By Vikash Bakrewala, Member of the St. Gallen Symposium's global Leaders of Tomorrow Community.
The pursuit of economic growth has shifted; the focus is now on emerging groups like the PINE - Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria and Ethiopia, and the MINT - Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. What would come next? Will we chase an increase in population to increase the GDP or over feed the existing population?
Growth is often viewed in a single dimension, in that of economic growth, trapping the life of it in a closed box. Most other forms of growth are often overlooked, for instance - a growth of involvement.
The involvement of each member of the community has started to take the shape of movements like the Sharing Economy and the Collaborative Economy. Examples from around the world and from across businesses indicate how involvement is changing business models and redefining growth in a positive manner.
In Syria, common citizens are getting involved in sharing electricity generators to solve their issues effectively. The growth of involvement is being furthered through the involvement of the common man with other common men and with the community to solve problems and address challenges.
In these trying times today, an increase in involvement is solving the woes of economic growth like poverty, hunger, unemployment and environmental degradation. The mounting global food crisis is being resolved through services such as Farm Drop and Food Assembly that are evolving the market for farmers and consumers who are directly transacting to fulfil each other's needs.
A strong indicative of the growing involvement of the community is the case of Delhi, India, one of the most polluted cities in the world. The recently carried out odd-even experiment to tackle pollution by keeping cars off the road on alternate days saw a 90% compliance from the citizens, keeping over 100,000 vehicles off the road each day.
Bringing back the "social" in social capital
It is time to revive the natural proclivity of human beings towards collective growth since acts of gifting and sharing have always formed the basis of our human community. Like in San Francisco, where a social networking platform named Next Door is being used in 99% of the households for being involved together in matters of crime and safety by dispensing information to each other.
As we move towards an era of "technological unemployment", there is a need to increase involvement to reviving cooperation and sharing, and maximizing collective wellbeing - elements which will remain core to the jobs of the future.
Measuring the way it matters most
It's a known fact in the business world that we manage what we measure and the controversy of measuring growth in terms of economics and GDP lies primarily in the elements which the index does not measure. Accelerating attention to the growth of involvement requires effective measurement of true prosperity. The starting point of this measurement could very well be the Gross National Happiness of Bhutan where elements such as time use and community vitality are measured as well.
Like Shakespeare said "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet", so would the growth of involvement. We might address it as the Sharing or Collaborative Economy - but at heart, they are essentially the growth of involvement put into practice. If the future is to be protected, we all need to be involved.
"Growth - The good, the bad, and the ugly" was debated in the light of the 46 St. Gallen Symposium (11-13 May 2016).