Economy for the Common Good

The model has five underlying goals: • Reuniting the economy with the fundamental values guiding society in general. Encouraging business decisions that promote human rights, justice, and sustainability. • Transitioning to an economic system that defines serving the “common good” as its principal goal. The business community and all other economic actors should live up to the universal values set down in constitutions across the globe. These include dignity, social justice, sustainability, and democracy. These do not include profit maximization and market domination. • Shifting to a business system that measures success according to the values outlined above. A business is successful and reaps the benefits of its success not when it makes more and more profits, but when it does its best to serve the public good. • Setting the cornerstones of the legal framework for the economy democratically, in processes which result in concrete recommendations for reforming and reevaluating national constitutions and international treaties. • Closing the gaps between feeling and thinking, technology and nature, economy and ethics, science and spirituality. The Economy for the Common Good calls for reevaluating economic relations by, for example, putting limits on financial speculation and encouraging companies to produce socially-responsible products. == Common Good Balance Sheet ==

The common good balance sheet is an assessment procedure for private individuals, communities, companies and institutions to check the extent to which they serve the common good. Ecological, social and other aspects are assessed. The procedure is part of the common good economy and was developed by Christian Felber. In conventional balance sheets, only economic value categories such as profit are taken into account, whereas the common good balance sheet allows reporting on value to society and environment, for example. Common good balance sheets should be easy for everyone to understand; companies should be able to make their common good performance transparent on a single page. To date, around 250 companies in the German-speaking world prepare their balance sheets according to Gemeinwohl guidelines, in Europe there are 350–400 companies (as of early 2016). In total, there are 590 German, 631 Austrian, 67 Swiss and 70 South Tyrolean companies that have registered as supporters of Gemeinwohl-Bilanz. All peer-group and externally audited Gemeinwohl-Bilanzen are publicly available. According to proponents of the movement, the success of a company should not be determined by how much profit it makes, but rather by the degree to which it contributes to the common good. Companies receive more points in this balance sheet when, for example, employees are satisfied with their jobs or when the top managers do not receive exorbitantly more than the lowest paid worker. ==See also==