Antje von Dewitz, Managing Director of Vaude, was invited to Geneva at the end of March to speak at the conference of the UN Economic Commission for Europe about the Economy for the Common Good, as practiced by the outdoor equipment supplier Vaude. Together with Christian Felber, Founder of the Economy for the Common Good (GWÖ), she presented the business model and the common good balance sheet as a tool for implementing effective measures that help companies tackle global ecological and social challenges such as climate change. Under the title “Regional Forum on Sustainable Development”, the discussion centred on how the UN’s sustainability objectives, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), can be implemented more widely and consistently.

Antje von Dewitz made it clear that companies committed to sustainability are at a distinct disadvantage due to higher costs, additional workload and greater insecurity

“In our economic system, sustainable supply chains are a voluntary service. Companies are chiefly judged by their financial performance. They should, however, also be measured by the extent to which they shoulder responsibility for humankind and the environment and take the true cost of their products into account. If businesses were expected to pay for the environmental and social damage they cause, then worldwide challenges such as global warming would suddenly have a completely different status in our world. We’re delighted that the approach of the Economy for the Common Good is attracting more and more interest from politics and business.”

The Economy for the Common Good was presented as an alternative business model that enables sustainability to be firmly and systematically embedded in companies and organisations. In this system, the points achieved in the common good balance sheet, for example, could be linked to certain tax rates. The more sustainable a company becomes, the lower the taxes and duties it would have to pay. Vaude is spearheading the Economy for the Common Good and publishes an audited common good balance sheet on a regular basis.