Advancing the Common Good Through Purpose-led Business: Catholic Social Teaching and a Blueprint for Better Business

Abstract In 2012, a group of UK business leaders approached the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster about what they perceived as a breakdown of trust between business—especially big business—and society. This led to an initiative called A Blueprint for Better Business, which became an independent UK-based charitable trust in 2014—separate from the Church, and also independent of business, funded by charitable foundations and individuals and latterly by corporate donations. Blueprint works with leadership teams in large companies to support and challenge them, fostering a movement of businesses and investors who want to change behavior and expectations of the role of business in society. This paper recounts how the initiative developed, drawing attention in the process to Catholic social teaching including Pope Francis’ encyclicals Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti, both written after Blueprint was founded.