Over the years, capitalism has been an effective and impressive shape-shifter. At the dawn of the industrial age, it appeared as a magnificent behemoth, emitting boastful plumes of soot into the sky and flattening vast landscapes in the name of unadulterated progress. Today, its skin is markedly softer, and a few tinges greener. Sustainability initiatives appear in company mandates, and hopeful messages of corporate social responsibility are offered to a citizenry more and more concerned about environmental and social well-being. Yet the internal engine that drives capitalists remains unchanged, fuelled by the same fire: profit.

The pursuit of profit is responsible for capitalism’s uncanny ability to adapt, for better or for worse. If the means of obtaining it are not regulated, profit can lead to corporate self-destruction, as the world witnessed in 2008, when short-termism and greed led to the downturn of the global economy and the shedding of a few multibillion-dollar corporate tendrils (such as Lehman Brothers). It has also resulted in longer-lasting and ultimately more significant external degradation, such as the poisoning of the atmosphere, freshwater and ecosystems. Moreover, the collective emissions of a global economy have brought CO2 levels to a point where climate change is an inevitable part of our long-term future.

While the economy is often perceived and discussed as something separate from nature, it has never been clearer that economic survival is inherently linked to environmental well-being. By necessity, decades of destructive profiteering have ended in a capitalism whose only means of survival is to evolve into a more compassionate and responsible economic model. But is it possible?

“First, we have to recognize that the past 20 years have not been a victory for capitalism at all. Second, to realize capitalism allows for growth in the power of the citizenry. Companies are not ethical or moral, nor are governments. People are ethical; the people create the standards. People need to be educated in an ethical context, and the market needs to be set up in such a way that the people who work in corporations are able exercise their ethics.”

—John Ralston Saul, Canadian author and essayist