In a world of plenty, the majority of the world’s people lack basic opportunities to lead a decent life.
- The global income pyramid has a very broad base. Of the nearly 7 billion people living in our world today, over 4 billion people live on less than $8 a day, and 2.6 billion people live on less than $2.15 a day.
- Many people lack access to basic services. More than one billion have no access to clean water, 1.6 billion don't have electricity, 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation and 5.4 billion have no Internet access.
- The world's population is growing fast: in 2050, the planet will have approximately three billion more people than it does today. The great majority will live in developing countries.
Our natural resources cannot sustain the ways we currently create prosperity for this large and growing population.
- To date, economic development has been closely tied to increased resource use.
- This development path is unsustainable. If everyone lived like an average resident of the United States, we would need 4.5 planets to support Humanity's consumption and CO2 emissions.
- The world’s natural resources are being depleted at an unprecedented rate. Extreme overfishing casts doubts on how much longer there will even be fish left to catch. Every day, 150-200 species become extinct.
- Climate change is already changing ecosystems and weather patterns. People in poverty suffer most from its impacts.
Enterprises can provide solutions to these tough challenges:
- Market competition drives innovation, and innovation is crucial to identifying new ways of approaching problems. Innovation has the potential to create wealth for everyone, including people living in poverty today, while at the same time saving natural resources.
- Enterprises rely on voluntary transactions. People can decide whether they want to be customers, employees or suppliers of a business. This built-in feedback mechanism ensures that enterprises have a real incentive to understand and satisfy needs and wants.
- Enterprises can, in principle, exist and grow infinitely, since they are self-funded. They thus have the potential to address the above problems on a large scale.