Reforming Business for Ecological and Human Flourishing
The course provided the participants with a fresh knowledge about the new reality of the Anthropocene era and the role of business in it. It criticized today’s dominating, extractive, shareholder-value maximizing way of doing business and offered a planet positive approach which targets human wellbeing and ecological regeneration.
The course was conjointly taught by Corvinus faculty and a number of distinguised international scholars, including the world-renonwed business leader, Paul Polman. As CEO of Unilever in 2008–2019, Polman proved that purpose-driven strategies deliver exceptional results. Thinkers50 named him 1st in its 2025 Ranking, recognizing Polman’s lasting influence on business and management.
Paul Polman lectures at Corvinus
Based on the “Planet Positive Entrepreneurship” summer school, CIAS published a booklet entitled “Reforming Business for Ecological and Human Flourishing”.
Its contents are as follows:
Paul Polman (Former CEO of Unilever & Co-Architect of the UN Development Goals): From Less Bad to Net Positive
Eleanor O’Higgins (University College Dublin & London School of Economics): Business and Sustainable Development Goals
Paul Shrivastava (Pennsylvania State University & The Club of Rome): Planet Positive and Peaceful Sustainability Beyond 2030
Laszlo Zsolnai (Corvinus Institute for Adavanced Studies & Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford): The Idea of Planet Positivity
Mike Thompson (Former Director of Ethics for Anthesis & Co-Founder of the Impact Hub London): ESG Governance and Wisdom in Business
Thomas Walker (Concordia University, Montreal): Financing Nature’s Future – Capital, Disclosure, and the Global Biodiversity Economy
The booklet is on open access publication that can be shared freely. It can be downloaded from this link.