Business ethics and the Earth Charter – A Call to Action

Jul 9

During the Earth Charter +25 event from July 1-3, 2025, I had the honor to co-moderate together with Michel Bracken the session on Business ethics. This article is my syntheses of the contributions and dialogue that took place. The theme of business ethics and how to create organisational-pacts that transform businesses into a force for life, is at the very heart of what Innerpact wants to bring into this world. At the event Innerpact signed the affiliate agreement with Earth Charter International to underline the great inspiration that we gain from the Earth Charter and its community.

At this session on July 3 - 2025, contributors and particpants affirmed a powerful truth: business can and must be a force for life — not merely for profit. Our conversation revealed spiralling layers of insight, rooted in a collective urgency to realign business with ethics, ecology, and the deeper needs of humanity.

We are not facing a business challenge — we are facing an ethical one. In an era marked by ecological overshoot, social fragmentation, and a loss of meaning, the business world must move beyond compliance to conscience. We must transition from individualism to interdependence, from extraction to regeneration, from short-term metrics to long-term values.

Is there such a thing as an Earth Charter organization?

Yes — or at least, there can and must be.

An Earth Charter organization is one that lives the Earth Charter’s values in its governance, decisions, supply chains, internal culture, and community relationships. It treats ethics not as a checklist, but as a compass. It places care for people, planet, and future generations at the heart of its strategy — and acts accordingly.

It’s a company that understands ethical is more than legal. And has come to the conclusion that urgent action was already needed years ago.

Wisdom of the Earth Charter

The Earth Charter offers a powerful ethical foundation, with principles that address:

· Human dignity and labor rights

· Equity and social justice

· Ecological limits and biodiversity

· Transparency, stewardship, and long-term responsibility

The Earth Charter is a holistic ethical document. One principle (there are 16 principles) cannot be traded for another principle; leave no principle behind. Companies are making choices every day, let’s start with including the following key Earth Charter Principles into the conversation and create space where the relevance and reach can be shared in a safe and brave interaction:

· Promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner (7e)

· Affirm corporate responsibilities to the common good and human rights (7f)

· Emphasize sustainability and quality of life over mere profit (7g)

· Protect the integrity of Earth’s ecological systems (5)

· Internalize environmental harm in decision-making (9b)

· Ensure transparency and accountability in economic governance (10b)

· Foster right relationships with nature, culture, and future generations (16f)

Wisdom of the crowd

Wisdom from the Earth Charter+25 Business & Ethics Dialogue

· Move from metrics to ethics: Redefine success along all six capitals (financial, natural, social, human, innovative, infrastructural).

· Strengthen unions and institutionalize work advisory councils.

· Replace the CFO with a Chief Values Officer who holds ethical oversight.

· Design and empower inclusive stakeholder councils — with representation from internal voices, including workers and nature itself.

· Recognize that safety, bravery, and deep listening are skills — and essential to building truly human institutions.

· Embrace collective responsibility: Business is not separate from society. It is society.

· Rethink extraction: From pricing-in to limiting what should not be exploited.

· Reorganize structures to de-centre power and surface silenced perspectives.

· Understand that customers are becoming choosers, and citizens are demanding conscience.

· Define sustainability not just technically but spiritually: What is nature? Are we not nature? Can we live this, not just measure it?

During the business ethics dialogue the following framework saw the light: The Four Hearts

>>The Earth Charter at the centre

Infuse your organisation with the Earth Charter. The ethical compass anchoring all principles and action — the shared foundation for regenerative, just, and life-affirming business.

>>At Stake

Theme: Participation, Perspective, Plurality

What’s at stake is not just profit or productivity — it’s the future of our shared planet and the dignity of all life.
To lead ethically, organizations must:

· Integrate diverse perspectives — across generations, roles, cultures, and ecosystems

· Foster internal and external stakeholder engagement

· Prioritize community involvement and inclusive onboarding

· Move from hierarchy to shared governance, embedding ethical agency at all levels

This is where we move from top-down control to shared purpose.

>>Equality

Theme: Justice, Rights, Health

True sustainability cannot exist without justice. Organizations must operate across all borders — economic, ecological, and social — with respect and care.

· Commit to human rights, labor dignity, and health equity

· Recognize the rights of nature and future generations alongside human rights

· Apply ethics across geographies, bridging North and South, local and global

· Ensure representation of the unheard — workers, Indigenous voices, future generations

This is where business becomes a vehicle for justice, not inequality.

>>Beyond

Theme: Culture, Voice, Courage

We must go beyond business-as-usual to transform our economic culture:

· Embrace human and nature centered models over mechanistic, extractive ones

· Cultivate speak-up cultures and deep listening practices

· Foster inner development: humility, courage, presence

· Enable safe, brave spaces that unlock co-responsibility and innovation

This is where people show up fully — not just as roles, but as whole humans.

>>Purpose

Theme: Regeneration, Value, Integrity

Purpose is the ethical center of the organization. With the Earth Charter as a guide, organizations can:

· Create success across all six capitals: financial, natural, social, human, innovation, and infrastructure

· Install Chief Value Officers and ethics-based leadership roles

· Infuse the Earth Charter into strategy, products, HR, and communications

· Prioritize collective wellbeing over extractive growth

This is where the future becomes a stakeholder.

>>Circle of conscience

This protective, guiding circle is what keeps the hearts beating with integrity. Let us transform compliance into passion. Consciousness into action.

· There is a line: between greenwashing and ethics — let’s not blur it

· There is law: but ethics must go beyond legal minimums

· There are 1000 reasons to comply: and even more reasons to lead

· Today’s conscious consumers and citizens demand truth, courage, and care

· Businesses aligned with the Earth Charter are loved by society, respected by nature, and trusted by employees

Call to action to the business community

Ten bold recommendations for business aligned with the Earth Charter

1. Adopt the Earth Charter as a strategic lens for ESG and purpose.

2. Develop ethical due diligence that includes social and ecological harm.

3. Shift incentives toward regenerative, inclusive business models.

4. Create public-private-community compacts, grounded in shared values.

5. Prioritize worker dignity and stakeholder voice across governance.

6. Internalize ecological costs — implement true pricing mechanisms.

7. Replace CFOs with Chief Values Officers in executive leadership.

8. Build and empower unions and worker representation structures.

9. Contribute to regional community masterplans for long-term wellbeing.

10. Cultivate inner development — courage, humility, presence, and moral clarity.

A Pledge for Business as a force for life

What if organisations made a pledge?

Let us redefine what it means to be “in business.” Let us be businesses that heal, uplift, and connect. Let us occupy the economy — with our light.

· Treat ethics as the foundation of business, not a compliance footnote

· Infuse Earth Charter values into every decision, from boardroom to shop floor

· Uplift the wisdom of youth, the rights of nature, and the dignity of all workers

· Listen deeply, act boldly, and stand for justice, peace, and future generations

· Be stewards of life, serving not just shareholders, but the whole living Earth

Thank you to the participants and contributors. This is just the beginning of a great conversation. To be continued.

Veronique Swinkels (Lab for Future Generations, Innerpact) & Michael Bracken (MedCom Benefits/ECI Council)(USA)Jaap Jongejan (SBI, NL), Tony Ogbuigwe (Nigeria), Tineke Lambooy and André Nijhof Nyenrode University, Herman Mulder SDG the Netherlands and True Price, Erik Thijs Wedershoven (NL), Laura María Rodríguez Uribe, (Colombia) and Danielle Woestenberg CNV (NL)

Veronique Swinkels