I was asked today to think about the social responsibility of business. Here are a few thoughts…

“The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits“, writes the Nobel Prize in Economics Milton Friedman. “Money can remain the means of business but not its end”, claims on the contrary the Nobel Peace Prize and creator of microcredits Muhammad Yunus. Business, to me, is meant to improve the people’s lives and have an impact towards a better world. I might be French, dear Milton, but I’m not “speaking prose” here… and unlike Molière’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme, I’m not 70 and still study Business Fundamentals so please leave me my hopes to re-define a little bit with modesty on Yunus’ line what Business is… with a yoghurt. 🙂

I attended one month ago a conference by Emmanuel Faber, executive vice-president of Danone. Here is the story he told us about: in March 2006, Danone and Grameen, the worldwide known multinational company on the one hand and the people’s bank created by Yunus on the other hand; worked together to create Continue reading →