What is the Five-Star Approach to 

                                   Good Business? 

THE 21ST CENTURY is the extraordinary era of “personal responsibility” in business. How does your business activity affect the planet, its people, and natural resources? How is your business contributing to the quality of life in our world?

The following five areas have been determined by GoodB to constitute GOOD BUSINESS EXCELLENCE:

Human Bottom Line
The personal impact and responsibility of business on workers, consumers, and community.

Ethical Action
The value of personal values in for-profit business practice and execution.

Profits and Purpose
Making money while making a positive difference in the lives of human beings.

Green Action
Best green business & environmentally sustainable business initiatives and practices.

Common Good
Non-profit corporate philanthropic endeavors for the common good.

The code of business embraced around the globe for centuries was perhaps best expressed by the phrase “survival of the fittest.” The “winners,” those who had social, military, and political power took all. Social responsibility from antiquity right through the 1980’s never figured in the business equation. It was considered laughable by many, and dismissed most eloquently by the late economist Milton Friedman in his infamous New York Times article in 1970. “It’s not personal, it’s business,” became the standard in the pursuit of profit.

Yet business was, is, and always will be personal. Individual people create it; other people benefit from it or are harmed by it. Business is not an inanimate object without a mind of its own. Business is an entirely human enterprise. With this understanding, the 21st century brings something entirely new even beyond social responsibility.

We have entered the extraordinary era of “personal responsibility” in business. No modern business person of good conscience can practice the indifference of the past. The world’s suffering has landed at our doorstep and we can no longer turn away.

We need new rules for good business practices to honor this personal responsibility. GoodB has determined five areas that constitute good business. To achieve these goals, each individual and institution must look at developing “good business” practices as an on-going process. We are all in this process toward better business. No one among us is perfect. Although we may each be at different levels on the path to Good Business, no one among us superior to any other. Bettering ourselves invidividually and collectively is a natural and personal process of social evolution.

GoodB does not position itself as judge and jury over the business community. We are simply collaborators in the process of the good business revolution. To that end, we use the five stars of good business as goals to work toward achieving. We highlight businesses in this section that are practicing the specific areas of good business. GoodB reports on businesses who are reaching these goals and through their examples inspire and encourage others to follow the path to good business.

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