How to save the world

THE world today seems to be more chaotic and feels more dangerous than it has ever been. The end of the Cold War was supposed to eradicate global fears of nuclear devastation. It heralded a period of relative calm and prosperity wrapped up in a promise of new and surging technologies coupled to a world that was rapidly globalising. The calm was fleeting and shortlived. Instead, problems and grievances that had up till then been relatively isolated and contained domestically were amplified and distributed internationally.

Today, people all over the world live with growing anxieties. They worry about the escalation of terrorism and the creeping fear that the danger is no longer distant and remote. They fret over climate change and its impact: failed crops, rising seas and disappearing wildlife environments. They suffer through corporate scandals and economic meltdowns, and resent the visible - almost deliberate in-your face - incomprehensible compensation packages that some of the very people responsible for this are rewarded with. But mostly they blame impotent governments and poor leadership that has failed to mitigate, much less solve, any of these problems that are increasingly being perceived to be here to stay.

In the midst of this vacuum, business has tried to engage with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. But despite the hit-and-miss efforts, the broader big business community is missing the point. Addressing modern-day human anxieties requires a suite of solutions that lie on a continuum where CSR is just one strategy that lies at one end. At the other end is brand "purpose".