ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explore some of the ways in which some of the world's largest companies are already moving—or being pushed—towards what they call the sustainable enterprise economy (SEE). They also explore some of the things that a few big companies have been doing in years, on a voluntary basis, to improve their responsibility, accountability, transparency and sustainability performance. The authors explain how new forms of enterprise, created with a multiple-bottom-line orientation, are beginning to emerge. They develop a sense of what SEE Change actually looks like with respect to large existing corporations. Corporations make up roughly two-thirds of the world's largest economic institutions by revenue, bigger than many governments, according to 2007 figures. In the context, trust in business matters because, according to the 2009 Edelman survey, 91% of people claim to make purchasing decisions, at least in part, on the basis of whether or not they trust a company.
