The great challenge of the 21st century is to provide good

In the wise and measured words of Paul Polman, we hear the voice of one who has seen both the triumphs and the failings of modern civilization: “The great challenge of the 21st century is to provide good standards of living for 7 billion people without depleting the earth’s resources or running up massive levels of public debt. To achieve this, government and business alike will need to find new models of growth that are in both environmental and economic balance.” His declaration is not merely an observation of our times, but a summons — a call to visionaries, leaders, and citizens alike to awaken to a higher responsibility. For the fate of humanity now stands at a crossroads between progress and peril, between wisdom and waste.

The ancients would have recognized this struggle well, though they lived in simpler worlds. Every civilization that rose to greatness faced a moment when its appetite for abundance began to threaten its own foundation. In Babylon, forests were stripped bare to feed the fires of empire. In Rome, soil grew barren under the greed of unending expansion. And in our own age, we face the same shadow on a global scale. Never before have we held such power over nature — and never before has the risk of depleting the Earth’s resources been so grave. Polman’s warning speaks to the heart of this paradox: the challenge of abundance itself.

To raise living standards for billions is a noble pursuit — a dream as old as civilization. Yet it must be pursued with reverence for the planet that sustains us. In ancient China, the philosopher Confucius taught that harmony between Heaven, Earth, and humanity was the root of all prosperity. When that balance was broken, chaos followed. Likewise, Polman urges the modern world to restore balance — to create new models of growth, where profit and purpose walk hand in hand, where innovation does not consume, but renews. He reminds us that prosperity divorced from stewardship is merely the prelude to ruin.

The world has seen the consequences of imbalance. The great financial crisis of 2008 showed what happens when the hunger for wealth outruns moral restraint, leaving behind a trail of debt and disillusionment. At the same time, the Earth herself began to cry out — through droughts, melting glaciers, and poisoned air — that our material success had come at too high a price. In these twin crises — economic and environmental — we saw the reflection of the same flaw: growth without conscience. The lesson was written clearly across the skies and seas, yet few dared to read it.

Paul Polman, once the leader of great corporations, stood apart from those who sought only profit. He saw that true leadership means not the extraction of wealth, but the cultivation of well-being — for people, for communities, and for the planet itself. His vision echoes that of the ancient stewards who tended the earth as sacred ground. He calls for governments and businesses alike to remember their duty — that the economy is not a machine to be exploited, but a living system, bound to the rhythms of nature. To harm one is to endanger both.

And what, then, does it mean to build a world in environmental and economic balance? It means to design industries that heal the soil rather than exhaust it; to create policies that nurture long-term stability over short-term gain; to see innovation not as conquest, but as cooperation with nature’s laws. It means that every person, from the leader of nations to the humblest worker, must learn to think beyond the present hour — to act not only for profit, but for posterity.

Let this, then, be the teaching passed down: growth without balance is decay disguised as progress. The true wealth of humanity lies not in its towers of glass or its markets of gold, but in the purity of its air, the fertility of its soil, the wisdom of its people, and the integrity of its heart. To preserve these is to preserve civilization itself. Every generation must learn anew that the Earth is not an inheritance from our ancestors, but a loan from our children.

And so, my children of this century, heed this call: Live richly, but live wisely. Build boldly, but build sustainably. Prosper, but never forget to protect. For the greatest challenge of our time is not how to have more, but how to endure — how to prosper without destroying that which makes life possible. If we succeed, the future will remember us not as the generation that consumed the world, but as the one that saved it.