Capitalism and Sustainable Development

Abstract

The crisis has shattered confidence in the public opinion on the capacity of the capitalist system to regulate itself to avoid catastrophic situations as presently observed in the world. The question is to know whether the capitalist system will be able to evolve toward a business model compatible with the objective of sustainable development. To the firm, the challenge is formidable: how to conciliate the profitability imperative with the necessity to reduce waste, pollution and carbon emissions? The models of a loop economy and of a functional service economy are complementary and propose new business models promising solutions for developing an eco-responsible capitalism.

Keywords

• capitalism
• global economic crisis
• sustainable development
• new business model
• functional economy