Save the World, Turn a Profit

At next week's General Assembly meetings, the United Nations will formally announce 17 ambitious new sustainable development goals. The 15-year program will tackle vital issues ranging from global poverty to women's rights to sustainable energy. The first question the world will ask is: “How do you expect to pay for them?”

The U.N. has put a price tag of accomplishing these goals into the trillions. Meanwhile, donor governments and philanthropies only have in the billions to spend. There is no question, then, that we’ll need to tap into the estimated $210 trillion now invested in global financial markets. Unfortunately, the world's "social businesses" -- companies that exist to solve humanitarian problems and reinvest all profits to remain financially self-sustainable -- remain shut off from these commercial investors.