The Power of a Shower

I was lucky enough to take a vacation in California last week. My last stop was San Francisco, which is a place I love. The steep streets, the trams, the ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge; it's a beautiful city! However, there's another side to it, which people don't often think about; the 6,500 homeless people living on the streets. As I explored Downtown San Francisco, I have to admit that I was shocked by the number of homeless people I saw and the stark reality of the conditions that many of these people are forced to endure.

Upon returning to Boston, you can imagine my interest when my colleague emailed me today with this video made by a new organization in San Francisco called Lava Mae.

Lava Mae (the name comes from the Spanish for 'wash me', 'lavame'') is a nonprofit organization, which aims to provide showers for the homeless community in San Francisco. Most of us take our daily showers for granted, but the basic act of washing and keeping clean is a real issue for the homeless. For example, in San Francisco, there are only 8 facilities with 1 or 2 stalls each, where people living on the streets can go to take a shower. That's a total of only 16 showers! And you thought you had a long wait for the bathroom in the morning...

I'll never take you for granted again!

Lava Mae is working to tackle the problem by providing mobile shower units, which can travel round the city and reach the homeless where they are. They are working in collaboration with a number of other organizations already supporting and providing services for the homeless population in the city, leveraging existing knowledge and expertise to make the initiative a success.

You'd be forgiven for questioning whether homeless people really need showers? Of course, ultimately, they need shelter, regular meals, employment, access to education, medical help, counselling, the list is long. However, the reality is there is no quick fix and the act of providing regular showers does so much more than simply enabling them to keep clean. It restores a sense of dignity, confidence and self worth, all of which are a vital for anyone trying to survive and escape life on the streets.

Changing Philanthropy As We Know It

Since writing my last blog Challenging the Status Quo, an op-ed in the New York Times by Peter Buffett,

better known as ‘the son of Warren Buffett’, was bought to my attention. The article, published at the end of July, is a provocative piece which calls for a ‘new operating system’ for philanthropy and criticizes the current system or, as he describes it, the ‘perpetual poverty machine’.

Strangely appropriate (just imagine the extra 't')

According to Peter Buffett, who heads us the billion dollar NoVo Foundation, which he set up with support from his father, despite the fact that inequality is still on the rise, philanthropy has burgeoned into a ‘massive business’ and has become the ‘it vehicle to level the playing field’. He laments the prevalence of ‘"conscience laundering" — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity’.

Whilst, as Ruth McCambridge puts it in her recent article for Non Profit Quarterly, ‘his strokes are so broad that they are nothing short of flat-footed’, he does raise some really important questions about whether philanthropy is as effective as it can be in tackling key social issues; whether it is really solving problems or simply propping itself up to maintain the status quo.

The end of philanthropic giving as we know it?

It has been interesting to see the response to the op-ed remarks, which, as you can imagine, came in thick and fast. The majority have picked up on his inaccurate assertions about the growth of philanthropy in the U.S. According to Tom Watson, Journalist and Contributor to the Forbes Site, ‘philanthropy today represents roughly two percent of GDP – and has been stagnant at that level since roughly 1970’. Phil Bucanan, President for the Center of Effective Philanthropy, also questions his ‘sweeping generalizations’ about the motivations of philanthropists; in other words, that they ‘give back’ in order to be able to ‘sleep better at night’.

However, most of the responses have seen some value in Buffett's challenge. There is recognition that the current system could be improved - simultaneously making sure that those who depend on nonprofit social services are not abandoned - and a clear aspiration to explore new, more creative ways to achieve ‘greater prosperity for all’.

Whether provocative or refreshing, the op-ed from Peter Buffett is important insofar as it has re-stoked the debate. What is most important is that individuals and organizations continue to innovate, challenge and disrupt so perhaps the more provocative the better!

Challenging the Status Quo

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Conference Board’s Corporate Social Impact Conference. This annual conference brings together a varied audience comprising philanthropists, non-profits, foundations, companies, local government and consultants from around the U.S. It was a great chance for me to meet people and step outside my usual sphere of corporate work to understand and listen to the trends and challenges faced by different organizations across the social impact/sustainability community.

There were many interesting presentations and panel discussions but I’m going to single out a couple of speakers, who inspired me with what they said about the importance of focusing on solving problems – despite the discomfort and potential disruption - over maintaining the status quo.

The Heat and Warmth Fund (THAW Fund) helps Michigan residents who are struggling to pay their energy bills. Those who receive support include the elderly, the unemployed and the disabled and, according the organization’s website, "70% of the households assisted have a child or senior in the home". THAW Fund receives support from a multiple utility companies in the Michigan area – it’s a partnership that works insofar as both parties are able to achieve their existing aims; however, when you think about it, in many ways both organizations are merely circling the problem. THAW Fund CEO, Susan Sherer, wants to change this. Her team is now working with the regional utility companies to find ways to stop people getting behind in their energy payments in the first place. It’s early days and we’re talking about a complex problem that won’t be solved overnight, but at least both organizations are taking the first step towards tackling the root problem, rather than doggedly maintaining the status quo.

The other speaker I want to mention is Yasmina Zaidman, Director of Communications & Strategic Partnerships at Acumen Fund. Acumen invests in social enterprises, emerging leaders and breakthrough ideas to tackle poverty. Its model empowers local people to find ways to solve challenges facing themselves, their families and their communities, giving them the dignity to make decisions and take responsibility for their futures. Yasmina spoke about the opportunity for large corporations to learn from the innovative solutions developed by social entrepreneurs and their approach to finding solutions. Corporations will never have the agility of small enterprises; however, they can play an important role in supporting, mentoring and investing in social entrepreneurs and their ideas. Through doing this, they will have access to cutting edge innovation and, potentially, solutions to challenges that may threaten the long-term viability and sustainability of their business and the world in which it operates. Recently, the Acumen Fund convened a meeting between large corporations and social entrepreneurs in Nairobi to explore potential ways to bring social entrepreneurs and corporations closer together. There were a number of challenges raised by both sides – both real and perceived – but, the very act of being there shows a willingness to explore new paths and move away from simply maintaining the status quo.

What I admire is the courage of these different organizations – from THAW Fund to the corporations involved in the summit convened by Acumen – to look at things through a fresh lens. After all, as George Bernard Shaw put it, “progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”.

Because there’s no... urm plan B

So Branson is back! Last week Richard Branson launched his B Team, a group of global business leaders
who have joined forces “to create a future where the purpose of business is to be a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit”. In typical Branson style, the project was launched with a big media splash and, rather infuriatingly for people who work in this sector, he talks as though he invented sustainability. However, I digress…

Superhero?

For those of you in the UK, the irony of the name, considering M&S’s Plan A (“…because there is no plan B”), won’t be lost on you. The name has caused a stir in the US for different reasons given the recent moves by the Government, and associated media attention, to prevent teens from obtaining the morning after pill, Plan B, without a prescription.

What the B Team is actually going to do is still somewhat vague. The group is committed to tackling three initial challenges “to help focus business away from short-term gain and to balance the long-term benefits for people and planet”:

• The future bottom line: to include people and planet in business’ bottom line.
• The future of incentives: to catalyze incentives that benefit people and planet alongside profit.
• The future of leadership: to ignite a movement of leaders committed equally to people, planet and profit.

The details of how these challenges are tackled is still to be fully disclosed – and perhaps worked out – but,  crucially, the B Team will play a convening role, bringing together influential figures and decision makers from Governments, non-profits and the corporate sector.

Although Branson’s style is a little difficult to swallow, it’s early days for the B Team so we should give it the benefit of the doubt. However, for me, there are two key questions:

• Are we just preaching to the converted? As Toby Webb pointed out in his recent blog, our sector is becoming more like a ‘cocktail party’; people circulating and telling each other what they want to hear. Richard Branson has bought together ‘believers’; it’s a great line-up of sustainability greats, such as former Chairman and CEO of PUMA, Jochen Zeitz and Unilever’s CEO, Paul Polman. The question is, are these people going to be able to influence the non-believers? Or will they just be the same voices, preaching the same messages? They've been ignored in the past so what are they going to do differently to engage the skeptics going forward?
• What is Team B’s special sauce; what is it that will enable them to succeed where others have struggled? It’s not so long since everyone was talking about the revolution of Shared Value, and now it’s gone rather quiet. That’s not to say that Porter and Co. are not making progress but it’s not changing the world over night. Is the same thing going to be true of the B Team?

Just in case, is there a Plan C?

Method in the madness - brand confusion in Boston

Making the move to the States felt like it should be an easy transition to make – same language, similar
culture and standard of living…right? However, there are a couple of things that I didn’t anticipate. One, technically we speak the language but the reality is that we really don’t – trying to order tomatoes at the deli is a nightmare! Second, the disorientation from not recognizing brands. My first few trips to the supermarket were fairly time consuming outings as I tried to work out what was good/bad. Particularly as a ‘concerned consumer' who would prefer to pick products that are sustainably sourced, produced and packaged; it bought it home to me just how much you rely on brand recognition as you make your day-to-day choices.

In the UK, my go-to brand for washing detergent or cleaning products was Ecover. Not only does the brand have great sustainability credentials – it creates plastic packaging from raw sugar cane, has green roofs on its factories and introduced the first phosphate-free washing powder – but the products also work really well without the need for potentially harmful chemicals. So, on arriving in Boston, I was on the hunt for the American equivalent.

Meet Method. It first came to my attention when I read about an amazing company that was making packaging from ‘ocean plastic’, the several million tons of plastic that ends up in the oceans every year. Then I saw a video of Eric Ryan talking at the Conscious Capitalism Conference – dressed as a crazy scientist he stood out a bit – and now I find out that Method and Ecover have just merged to form the World’s largest ‘green cleaning company’.  It’s rapidly gone from being a brand I’d never heard of, to one that seems to appear everywhere!

What’s interesting is the impact that brands such as Method are having on the cleaning industry. Other companies and brands in the sector are starting to think about the impact of their products on the environment – just look at Clorox Green Works, which launched a huge new campaign this year, injecting some rare humor and attitude into its communications.

It will be interesting to see what happens following the Ecover-Method merger. In contrast to lots of the ‘good’ brands that have been bought by larger conglomerates e.g. Kraft + Green & Blacks, and Innocent + Coca Cola) this is a ‘marriage’ of equals. The merger will give both brands additional leverage in their existing and new markets and it’s unlikely that their sustainability credentials will only become more impressive.

In the meantime, I have solved my brand confusion and my house is clean – still looking for a reliable brand of chocolate though. Might take some time!

Would you buy a cup of coffee for a stranger?

A couple of blog posts ago I talked about the 'pay what you can' model that was being rolled out by Panera. Then today I came across a video on the BBC about the concept of Suspended Coffees. First started in Naples, the idea is that consumers can buy an extra or 'suspended' coffee for someone in need. Just like the 'pay what you can' model, it's a simple way to enable consumers to do something good as part of their everyday routine. It has certainly inspired Starbucks, which recently announced that it will shortly be rolling out a version of the Suspended Coffee scheme in the UK. However, whilst the original scheme was based entirely on trust - recipients of Suspended Coffees didn't need to prove that they justified the gift - Starbucks is retaining some control through partnering with the charity Oasis. For each Suspended Coffee purchased, Starbucks will make a donation to Oasis and coffees to the value donated will be distributed through the charity's community hubs around the country.

It's great that Starbucks is taking the Suspended coffee idea and using its size, scale and influence to take it to  huge numbers of people around the world. My only question is whether, by formalizing the model through a more conventional charity partnership, the idea loses some of its magic? We shall see... In the meantime, look out for Suspended Coffees in a Starbucks near you.

Embrace change - it leads to success

Nike has made huge leaps forward in addressing the social and environmental impacts of its business. Not so long ago, the company was mired in controversy over allegations of human rights abuses in the factories making its shoes and clothing around the world – there were large protests, boycotts and widespread criticism from the media. Today, it's considered a sustainability leader.

The company’s vision is to deliver innovation and inspiration to every athlete and sustainability is central to how they do that. Hannah Jones, VP of Sustainable Business and Innovation at Nike Inc., summed up the approach in a recent tweet:

The key word is ‘innovation’ and ‘opportunity’. In order to become more sustainable, businesses need to see it as an opportunity and it means change, not a few tweaks here and there, but real change. The good news, to steal Hannah Jones’s tweet style, is that change = profit.

A recent report by MIT Sloane Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group, The Innovation Bottom Line, demonstrates the link between business model change and profiting from sustainability. 50% of survey respondents (executives and managers from commercial enterprises) who had changed 3 or 4 elements of their business strategy said that they had profited from sustainability activities:

And more change = more likely profit because, as you can see, only 37% of the respondents who had changed one element of the business model said that sustainability adds profits.

The change doesn't end with the business model, as report outlines, to “hit the sustainability bull’s-eye”, there needs to be:

• Support from the top and full integration across the business
• Clear goals and effective measurement - get the numbers that people can’t ignore
• Understand what your customers think and want in terms of sustainability
• Collaborate with individuals, customers, businesses and groups outside the business

Check out the report for more details - there are some interesting statistics. 

In the words of Charles Darwin “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” 

Is there Social Intrapreneur in all of us?

"Social innovation is the unwritten bullet-point in everyone’s job description" is the opening line from Marzena Zukowska, media manager and strategist with Ashoka Changemakers, in her Forbes article 3 Necessary Ingredients for Corporate Changemaking. The article is about Social Intrapreneurs; employees, who are working to change the culture of their workplace from the inside. There are some remarkable examples of how this is being done. Check out this video of the Food for Good initiative, thought  up and bought to life by PepsiCo employees in Dallas, Texas:

Click here to read about other inspiring examples from around the world.

At the end of last year, Ashoka and Accenture, launched The League of Intrapreneurs, a competition to raise awareness about what they're calling a 'lost tribe' of social innovators from all over the globe; the millions of employees, who have come up with projects to help their employers fulfill their commercial and social objectives. Winners will be featured in the globally distributed 'Intrapreneur Toolkit', they will be publicized on the Fast Company's Co-Exist blog and they will receive consultancy support from Accenture Development Partnerships.

This celebration of Social Intrapreneurs is a an important step - it's recognition of that the fact that it's not only entrepreneurs that have great ideas; that employees in companies, whatever their day job, have the potential passion, creativity and skills to bring groundbreaking new social projects to life. In my opinion, if this competition can encourage companies to provide the means and mechanisms to enable employees to communicate and develop their ideas and, most importantly, inspire employees to fight for what they're passionate about, it will have been a success.

We can all find our inner hero!

Having said that, we're not all Social Intrapreneurs, and, let's be honest, it would be a nightmare for companies if we were! Nevertheless, the phrase 'social innovation is the unwritten bullet point in everyone's job description' is still true. Everyone in a company can help make the business they work for a 'better business' - from finding ways for their team or department to use less paper, to changing to a supplier more in line with the values of the business, to working alongside a 'Social Intrapreneur' to make their idea a reality. What is important is that their company has a clearly defined purpose and strategy that inspires employees to work towards a clear, shared goal and empowers them to make a difference as part of their job, without waiting to be told to do it.

So whilst we unlock the potential of Social Intrapreneurs, let's not forget the potential of everyone in a business to change it for the better.

Completing the circle: a new vision for the economy

It's a hard life!

I recently spent 3 months travelling round South America and, whilst on a pretty tight budget, there was always just enough in the kitty for a beer at the end of the day. However, when we got to Argentina, it wasn't a lack of funds that was the problem – it was their bottle collection schemes that put a spanner in the works. We first encountered this in Cafayate, a small town just south of Salta – having found a hostel we went off in search of groceries and, of course, some beer. However, for every beer you buy, you have to bring back an empty beer bottle – slightly tricky if you've just arrived and don’t have any empties. Frustrating on the one hand but very advanced on the other…

Last Friday, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its second report Towards the Circular Economy Vol.2: opportunities for the consumer goods sector, at the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to the report, “a cost reduction of 20 per cent from USD 29 to USD 24 per hectolitre of beer consumed would be possible in the U.K. by shifting from disposable to reusable glass beer bottles”. The report points out that there would be an additional cost due to the additional material required to create more durable bottles (“34% increase in the amount of glass used per bottle); however, the cost savings from reusing bottles would far outweigh this.

Reusing beer bottles is just one of a number of examples in the report of how the consumer goods sector can benefit from making the shift to a more circular business model. Through its research, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates “the full potential of the circular economy to be as much as USD 700 billion in global consumer goods materials savings alone”.

Theoretically it makes perfect sense; however, the tricky bit is getting businesses to make the shift and providing the right support and incentives to help them through the transition. To support this, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is launching the Circular Economy 100, a alliance of 100 pioneering businesses to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. But it’s going to take a lot more innovation and collaboration to make this fly.

The encouraging news is that we’re not starting from scratch. Companies have already started to embrace the principles of the circular economy. Just yesterday, CSR Wire, as part of its Noble Profit series, posted an interview with Ford’s Global Director of Sustainability, John Viera, in which he talks about how Ford is re-using waste materials – from old carpet to unwanted jeans – in the production of its cars. 

Now the challenge is to take these ideas to scale. Watch this space...

Purpose - A Unifying Force

Purpose is what everyone's talking about on both sides of the pond - and, what's great is that it's not just sustainability or corporate responsibility professionals doing the talking, it's people from all across the business world. Just today, Jock Mendoza-Wilson, Director of International and Investor Relations at System Capital Management, posted a blog called Business with a Purpose from Davos.

So what exactly is meant by the term purpose? The way I would describe it is that a company's purpose says what an organisation does beyond generating profits; it expresses the value that the company brings to the world, what the company stands for, and, essentially, why the company should continue doing what it does. A good example is Coca Cola's purpose: "to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, to create value and to make a difference". This statement demonstrates Coca Cola's commitment to doing more than selling a product to make a profit - in fact, the purpose immediately establishes 'creating value' and 'making a difference' as central to the business and therefore central to generating profits.

Establishing a purpose is beneficial for motivating and inspiring employees because it makes them feel good about what they do; it encourages suppliers to build sustainable business practices into the way they do business; it builds trust and loyalty among consumers because they can see the positive impact on their lives and the world around them; and, ultimately, it helps the business chart and stick to a course that is sustainable and generates both stakeholder and shareholder value. There's some interesting discussion of this in Salterbaxter's Directions Report 2012: Profits from Purpose.

Most of all, I believe that the real power of a purpose lies in its ability to unite people at all levels of an organisation and therefore help drive change. Whilst sustainability or corporate responsibility goals have - more often than not - divided individuals or departments within a company, a purpose helps unite them behind a common cause. Everyone understands what the purpose means and how it relates to the day-to-day business operations. What's more, it can add more depth to what a company does - opening up opportunities for employees to innovate and think about how they can adapt what they do to align with the purpose - from senior management to graduate trainees.

Over the years, one of the biggest challenges has been getting sustainable or responsible business to the top of the agenda, mostly because, unless there was a key sponsor among the top decision-makers, it's often been seen as something separate from the core activities of the business. I believe that the development of corporate purposes will help to change this  - the right purpose will help drive understanding, inspire action and innovation and, ultimately, accelerate positive change.