**7. Conclusions**

This paper has proposed the corporate profit model as an expanded view of the important variables from the economic, social, political, and ecological systems that interact with and impact our ability to achieve a sustainable world. In particular, corporate power is shown to be a primary cause of political influence, policy formation, and perpetuation of neoliberalism. Corporations have often co-opted or appropriated the language of environmental citizenship and have positioned themselves as ideal environmental citizens, all the while driving their companies and customers to be unsustainable over-consumers [50].

Enhancing citizen mental models is necessary for the implementation of good public policy and market-based incentives to promote global sustainability. Moving citizen understanding from narrow conceptions of the economy to a wider view is an essential first step. Fortunately, ecological-economic precautionary policy instruments exist and show promise to halt our ecological crises.

Neoliberalism and excessive focus on economic growth are actually hindering both our long-run prosperity and our ability to make progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our system of defining public policy has deep flaws. Our policies are based on short-run pressures that inevitably produce long-run failure [10]. Pushing economic growth, especially using neoliberalism tactics, is a short-run strategy. Complex non-linear feedback systems exhibit better-before-worse dynamics [10]. In the long-run, our market economy will inevitably become more focused on green products and technology, especially renewable energy. This is because we are increasingly pushing up against ecological or planetary limits. Pushing for more economic growth using neoliberalism actually hinders

our economy in two ways: (1) Over consumption of material goods produced with fossil fuel energy harms our ecosystems and is beginning to cost the economy more than the benefits we receive [6] (see Figure 3, B9, Ecology Tradeoff); and (2) the neoliberalism focus on the right-hand side of the Corporate Profit Loop is a reinforcing feedback loop, and it diminishes the ability of governmen<sup>t</sup> to protect our long-run, common good interests (e.g., protecting and conserving natural resources, maintaining and building infrastructure, initiating sustainable business support and protecting the rights of individuals).

Corporations influence much of the public policy formation in the US democratic system. Powerful lobbying is largely a function of money and resources, and US corporations are able to have their voices or free speech heard. Although long-run policy issues like global sustainability and climate change are important for the general public, large corporations that are tied to the fossil fuel economy are making more profits now by focusing on short-run concerns.

The ability to increase our quality of life, reduce our environmental impacts, reduce poverty, and increase economic equality all require restoring a balance in the Corporate Profit Loop.

**Funding:** This work is funded through Canisius College.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A. Understanding Reinforcing and Balancing Feedback Loops**

A behavior over time graph and a causal loop diagram (CLD) of reinforcing feedback are shown in Figure A1. A reinforcing feedback relationship produces an exponential growth pattern. The causal loop diagram illustrates that a *higher* amount of births leads to a *higher* population, and a *higher* population (increase) also leads to *higher* births (increase) (i.e., the '+' symbol indicates the same direction of change). Such a graph over time can be generated from all reinforcing feedback loops: for example, the higher the amount on deposit in the savings account will lead to higher interest income that adds to a higher bank balance. Reinforcing feedback loops can also operate to produce a decay pattern over time. If a population is declining due to greater predation, hunting or fishing (or other influences), then a lower population level leads to a lower net birth rate. Thus, a *decrease* in births leads to a *decrease* in the population (i.e., the '+' symbol indicates the same direction of change), which then leads back to a *decrease* in births.

Naturally, rabbits (or any population) do not generate infinite or astronomical population levels, as shown in Figure A1. Eventually limits are reached. In Figure A2, the reinforcing loop, R1, generates rapid growth in the rabbit population in the beginning, but the balancing loops, B2, and B3 and B4, begin to dominate as the population pushes up against the carrying capacity of the environment (note: the || delay mark between population and resource adequacy in Figure A2, causal loop diagram b; and the '–' symbol indicates the opposite direction of change, so as the population *increases*, the resource adequacy *decreases*. The reverse would also be true: if the population was *decreasing*, then the resource adequacy would be *increasing*). When resources decrease and the balancing feedback loops dominate, we observe the common S-shaped behavior-over-time graph. This pattern is quite common in many natural populations since there are often many limiting factors to place a check on runaway (exponential) population growth.

**Figure A1.** Graph and Causal Loop Diagram of Reinforcing Feedback. (**a**) Rabbit Population Graph, Behavior over Time of Reinforcing Feedback. (**b**) Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) of Reinforcing Feedback.

(**b**)

**Figure A2.** Graph and Causal Loop Diagram of Reinforcing and Balancing Feedback. (**a**) Rabbit Population and Behavior-over-Time Graph. (**b**) Causal Loop Diagram of both Reinforcing and Balancing Feedback, Rabbit Population.
