The Solution Revolution

How Business, Government, and Social Enterprises Are Teaming Up to Solve Society’s Toughest Problems

By: William Eggers, Paul Macmillan

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

World hunger. Climate change. Crumbling infrastructure. It’s clear that in today’s era of fiscal constraints and political gridlock, we can no longer turn to government alone to tackle these and other towering social problems. What’s required is a new, more collaborative and productive economic system. The Solution Revolution brings hope - revealing just such a burgeoning new economy where players from across the spectrum of business, government, philanthropy, and social enterprise converge to solve big problems and create public value.

By erasing public-private sector boundaries, the solution economy is unlocking trillions of dollars in social benefit and commercial value. Where tough societal problems persist, new problem solvers are crowdfunding, ridesharing, app-developing, or impact-investing to design innovative new solutions for seemingly intractable problems. Providing low-cost health care, fighting poverty, creating renewable energy, and preventing obesity are just a few of the tough challenges that also represent tremendous opportunities for those at the vanguard of this movement. They create markets for social good and trade solutions instead of dollars to fill the gap between what government can provide and what citizens need.

So what drives the solution economy? Who are these new players and how are their roles changing? How can we grow the movement? And how can we participate?

Deloitte’s William D. Eggers and Paul Macmillan answer these questions and more, and they introduce us to the people and organizations driving the revolution - from edgy social enterprises growing at a clip of 15 percent a year, to megafoundations, to Fortune 500 companies delivering social good on the path to profit. Recyclebank, RelayRides, and LivingGoods are just a few of the innovative organizations you’ll hear about in this audiobook.

©2013 Deloitte Global Services Limited. Recorded by arrangement with Harvard Business Review Press. (P)2014 HighBridge Company

A must for investors and decision makers

A really interesting read for everyone, but especially good for investors and decision makers, and anyone else in a position to implement and encourage positive change for our planet and people.

Good overview of an evolving field

As an introduction to emerging social citizenship it is a whirlwind tour of some of the best examples of the last decade. It introduces key terms and a sense of how each player fits into an overall eco-system. However like a lot of books in this genre it was repetitive at times and hard to get a sense of the overall narrative in between all the examples. One to the flip through and use as a reference rather than read all at once.