Working Together
for the Common Good
The non-profit-led Economics of Mutuality Alliance helps 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.
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:
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Meaningful
Centered around solving relevant societal and environmental challenges – where profit is an outcome, not the objective.
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Proximate
Built on close, trust-based relationships that foster understanding, co-creation, and shared accountability.
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Reciprocal
Designed to share benefits and burdens across stakeholders – ensuring value is not extracted at the expense of others.
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Regenerative
Structured to generate long-term, compounding value by strengthening the interdependencies between business, society, and nature.
Join Our Digital Learning Course
A five-week flexible program introducing leaders to mutual value creation. Taking place online 2 – 30 November 2026.
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 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
We develop the capabilities required to put human and environmental flourishing at the heart of value creation.
Two Organizations, One Shared Purpose
The Economics of Mutuality Alliance brings together the Economics of Mutuality Foundation and its subsidiary Mutual Value Labs to support the cultivation of businesses, and ultimately economies, that serve the long-term wellbeing of communities and the natural world.
Mutual Value Labs is an innovation firm with offices in Geneva and London. Through leadership development, strategic advisory, and systemic action, it helps leaders, organizations, and cross-sector partners put mutual value creation into practice.
The Geneva-based nonprofit Economics of Mutuality Foundation advances mutual value creation by building the field of place-based systems change, sharing evidence and learning across the network, and telling stories that inspire wider action.
Let’s Discuss
If you’d like to explore how mutual value creation could drive transformation in your context, just reach out. We'd be delighted to start a conversation.