Outthinkers #119—Christopher Marquis: Re-examining Business Externalities for Social Good
Christopher Marquis, the Sinyi Professor at the University of Cambridge Judge School of Business. Chris writes a regular column for Forbes and his work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Fortune, TIME, Foreign Policy, and Harvard Business Review. He is also author of Better Business: How the B Corp is Remaking Capitalism and Mao and Markets, which made the Financial Times “Best Book of 2022,” list.
Christopher takes on topics that are, or should be, important for companies and society. In this episode, we dive into concepts from his newest book, The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs
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In this episode, Christopher shares:
- The underlying premise that drove him to write his new book—the fact that companies often pass on the hidden negative costs of their business onto society and the environment, while keeping the benefits and profits for themselves
- Why this is changing now, thanks to broad systemic changes underway with investors, consumers, employees, and governments
- Evidence that a group of pioneers taking actions to minimize their negative impacts and turning that into a competitive advantage
- Upcoming policy changes that business strategists should keep top of mind, that will impact all businesses—and how jumping on this curve serves to potentially reward those who do
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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
1:19—Introducing Chris + the topic of today’s episode
3:05—Chis shares what lead him to the subject of his latest book
5:46—The cost of externalities
11:21—EU's CSRD policy, a seismic shift in corporate sustainability reporting
15:33—Regional competition and policy differences
19:51—Regenerative business models
26:48—Starting points for corporate strategists
28:53— How can people follow you and continue learning from you?
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Additional Resources:
Personal site: https://chrismarquis.com/
Link to book: The Profiteers How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Cost
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-marquis-3884834/
Twitter: https://x.com/Chris_Marquis_
Thank you to our guests, thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.
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