The hegemony of the neoclassical model as a conceptual and analytical framework to explain the operating logics of capitalism has made the ethics that this model carries implicit – the criteria, behaviours of the actors, etc., which are considered better or more appropriate due to the supposed good functioning of the system – have also occurred hegemonically. One of these “ethical” criteria or behaviors is the so-called stockholder theory, whereby a company’s sole responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders. In this article, we question the compatibility between this theory’s validity – as the empirical analysis indicates – with the social demand for companies to act with other ethics, and also how it is more plausible to move towards this change of values.

The acceleration of climate change we are seeing is triggering one of the deepest and most threatening global crises to ensure a fair and livable planet for the more than 8 billion inhabitants and for the biosphere. The climate crisis is so significant and severe that climate emergency is already being discussed. We are in a global context in which the trespassing of planetary boundaries, particularly those related to climate emergency, has clear effects on our daily lives, especially in an uneven and unfair manner. Organizations, across their diversity, cannot circumvent the necessary debate on how they must adapt to the new climate emergency context and how they can contribute effectively to mitigation and adaptation, without falling into greenwashing. New metrics, beyond current green certifications, that can capture and incentivize the decarbonization and ecological transition of organizations will need to be found. Obviously, this requires a profound change in the continuous economic growth logic that transcends the individual wills of organizations and requires profound social, cultural and political-economic change in the priorities we have as a society.

The sharing economy has burst forcefully onto the scene in a wide range productive sectors (transport, tourism, finance, etc.). This collaborative approach is proving itself to be efficient in terms of business management, while also offering opportunities for citizens to exchange values (providing them with greater autonomy) and in many cases reducing their ecological footprint. Despite these virtues being hard to dispute, a critical and constructive inspection must be carried out to see whether sharing economy companies are also helping to change society's values, or if they are simply making capitalism more efficient. In the analysis for this article, a) we differentiate between the wide variety of actors in the sharing economy according to their purpose; and b) we present three avenues of exploration in which interest has been growing over the past year (the Sharing Business Model Compass, platform cooperativism, and Commons Collaborative Economies). Now is a critical moment if we are to guide the evolution of the sharing economy towards reaching its full potential. This is a complex matter that should not and indeed cannot be simplified.

Since the 1980s, worldwide there have been numerous socioeconomic initiatives driven by ideas that differ from capitalist concepts such as accumulation of wealth, maximizing of profits and consumerism. These new initiatives appear all around the economic cycle: resources management, production, marketing, consumption, the financial system, the distribution of surplus and the circulation of currencies. One of the names most commonly associated with such initiatives is social and solidarity economy. In the future these initiatives may provide an alternative to the current dominant system.