If you are a little over Darwinian capitalism, this episode is for you. It's about B Corps, kinder, gentler, more sustainable businesses. B Corps are private companies that have achieved sustainability certifications offered through B Lab. And B Lab's Australia and New Zealand operation has just launched a new awareness campaign featuring a fat cat.
This Climate Business: Fat cats versus a kinder, gentler kind of business – Andrew Davies, B Lab (edited excerpts)
Listen to the full episode here.
Ross
Why an awareness campaign and why now?
Andrew
I don't think it's a great revelation to say that the political, social and environmental challenges of our time are pretty stark right now. Businesses are under enormous pressure to sort of follow the herd at all times. And in some markets in the last couple of years, we've seen some backwards steps in terms of progress on sustainability. But conducting business with an eye for the long term and prioritising wider stakeholders still makes compelling sense on any number of research points. It's more important than ever to engage in solving the problems that we're all grappling with, the problems of the commons. We also know there's a pretty fundamental truth that the old way of doing business isn't really serving us. What they don't always know is what to do about it and what choices and options do they have. B Corps offer a view on what's possible. And we're looking to build awareness of that as one solution. One step that people can take is to engage with, to work for and to buy from B Corps.
Ross
The campaign is called Better Business and it does in fact feature a fat cat. Can you tell us about the message and why a cat?
Andrew
The basic device is that we're calling time on outdated, profit-at-all-costs business models and we're trying to spotlight companies that do things differently, showing there's a better way to do business. The cat itself is a playful but a fairly pointed metaphor for greed, short-termism and the idea of unchecked corporate power. It's a device that most people are familiar with, the idea of a fat cat, but it's a fairly playful dig at this without necessarily pointing the finger at kind of individual people. And sometimes you have to meet people with a little bit of humor and that's what we're trying to do here without necessarily reducing this to there's good companies and bad companies. The reality is we need all companies to change the way they do business.
Ross
The campaign and B Lab itself, is a little bit of a challenge to neoliberalism, which says that the job of business is in fact just to make profit.
Andrew
Absolutely. I think that this is really the fundamental question that we all need to ask ourselves, which is what is the role of business? And this kind of contemporary narrative that it's there to make profits for shareholders is not wrong. It's just insufficient or inadequate, because the reality is businesses are operating in societies. They rely on common resources, like the environment, like a socially cohesive society and the rule of law. Those things enable those profits, and businesses can't operate in a vacuum without considering the impact that they have. And I think, particularly through the climate lens, we're seeing the consequences of 100 years of fairly unchecked resource extraction. But we also need to recognise that capitalism has done an amazing job of lifting millions of people into better living standards. So, for us, it's a case of trying to shape a system towards better outcomes. We think all people who found or start a business or who hold positions of responsibility have a duty to con
Ross
Today there are about 9,000 B Corps, 165 I think in New Zealand. How far could that go?
Andrew
We’re increasingly certifying larger, more complex businesses. Globally, we've just passed 10,000 B Corps and more than one million people employed by B Corps, which is a pretty extraordinary number. Our biggest lever of change is actually the stories that come with these. And stories are a really powerful device to change the culture of business. Of course, we need governments to carefully regulate businesses, but we also need people to accept that business can and should have a positive role. And that's where I think some of the stories are really important in helping other people in business realise they can make change.
Ross
What encouragement can you give the Kiwi sustainability community which, to be fair, is probably feeling a little bit beaten up?
Andrew
It goes a little bit without saying, but stay the course. This kind of work is incredibly difficult, but political cycles can be quite short in the scheme of things. I think as well, start small and keep perspective. Small steps add up in this work. You don't need to tackle everything at once. One of the truths of this work is that so many of the problems are far bigger than any one business or any one country. So we need to just focus on small steps to give you a sense of making progress. I would also say build accountability into the whole team. Sustainability can't sit with one role. Leadership at the very top needs to embrace targets and ambition in order for it to function through the organisation. And then lastly, recognise the challenges we're facing. There is a gap with what consumers say they value and what they do, but sustainability is still a ticket to play in many sectors. And bringing that narrative to the people inside the business who may hold the financial levers is a really important one to continue. The long-term focus of any business is sustainability both from the financial and an environmental and in a social lens. And I think if you can sell that message internally, you go a long way to weathering the short-term storms.
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