A World of Three Zeros: A Vision to End Poverty, Unemployment & Carbon Emissions

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, once primarily recognized as Bangladesh’s only Nobel Laureate, is now also known as a leading reformer behind the creation of Bangladesh 2.0 and as the Chief Adviser of the country’s ‘Interim Government.’ Yunus, the father of microcredit or microfinance, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with Grameen Bank. Besides transforming the lives of poor communities worldwide through microcredit or microfinance, he is also the pioneer of the concept of Social Business. Social Business is a business model primarily focusing on solving social problems rather than generating profit. Even if there is profit, it is not distributed among shareholders but reinvested for the welfare of society. In 2017, he introduced a new concept to the world by combining his ideas of microcredit and social business in a book titled A World of Three Zeros, which offers a sustainable solution to eradicate poverty, reduce unemployment, and protect the environment, serving as an alternative to the capitalist system. This article will detail Dr. Muhammad Yunus’s Three Zero concept.

Overview

Muhammad Yunus was the third of their nine children, born on June 28, 1940, in Chittagong to Bengali Muslim couple Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar and Sufia Khatun Yunus. A brilliant student, Yunus began his education at Lamabazar Primary School and later matriculated from Chittagong Collegiate School, ranking 16th among 39,000 students in East Pakistan. During his time at Collegiate School, he started Boy Scouting and participated in jamborees in Pakistan, India, and Canada. After matriculation, he enrolled in Chittagong College and then joined the Department of Economics at Dhaka University in 1957. He graduated with a BA in 1960 and an MA in 1961 from Dhaka University. His career began as an Assistant Researcher at the Bureau of Economics, and in 1961, he joined Chittagong College as a Lecturer in Economics. Alongside this, he ran a packaging factory that was doing quite well. In 1965, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study at Vanderbilt University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1970. From 1969 to 1972, Dr. Yunus served as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University.

After a successful career abroad, Dr. Yunus returned to Bangladesh in 1972 following the country’s independence and started working with the government’s Planning Commission. However, he found little interest in this role, so he joined Chittagong University as an associate professor and head of the economics department in the same year. In 1975, alongside teaching, he became the Director of the Rural Economic Program at Chittagong University. It was during his work here that he developed the Grameen Bank model. After several years of work on the microcredit concept, Dr. Yunus founded Grameen Bank in 1983 with the principle that “Loans are better than charity to end poverty.” Today, Grameen Bank operates successfully in almost 35,000 villages across Bangladesh. In 1989, Dr. Yunus established Grameen Trust, a non-profit organization that works on various social businesses. Inspired by Grameen Bank’s microfinance model, Iqbal Quadir, a Bangladeshi expatriate in the United States, founded GrameenPhone, Bangladesh’s leading mobile phone operator, in 1997 with the help of Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Today, with over 85 million subscribers and a 43.5% market share, GrameenPhone is Bangladesh’s top telecom operator.

For his significant contributions to the socio-economic development of marginalized communities in Bangladesh and the global impact of his microcredit concept, Grameen Bank and Dr. Muhammad Yunus were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. He invested $1.4 million from his Nobel Prize money in implementing new social business ideas. As part of this, he planned to establish a factory for processing nutritious food at a low cost and invested the remaining money in setting up eye hospitals for Bangladesh’s poor population. Encouraged by his social business idea, over 100 countries have adopted this model, and since January 2008, it has been used even in developed countries like the United States. On January 14, Houston, Texas, declared it Muhammad Yunus Day.

In 2009, US President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Muhammad Yunus the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the country, for his worldwide contributions through his microcredit concept. The following year, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by a vote of the US Congress members, which is a great honor for Bangladesh. In 2011, to further spread the idea of Social Business globally to solve all kinds of social problems, he founded Yunus Social Business-Global Initiatives (YSB).

Combining the concepts of microcredit or microfinance and social business, he introduced a new concept in 2017, which he elaborated on in his book A World of Three Zeros. In this book, Dr. Yunus envisions a world without poverty, unemployment, or environmental damage caused by business activities. He believes that if business is conducted with a selfless approach for the welfare of society, alongside profit, it will lead to social development, reduce poverty, decrease wealth concentration, and lower carbon emissions, which will contribute to creating a better society in the long run. Dr. Yunus aims to establish his “Three Zero” concept as a better alternative to capitalism. But what does he actually mean by Three Zeros, and what changes does he want to bring to our current social system?

A World of Three Zeros

In his book A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions, Dr. Muhammad Yunus introduces a new economic model that he believes can address three of the world’s biggest challenges: poverty, unemployment, and carbon emissions. According to Dr. Yunus, these problems cannot be solved within the current capitalist economic system because, in his view, this system, which is focused on profit, is responsible for income inequality, wealth concentration, and various social disparities. In his book A World of Three Zeros, he provides a new economic model to tackle these three challenges.

The first zero in A World of Three Zeros is Zero Poverty. Dr. Yunus sees poverty not just as a lack of money but as a lack of power, opportunity, and social justice. He argues that the current capitalist system creates a wealth gap between the rich and the poor. The rich get richer, while the poor sink deeper into extreme poverty. The primary causes of this are income inequality and wealth concentration. According to a report by Oxfam, the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest people hold 43% of all financial assets globally. On the other hand, according to the International Labour Organization of the United Nations, in 2023, there were 241 million people worldwide living below the extreme poverty line, earning less than $2.15 per day. Such unequal distribution of wealth exacerbates poverty and creates inequality in society. Dr. Yunus believes that to eliminate such inequality, a Humanistic Economy is needed where equal opportunities and rights are ensured for everyone.

Dr. Yunus argues that to eradicate poverty, it is necessary to empower the poor economically. This requires a new economic model that does not solely focus on profit but ensures equal opportunities for everyone in society. He suggests that Social Business could be an effective way to achieve this goal. Social Business is a business model where the primary objective is not profit maximization but solving social problems. The profit generated from such businesses is reinvested into the business to increase social impact. This is a sustainable and human-centric approach that works for the betterment of society. Through Social Business, the poor can stand on their own feet, become economically self-reliant, and break free from the cycle of poverty.

The second zero in A World of Three Zeros is Zero Unemployment. Dr. Yunus argues that the current economic system has not created job opportunities for everyone. Especially the younger generation and poor communities are often the victims of unemployment. According to Statista, the global unemployment rate in 2023 was about 4.96%, which translates to approximately 396.8 million unemployed people if the world’s population is 8 billion. In the same year, Bangladesh’s unemployment rate was about 5.06% of the total population, or approximately 3.5 million people. If a large portion of a country’s economically active population remains unemployed, it can negatively impact the country’s economy.

In the current capitalist system, the lack of job opportunities for everyone is a major issue, with the shortage of jobs or the failure to create jobs and skill saturation being the two main problems. In the present capitalist economy, companies are always looking for cheap labor to reduce costs and focus on profit maximization, which results in insufficient job creation. On the other hand, the current education system provides the same kind of education and skill development opportunities for everyone, leading to skill saturation, and companies can easily find cheap employees. Dr. Yunus argues that we need to build a Humanistic Economic System where everyone has equal opportunities for employment.

Dr. Yunus believes that every person can become an entrepreneur if given the opportunity. He suggests that to create jobs; we need a new type of business model that works not just for profit but for the welfare of people. By leveraging Social Business and the Microcredit Model, poor and unemployed people can start their own businesses and create employment for themselves. If one in ten people worldwide or even one million people in Bangladesh become entrepreneurs, in theory, they could create jobs for the rest of the population, complementing both Zero Poverty and Zero Unemployment and contributing to the country’s economy. His “Zero Unemployment” concept is essentially a new way to address the problem of unemployment.

“Zero Net Carbon Emission” is Dr. Yunus’s third and final goal. He argues that the current economic model irresponsibly exploits natural resources and increases carbon emissions. As a result, the earth’s climate is changing, threatening the existence of humanity. Carbon emissions in the world began mainly in the mid-18th century with the Industrial Revolution in England and gradually spread to other European countries. According to NASA, in 2023, the total global carbon dioxide emissions amounted to 40.9 billion metric tons. Another NASA report states that since 1880, due to carbon dioxide emissions, the earth’s average temperature has increased by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius, which is a warning sign for the entire world.

Dr. Yunus believes that to achieve Zero Net Carbon Emissions, we need to increase the use of environment-friendly technology and renewable energy. We need to create an economic system that focuses on carbon conservation rather than carbon emission. Through this, we can combat climate change and build a sustainable and environment-friendly society. For example, in any industrial production, it is important to ensure that no non-biodegradable materials are used, and the tendency to recycle should be increased. Additionally, changes are needed in the waste management system so that it is not harmful to the environment. Instead of fossil fuels for energy, solar, wind, or hydro energy can be used. Furthermore, globally, the use of plastic needs to be reduced, and attention should be given to producing biodegradable plastics instead of traditional plastic products to reduce carbon emissions.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus’s Three Zeros theory calls us towards a new economic perspective, which he believes can eradicate poverty, unemployment, and carbon emissions. His Three Zeros theory inspires us to build a new, egalitarian world.