71succeed in cutting their carbon emissions—or in
tackling problems like human-rights abuses, in-
equality or racial justice—will have a significant
impact on the state of the world, for better or worse.
Of the 2,000 companies analyzed by the or-
ganization Net Zero Tracker, 682 have declared
target dates by which they aim to zero out their
carbon emissions. Brands like Coca-Cola and
McDonald’s have vowed to cut plastic waste, and
auto makers like GM and Volkswagen say they aim
to end the production of fossil-fuel cars within the
near future.
There are holes in all these promises, but one
thing is now clear: for companies, it has become
a risk not to make them. The actual debate now is
whether tackling those issues—“purpose-driven
capitalism,” as it is known—is in sync or in conflict
with what businesses have always thought was
their main job: making money.
“People ask me, ‘Is there a dissonance between
profits and purpose?’” says Dan Schulman, Pay-
Pal’s president and CEO, who has said he aims
to bring his social views to the financial tech
giant, where he has hiked pay and cut employees’
health care costs. “My view is that profits and pur-
pose are fully linked together,” he tells TIME from
his home in Palo Alto, Calif. “We cannot be about
just maximizing our profit next quarter. We need
to be part of our societies,” he says. “We need to
think about the medium term and the long term,
and we need to act accordingly.”
More and more business leaders have begun to
echo that opinion. Those voices were especially
loud during the months leading up to the COP26