Well, that didn't take long!

Today was our first company visit. We were treated to a warm reception by Ericsson where there were a few different high level officials that came to meet with us about what they were doing in Social Responsibility and Sustainability. The list of accomplishments was impressive. In fact, they listed them all in a Sustainability and Social Responsibility report.

The three performance indicators that are the focus are-

1. Conducting Business Responsibly

2. Energy, Environment, Climate

3. Communication for All - which includes educating children in developing countries by providing them with laptops and access to curriculum in "the cloud", banking the "unbanked" and connecting refugees that have been separated. 

What was really interesting for me was that when one of the conference participants raised the question that Ericsson had recently lost a major deal with Sony and what the company was doing to shore up their bottom line, the conversation was quickly redirected on all the good that the company is doing around the world. This bothered me. While I can honestly say that I've graduated beyond the Milton Friedman thinking strictly speaking "The purpose of a business is to make money" and that's it. I do believe that this should be the primary purpose of business. So, I'm left to struggle with a question is there a company that can equally balance social initiatives with making money OR is one always going to take priority over another?