Regarding the relationship between profits and pollution, I didn’t assume an anarchic society. A profit seeking company has every incentive to not pollute; otherwise, it risks paying through the nose by harming someone’s property. For some types of pollution, like ambient air pollution, collective action (i.e., multi-jurisdictional regulation) is efficient. But I don’t know what that has to do with “sustainable” business practices.

This postulate would be correct if the societies that house these profiting businesses could distribute the wealth to all the surrounding population and environment, otherwise that profit is only a benefit for a score of people, which in turn leaves the money and power in the hands of unscrupulous (sometimes) few. I have Carlos Slim in mind.

The idea Branson states, which, out of context is hard to discern clearly, I interpret as: when profits are the only thing that matter, we destroy, not only people’s lives, but the environment too”.

If profits are my only metric, I should make shoes with no concerns regarding water pollution. I can build cars that run 1 mile a gallon, as they will be bought by people who don’t care about the price of gasoline. I can have people working 20 hours a day for a dollar, as profits are King.

This would be an interpretation of Branson’s words from a different perspective.

So anyway, we can have business with profits, sure, but profit can’t be the only metric for a business and its activities, society and governments must keep them sustainable and fair if the business owners do not acknowledge their responsibility to the rest of their fellow humans and non-humans.