Humble, charming and whip-smart, Professor Mark Kramer is co-creator of both Shared Value and Collective Impact, two of the most seminal concepts in sustainability and social impact of the last 20 years. 

But, while the words are thrown around regularly, how many of us really understand what these concepts mean and how to apply them?

In this special edition bonus episode, Goodtrepreneur has teamed up with the Shared Value Project to bring you a 30 minute Mini-Masterclass with Mark where he explains them once and for all. 

He also outlines the fundamentals of a smart business strategy as well as what he thinks it will take the workd to get back on track when it comes to prioritising the health of people and our home planet. 

Here's a quick summary to get you in the mood: 

🤨 What is Shared Value?

Shared Value recognises that the success a company depends on the sustainability of the environment in which it's operating: a healthy and educated workforce, consumers that have enough money to buy your product, the natural resources needed to make it. Therefore there is a business benefit and competitive advantage to be had in helping solve social and environmental problems.

🤨 What are three kinds of Shared Value?

1. Creating a profitable new product or market, such as sunglasses made out of what would have been waste plastic

2. Improving efficiency, such as reducing costs by going solar

3. Strengthening the supply chain, such as training farmers to improve their soil in a way that also improves yield

🤨 What is Collective Impact?

A framework for systems change that recognises most social and enviro challenges are too big for any one organisation to tackle alone, so companies, govt and nonprofits benefit from working together to do so.

🤨 What are the five fundamentals?

1. Common agenda - we all have the same goal

2. Shared measurement - we all measure impact the same way

3. Mutually reinforcing activities - everyone has a clear role

4. Continuous communication - everyone knows what everyone is doing

5. Backbone support - it’s someone’s job to lead the team effort

🤨 What makes a smart business strategy?

A smart business strategy recognises that if you do the same as your competitors, you will end up competing on price and sooner or later that will end in an unattractive business model. So you want to aim for superior profitability. To do that, you need a competitive position that is serving a specific type of customer and delivering them value in a way no competitor can by tailoring everything you do to deliver that. As Michael Porter says, ‘if you're not making some customers unhappy, you don't have a strategy.’

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:

The biggest mistake we make about “doing good” is treating it like a side project. Mark Kramer joins us for a sharp, practical conversation on why social impact and corporate performance are already linked, whether leaders admit it or not. When the workforce is unhealthy, when communities are unstable, when climate risk hits supply chains, profitability takes the hit too. Mark explains shared value as a way to stop managing harm at the edges and start building business models that solve real problems while creating competitive advantage.

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