ISBA Principles
The following ten principles are a guide for creating prosperous and sustainable practices that offer the greatest opportunities and the highest quality of life for everyone:
Principle One: To improve and to ensure a high quality life for this and all future generations, a balanced, triple bottom line approach needs to guide all economic activity wherein the pursuit of profit does not come at the expense of our planet’s life support systems or social well being. All business activity should contribute positively to improving civil society without harming others while maintaining the quality of local, and thereby, global biophysical environments.
Principle Two: All business, economic and scientific research activity should be performed with the long-term consequences to public health in mind, incorporating the impact on future generations and the planet’s life support systems into their cost/benefit evaluation models. The goal of unlimited physical, economic growth is no longer feasible or sustainable.
Principle Three: To reduce waste and the need for big government, the measurement of economic activity should be valued at the true, total cost and benefit to society. Reducing and eventually eliminating the negative business impacts on the environment, public health and natural resource depletion should be integrated into operational plans, so that “doing good while doing well” becomes standard business operating procedure.
Principle Four: Government policy works best when directed at improving common public benefits and reducing public costs. Economic policies which only consider the financial benefits and costs on industries, but fail to accurately incorporate social and environment impacts on society are shortsighted and result in higher costs and a reduced quality of life over time. Public regulation will be needed until all businesses voluntarily comply with meeting these natural, common sense standards.
Principle Five: For free enterprise to flourish, markets must be free and open to new business entrepreneurs in all industry sectors to create dynamic, economically resilient, local living economies. At present, many market segments and industry sectors have become too speculative, are easily manipulated, or are too monopolized, creating high barriers to entry resulting in fewer entrepreneurial and employment opportunities, fewer consumer choices, poorer customer service, higher prices and a reduction of overall economic activity and fiscal sustainability.
Principle Six: Government policies should support building local economies which are both economically and environmentally
sustainable. Communities that are able to maintain their community health, wealth and biophysical assets are less dependent on government assistance. National economic and environmental sustainability begins as the local level.
Principle Seven: Government at any level is not an economic
marketplace. Elected public leadership should not be for sale to
the highest, anonymous bidder or to any business. The dominating influence of private money in politics must be reduced.
Principle Eight: To overcome the many unprecedented, economic
and environmental challenges facing our nation and the world, greater international economic cooperation and collaboration are essential to achieving economic, environmental and social sustainability and should be sought whenever possible.
Principle Nine: All workers, wherever they may be in the world,
deserve a fair, living wage for a fair day’s work in a safe and healthy environment. Corporations which seek to gain competitive economic advantages by bypassing environmental controls and labor safeguards through international labor arbitrage violate the fundamental purpose of economic activity which is to improve the quality of life. More international cooperation on trade policy is needed to address this problem.
Principle Ten: Government support programs should be refined to assist those in need without creating ongoing individual dependency on the government program. Government should not become a replacement for personal initiative and individual responsibility which are so important to living a free and meaningful life as well as the well-being of society.
