If King Charles II had the chance to do it all again, the Hudson's Bay Co. might have been a benefit corporation – and Canada might have been a very different country.
A benefit corporation is a for-profit corporation committed to a Triple P bottom line of people, profit and the planet. Using this vehicle, Charles II's grant to HBC in 1670 could have included obligations to take the people of North America and the environment into account when exploiting mineral resources and searching for the Northwest Passage. If Indigenous inhabitants of Rupert's Land had been on the board of directors, for example, the company might have realized that our natural resources have limits and acted accordingly in its own – and Canada's – best interests.
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