for Excellence, organised by Business in the Community, a consortium of 750 companies. Members of this group, which includes high-street names such as Barclays, Boots, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, commit themselves to making a positive social impact; but the awards go only to those companies that excel in achievement, not just aspiration.

Such initiatives bring to light story after story of companies serving the vulnerable in rich societies, the poor in low-income countries and the environment everywhere. This is not about corporate social responsibility or philanthropy but about core business. It’s about doing well by doing good, rather than doing good from doing well.

Most of this is not new. All the companies named above were founded on a similar vision. Indeed, the brothers-in-law who ran M&S decided in the 1920s that the purpose of their company was ‘social revolution’. It would subvert the British class system by making goods of superior quality affordable to the lower classes. It would focus on clothing, where class distinctions were most visible.

Something is new, however, about the current revolution. As manufacturing has moved east, Western countries have had to find ways to turn knowledge into wealth. But as markets become flooded with similar products and services, a brand’s vision and values are becoming its unique selling-point. The upshot is that a wisdom-based economy is gradually supplementing a knowledge-based one.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the way our impact on the environment has emerged, since the publication of Silent Spring a generation ago, to become a key moral issue embraced by business as a strategic opportunity. It gives hope that the silent revolution can avert a silent spring.

Peter Heslam

Dr Peter Heslam is director of Transforming Business at Cambridge University.

additional resources

The report ‘Tomorrow’s Global Company’ is published by the business-led thinktank Tomorrow’s Company. Order a copy from tomorrowscompany.com or ring +44 (0) 20 7222 7443.

You can find the website of Business in the Community (BitC) at bitc.org.uk.

On 1 May 2007, BitC organised a gathering of over a thousand business leaders, convened by Prince Charles, which pledged action on climate change, forming a national movement on business leadership towards a low-carbon economy. These businesses are known collectively as the May Day Companies. For more information, click here.

For a BitC report demonstrating the business benefits of taking action on climate change on the basis of 10 best-practice case studies, see ‘Business Leadership towards a Low Carbon Economy’, available here.

The chair of Royal Mail (and former boss of Asda), Allan Leighton, has brought out a book called On Leadership: Practical Wisdom from the People who Know (Random House), based on his interviews of leaders of successful companies. The Church Times of 6 July carried a back-page interview of the author.

For a more theoretical treatment of wisdom, David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, has just published a book called Christian Wisdom: Desiring God and Learning in Love (CUP). Although the style is academic, readers determined to get to the end of its 400 pages would have good reason to expect to be wiser for it.