Doing well by doing good.
“Conscious capitalism”, “purpose”, “meaningful”, “doing well by doing good”. There are lots of trends and opinions out there right now that all point toward a massive change in the global business environment.
Brands are expected by consumers, governments, employees and increasingly shareholders, to behave in a more sustainable manner.
We’re seeing a growing backlash against short term thinking, and an understanding that it is only by working for the benefit of all stakeholders (not just shareholders) that businesses can survive in the long term.
Luckily lots of business are already well on board with this. Below are just a few examples to help show that behaving in a more conscious, sustainable manner can drive not just warm fuzzy feelings but hard cold profit.
Doing good through communications: To raise awareness of children’s eye health and improve the vision of children across Australia, optical retailer OPSM released Penny the Pirate, a free children’s book and app.
This was their attempt at cracking the issue that 40% of the country’s mums had never considered taking their child for an eye test.
The book and tablet format followed the adventures of a young girl with a pirate gang, with the story including devices such as asking children to count the number of sails in the book’s illustrations, which could be used to test a child’s eyesight and identify problems.
Penny the Pirate was so successful that the number of eye tests conducted by OPSM rose 22.6% year-on-year, sales rose 22%, and the book is now being used by not-for-profit organisation OneSight to help test children’s eyes in remote and rural Australia.
Doing good through operations: The GSK/Save the Children partnership goes well beyond the traditional charity corporate fundraising model, in particular in the way GSK use their R&D capabilities to help save children’s lives through developing child friendly medicine, widening vaccination coverage across hard-to-reach communities and increasing investment in the training of health workers in poor communities.
Most recently the business announced that it would not seek patent protection on medicines in low-income countries as part of a range of measures to widen access to its products in the developing world.
Doing good by giving: As well as being socially responsible in the way they conduct their business, Innocent famously donate 10% of their profits to charity through the Innocent foundation.
The foundation gives grants to charities working all over the world to support them in helping the world’s hungry. And since 2004, the Foundation has given over £3m to 65 projects, reaching over 630.000 people, helping communities on a sustainable path away from poverty and hunger.
Not only do the businesses in these examples do good work, they do well financially. And they’re not alone, big business is rapidly waking up to the fact that working toward success against a ‘triple bottom line’ of financial, social and environmental factors is key to long term success.
