Debate: How social enterprises can help rethink business growth

The rationale for economic growth at the macro level has been hotly debated in academic and policy circles. On the one hand, growth is conventionally said to bring jobs and economic prosperity to people. On the other, growth with, as its corollary, ever-increasing consumption, have put a massive strain on the Earth’s natural resources and the living organisms depending on them, while economic inequalities are still high in many countries and human happiness remains stagnant. As the adverse social and environmental consequences of the blind pursuit of gross domestic product (GDP) expansion are becoming increasingly blatant, a growing number of economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have underscored the need to develop alternative approaches and indicators regarding macro-level growth.