The group not only wants to build cars, but also offer sustainable mobility.
(Photo: dpa)
Fortunately, it is now the norm in most Western industrialized countries for a company to guarantee not only the quality of its products, but also the moral integrity of its manufacture. But more and more companies are going one step further and, in addition to striving for profit, are also committed to a specific purpose of existence, which is called “Purpose”.
What is meant by this is a certain form of meaningfulness: A company is not there to make money, but to solve a problem in the best possible way. If that succeeds, so the thought, then the paying customers will appear all by themselves.
For example, Volkswagen now not only sells cars, but also wants to enrich society with “sustainable mobility”. Adidas doesn’t just bring shoes and clothing to men and women, but has set itself the goal of “live life through sport [zu] change”. And the supermarket chain Rewe, according to its own statement, not only offers groceries, but even “a better life”.
Anyone who winces at the unconcealed pathos of such “mission statements” probably belongs to the majority of those people who have become accustomed to a certain skepticism about empty advertising promises over the past few decades.
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Nevertheless, it is right and shows entrepreneurial foresight when organizations think outside the box and set themselves a specific goal of how they can increase their positive influence on society. Because the corresponding requirements increase in times of crisis.
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One example of this is climate change, the fight against which in Europe will in future be subordinated to the primacy of sustainability for all economic activity. Another is the war in Ukraine, which forced companies to take a short-term position in society – even before many governments were able to decide on the first sanctions.
It is already foreseeable that there will be more rather than fewer of these social guard rails for the free market economy in the future: be it the looming conflict with China or the rapidly increasing urgency of combating climate change, which in view of the steadily increasing emissions over the next few years threatens to fail.
It is therefore well advised to set yourself a concrete goal that moves within these guard rails in the long term. Simple self-love, as the economist Adam Smith explained it to be the basis of economic activity, is no longer sufficient. It also takes love for people.
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