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Transforming the Corporation Harnessing corporations to promote environmental sustainability and social justice.

Paper Series on Corporate Design Prepared for the Summit on the Future of the Corporation.

Corporate Design:
The Missing Business and Public Policy Issue of Our Time Design principles and case studies of new corporate forms.

Is It Time to Rewrite the Social Contract? Rethinking the social contract between citizens and government in view of the ascendance of the modern corporation.

Find information on Corporation 2020 at: www.corporation2020.org

Find information on the pending 2nd Summit on the Future of the Corporation at: www.summit2020.org

Corporate redesign

In the age of globalization, the modern corporation is a pivotal actor in shaping planetary society. A critical question is: How should the future corporation be constituted to ensure that it serves the long-term common good, rather than short-term shareholder interests? This program goes beyond reform efforts – the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda – to a focus on the core characteristics of the contemporary corporation with the aim of altering its genetics to help meet the great societal challenges of the twenty-first century. Redesigning corporations requires an understanding of the discrete components of the corporate form – legal status and charter, the primacy of shareholder interests, liability, ownership, capitalization, and directors’ obligations – and the linkages among them.

The program is rooted in a set of fundamental Prinicples of Corporate Redesign that were developed through a two-year multi-stakeholder process:
1. The purpose of the corporation is to harness private interests to serve the public interest.
2. Corporations shall accrue fair returns for shareholders, but not at the expense of the legitimate interests of other stakeholders.
3. Corporations shall operate sustainably, meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
4. Corporations shall distribute their wealth equitably among those who contribute to its creation.
5. Corporations shall be governed in a manner that is participatory, transparent, ethical, and accountable.
6. Corporations shall not infringe on the right of natural persons to govern themselves, nor infringe on other universal human rights.

The program addresses corporate redesign through dialogues, research and advocacy: creating coherent models of possible forms for the future corporation and building alliances with parallel initiatives to foster action in support of a broad-based movement for corporate redesign. Tellus launched Corporation 2020, a network of 400 scholars, business people, and activists to advance this agenda, with the Summit on the Future of the Corporation a major milestone in its evolution.