Business for Good,
Good for Business
We help businesses create value by solving problems for people and the planet.
We call this mutual value – where financial performance and positive impact reinforce each other over time.
Working with leaders, organizations, and systems, we develop the capabilities needed to create mutual value – unlocking new sources of innovation and resilience.
We are foundation-owned with an ambitious goal: to support the cultivation of businesses, and ultimately economies, that serve the long-term wellbeing of communities and the natural world.
Our Services
-
Leadership Development
We help senior business and investment leaders develop the mindset and skills to lead for mutual value creation.
From executive residencies to immersive online learning programs and team workshops, we explore how to navigate complexity and drive transformational change.
-
Strategic Advisory
We help organizations embed mutual value creation into strategy, decision-making, governance, and culture.
Together, we design business models capable of delivering both commercial performance and meaningful outcomes for people and planet.
-
Systemic Action
We help cultivate local economic systems that generate mutual value at scale.
Through place-based
“Mutual Living Labs,” we bring together the private, non-profit, and public sectors to prototype and scale systemic solutions that work for all stakeholders.
Why “Mutual” Value?
Because the world needs a better form of value creation – one that positions the interests of society, the environment, and businesses in right relationship rather than in conflict.
“Mutual” value creation generates business models and economic systems that are:
-
Meaningful
Centered around solving relevant societal and environmental challenges – where profit is an outcome, not the objective.
-
Proximate
Built on close, trust-based relationships that foster understanding, co-creation, and shared accountability.
-
Reciprocal
Designed to share benefits and burdens across stakeholders – ensuring value is not extracted at the expense of others.
-
Enduring
Structured to generate long-term, compounding value by strengthening the interdependencies between business, society, and nature.
Our Origin Story
Our mutual value approach emerged from a multi-year research partnership between Mars, Inc. and Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
We led this research partnership while serving within Mars as the company’s internal think tank – testing the approach across a diverse range of business contexts from cocoa supply chains to pet care ecosystems and route-to-market programs.
As the broader potential of this work became clear, Mars spun us out in 2020 to share mutual value creation more widely, placing us under foundation ownership to safeguard our mission.
Since then, we have worked with stakeholders from a broad range of industries and geographies – from banking in Singapore to real estate management in the UK and healthcare in the US.
Explore a Better Way of Seeing and Doing Business
Mutual Value Labs develops the capabilities required to put human and environmental flourishing at the heart of value creation.
FROM
“How do we maximize profit while managing externalities?”
TO
“How can we create enduring value for business and the world at the same time?”
For decades, businesses have operated within systems that reward short-term financial performance while treating social and environmental challenges as external concerns.
But the pressures facing companies today, from climate disruption and economic volatility to declining trust and rising inequality, reveal the limits of that model.
The future belongs to the leaders and organizations capable of creating value differently:
more meaningfully
more relationally
more systemically
more sustainably
Not by sacrificing performance, but by redefining it.
Knowledge Hub
OUR APPROACH
Putting Human and Ecological Flourishing at the Heart of Value Creation
You no longer have to choose between building a thriving business and contributing to a flourishing society. The Economics of Mutuality is an engine of transformation that equips you to do both without having to trade returns for impact.
Creating value for your stakeholders and your shareholders doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. It can be mutually beneficial.
Everyone wins when you address the problems of people, place, and planet… profitably.
OUR APPROACH
For Good Companies
Mutual Value Labs is a forward-facing management consulting firm owned by the non-profit Economics of Mutuality Foundation.
By equipping companies to embed the Economics of Mutuality operating model, we enable them to identify and meaningfully address societal problems… profitably and at scale. This supports agile business transformation, creates innovation opportunities, and delivers growth.
Meet Our Team
OUR APPROACH
What We Bring
We serve and support a range of companies, primarily business units within multinationals and SMEs. Working alongside front-line leaders, we adapt our services to each client’s unique context and requirements.
Our capabilities include:
Using digital tools to conduct and analyze research across business ecosystems
Identifying impact-led value creation opportunities that can drive performance
Mitigating risks that could become an invisible drag on both the top and bottom line
Developing leadership capabilities based on the principle of mutuality
Educating and certifying Economics of Mutuality practitioners
OUR APPROACH
Purpose Into Practice
An increasing proportion of companies want to be purpose-driven because they appreciate that delivering a higher corporate purpose can add meaning to their brand, create value for their stakeholders, and give rise to a more motivated and engaged workforce.
But many don’t know how to get from a lofty statement to practical implementation – to shift from staring into the ‘light of purpose’ to using it as a means of illuminating problems.
We help clients put purpose into practice by locating the challenge within their ecosystem that represents the best opportunity for growth and impact – the place where combined resources meet collective demand.
Let’s Discuss
If you’d like to explore how the Economics of Mutuality could drive transformation in your context, just reach out. We'd be delighted to start a conversation.