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Capitalism at the Crossroads:
Aligning Business, Earth, and Humanity

Stuart HartBook Cover: Capitalism at the Crossroads

Flyer for the book (pdf)

August 17, 2007 - Despite decades of unprecedented growth and the expansion of capitalism into most of the world, prosperity has only spread to a fraction of the earth's population, while pollution and environmental degradation have encircled the globe. As Stuart Hart proposes in CAPITALISM AT THE CROSSROADS:ALIGNING BUSINESS, EARTH, AND HUMANITY, 2ND EDITION (Wharton School Publishing, $17.99, ISBN: 0136134394), the most powerful institutions in the world, the multinational corporations, have a unique opportunity to devise the innovations needed to create a sustainable form of global capitalism-and profit in the process.

This updated paperback edition includes a foreword by former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. He says "The global context for business continues to change at an unprecedented rate, and Stuart Hart has effectively captured important insights into the nature of this contextual shift in this updated edition of CAPITALISM AT THE CROSSROADS." The second edition also includes new up-to-the-minute trends and lessons learned, new and updated case studies-including leaders like GE and Wal-Mart-and the latest corporate responses to climate change, energy, and terrorism. Also included are new insights from the pioneering Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol initiative, in which multinationals are incubating new businesses in income-poor communities around the world.

Hart says the enormous problems of the world will be solved by uniting the ambitions of profit and sustainability. The multinational corporation, with its efficiency, assets, and capacity for innovation, is the only institution with the resources necessary to produce a sustainable global economy. Furthermore, he shows that environmental concerns can be alleviated while spreading prosperity to those at the base of the pyramid, the four billion poor that have been ignored by the global market thus far.

These companies, along with many others illustrated by Stuart Hart, show that the route to sustainable global capitalism lies not in idealism, but in innovative business practices.

Seven-hundred years ago, religion was the most powerful institution on the planet. Two-hundred years ago, it was the state (government). Today the most powerful institution is business. Commerce is dominant. Learn why business is singularly equipped to lead the movement towards global sustainability.

STUART HART is one of the world's top authorities on the implications of sustainable development and environmentalism for business strategy. He is currently the Samuel C. Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Before coming to the Johnson School, he taught strategic management and founded both the Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP) at the University of Michigan. He currently does a wide range consulting work with numerous organizations and companies that include DuPont, Hewlett Packard, Procter and Gamble, Shell and many more. He has written over 50 papers and authored or edited five books. His very influential article, "Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World," won the McKinsey Award for Best Article in the Harvard Business Review in 1997 and helped launch the movement for corporate sustainability. Along with C.K. Prahalad, Hart co-authored the path-breaking article "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which articulated for the first time how businesses could profit while serving the needs of the world's 4 billion poor within the developing world.

Praise for Capitalism at the Crossroads

"A must-read for every CEO-and every MBA," says John Elkington, Chairman, SustainAbility.

"CAPITALISM AT THE CROSSROADS is a practical manifesto for business in the twenty-first century. Professor Stuart L. Hart provides a succinct framework for managers to harmonize concerns for the planet with wealth creation and unambiguously demonstrates the connection between the two. This book represents a turning point in the debate about the emerging role and responsibility of business in society," says C.K. Prahalad, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, co-author of Competing for the Future and author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.