Additional resources

This HBR article The Best Companies Know How to Balance Strategy and Purpose by  Laurent Chevreux, Jose Lopez, and Xavier Mesnard explores why for a company purpose to have authentic relevance and power, it must ring true not just on the surface but down to the marrow. 

In her book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Adrienne Maree Brown explores our human relationship to change and invites readers to shape the futures we want to live.

In this HBR article Putting Your Corporate Purpose to Work Hubert Jolly, former CEO of Best Buy presents five steps for turning a company purpose into reality, using both the head and the heart.  

In this briefing note, Purpose – We Must Think Deeper – John Featherby sets out his response to the publication of the Enacting Purpose Initiative.  He applauds that business and academia are tackling the question of purpose. But asserts that the way it is currently being considered and promoted needs to go deeper and further if it is to generate the change we need. This document is a call to that deeper thought and is offered in the spirit of helping the thinking progress

In his book Grow the Pie, London Business School’s Professor Alex Edmans shows that companies can create both profit and social value. The most successful companies don’t target profit directly, but are driven by purpose – the desire to serve a societal need and contribute to human betterment – and discusses the critical role of collaboration with a company’s investors, employees, and customers.

This report Leading with a sustainable purpose from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) distils shared insights into how four leading multinational companies developed, aligned and integrated a purpose and strategy to transition to a sustainable economy.

This report by Forum for the Future in partnership with WBCSD : A Compass for Just and Regenerative Business | Forum for the Future – outlines the business imperative to shape a just and regenerative future, sets out a working definition of what it means to be ‘just’ and ‘regenerative’ and introduces a new ‘Business Transformation Compass’ tool to help businesses navigate the critical shifts needed.

Michael Duncan, Head of Giving Strategy & Programmes at NatWest Group, writes an insightful piece A business driven by purpose in Communicate Magazine about charitable partnerships and how, as businesses become more purpose-led, the nature of these relationships will have to evolve.