What is business actually for?
To introduce this chapter, we must return to a fundamental question: What is business for? For much of the 20th century, the answer was simple: maximise returns to shareholders. Milton Friedman's 1970 essay crystallised this view into doctrine — and had one hidden assumption: that external costs could be externalised indefinitely. We now know they cannot.
Double materiality — the lens that asks both how the world affects the company AND how the company affects the world — is now a legal requirement under CSRD and a strategic necessity for any organisation that wants to understand its actual risk exposure and value creation potential.
The Stakeholder Value Integration System (SVIS) introduced in this chapter is not a consultation model. It is a learning-based operating model that embeds stakeholder intelligence into strategy, capital allocation, and performance management — moving from consultation to co-creation.
In an era of social fragmentation, ecological limits, and declining trust, stakeholders are no longer the environment of the firm — they are the firm.— Chapter 5, The Seven Principles Playbook
Frameworks & Tools
Practical tools introduced in this chapter — ready to use with your team.
The Stakeholder Compass
A strategic navigation framework with four quadrants: outside-in risks (how the world affects you), inside-out impacts (how you affect the world), shared-value opportunities, and governance alignment.
↓ Download toolDouble Materiality Assessment
A structured process for identifying and prioritising sustainability topics that matter both to your financial performance and to people and planet — required under CSRD/ESRS.
↓ Download toolStakeholder Value Integration System (SVIS)
A learning-based operating model that embeds stakeholder intelligence into strategy, capital allocation, and performance management — moving from consultation to co-creation.
↓ Download toolSocial Licence to Grow Diagnostic
A self-assessment tool measuring the quality of your relationships with key stakeholders and your actual licence to operate, expand, and innovate.
↓ Download toolStakeholder Mapping Canvas
A visual tool for mapping all stakeholder relationships by influence, legitimacy, urgency, and alignment with your purpose — enabling prioritised engagement strategies.
↓ Download toolOrganisations Featured
Real-world cases of how this principle has been applied.
Novo Nordisk
Built its stakeholder model around patients, healthcare systems, and society — not just shareholders. Its social licence strategy drove sustained growth while managing insulin pricing controversies.
Mondragon
A cooperative federation in the Basque Country where workers are also owners — a governance model that aligns stakeholder interests structurally, not rhetorically.
Buurtzorg
A Dutch nursing organisation that gave autonomy back to nurses — transforming healthcare delivery by aligning with the interests of both patients and caregivers simultaneously.
Tata Group
The Tata family of companies has embedded stakeholder responsibility into its founding charter — including communities, employees, and the nation — for over 150 years.
Michelin
Developed a stakeholder engagement model that treats suppliers, dealers, and local communities as strategic partners — not just value-chain dependencies.
Apply this principle to your organisation
Download the Seven Principles Diagnostic and see how your organisation scores across all seven dimensions.
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