Thought Leader Interview: Michael Porter
What is the Social Progress Imperative?
It started back in 2009, at a meeting of one of the Global Agenda Councils at the World Economic Forum. Michael Bishop of The Economist threw out an idea to the group: The WEF had already had a significant impact on the world from an economic perspective, in terms of helping countries increase their GDP per capita; shouldn’t there be a way to measure social progress as well — progress that drives not GDP, but social well-being?
People loved the idea, and a founding group was quickly formed, including our current chairman, Brizio Biondi-Morra. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to come on board to lead the development of the conceptual framework for measuring social progress and the research effort.
Social progress has become an increasingly pressing issue for leaders in business, government and civil society. Since the financial crisis of 2008, citizens increasingly expect business leaders to play their role in delivering not just economic growth, but improvements to the lives of customers and employees, while protecting the environment.
How do you define social progress?
The Social Progress Imperative officially defines it as ‘The capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential’.
There is extensive academic literature on all the different aspects of social progress, and in creating the Social Progress Index (SPI), we drew heavily on that work, so we felt like we were standing on the shoulders of
