“Quality of life” and “standard of living” are often used interchangeably while in fact they are two different concepts. Satisfaction of basic material needs of food, clothing, shelter, availability of healthcare, and education are all standard of living issues. Quality of life is related to feeling good about one's life and one's self and takes into account intangible aspects such as leisure, safety, spiritual, cultural & social satisfaction, physical health, and environmental quality issues.
One can have a very high standard of living and a low quality of life. And one can have a low standard of living and a high quality of life. The confusion between quality of life and standard of living is not surprising as the main purpose of advertising is to have the target audience equate the consumption of a particular product with a higher quality of life. While improvements in living standards do directly lead to increasing quality of life up to a certain point, research show that they cease to be correlated after basic needs have been met. While our goal is to create wealth for all stakeholders, we thus define wealth as well-being and quality of life rather than material accumulation. Our Venture Laboratory therefore aims to not only create value in form of financial profits but to create wealth for all stakeholders in form of - for example - a safer future, cleaner air, better food, or healthier housing.