What will a sustainable business look like in 10 years time?
This question caught us on the hop this month.
Why this month? B Corp UK is 10 years old this month. It’s been a spectacular journey with over 2600 companies now certified. That means the UK is now the fastest-growing country worldwide for new certifications AND we have the second highest total anywhere in the world (after the US). That says a lot about being a sustainable business.
This boom makes us look like oldies, having first certified back in 2020 when there were just about 400 of B Corps across the whole of the UK.
But when we were asked what our sustainability plans were for the next 10 years it prompted a bit of soul-searching. How exactly do we want to shape the business in that time?
The power of community with a sustainable business
From the very start we’ve spoken about the magnetism of the B Corp community so it’s great to see it growing. There’s an increasingly wide range of B Corp suppliers to choose from, so with some care you can reshape your purchasing policy to prioritise other certified businesses.
Just a few we have been delighted to work with include:
IDNet. After limping along for years with the notoriously bad service provided by BT we switched broadband to IDNet and have been delighted. They are much cheaper than our old BT deal, but more important their service is reliable and their team friendly https://www.idnet.com/
Ticket Tailor. It’s always a joy to find an alternative to the US tech giants and this business is one of those. Their pricing compares favourably with Eventbrite and their environmental credentials and charitable donations are a bonus https://www.tickettailor.com/
Ecosend. Another opportunity to diversify away from the tech giants, Ecosend is an alternative to Mailchimp. To be fair we’ve had good service from Mailchimp, but an award-winning UK-based customer service team and a commitment to climate action projects swings it for this organisation https://ecosend.io/
One of our strategies for the next ten years will be to grow the number of B Corps we have commercial relationships with. Not just with suppliers – we hope of course to increase the number of B Corp clients we work with.
Prioritising nature with a sustainable business
We are curiously disconnected from nature in the UK. Notoriously, the country is by some distance the worst in the G7 for biodiversity loss. That means people don’t grow up engaging with nature or demanding it is given priority in economic and political decision-making.
Nature is also curiously disconnected from environmental policy. It’s a good thing that organisations are increasingly taking a stand on environmental principles but it is possible to improve your carbon footprint without prioritising nature.
In the long run, reducing your emissions helps of course – but it doesn’t stop HS2 ripping up ancient woodlands or farmers using neonicotinoids that kill bees at scale.
Imagine you’re a small, growing distribution business. You can reduce emissions by investing in more efficient lorries and planning your routes to ensure lorries operate at capacity.
But you can still chop down trees at the bottom of your site to build a bigger lorry park. Reduced emissions doesn’t always benefit nature.
And this disconnect matters. It matters economically because the UK doesn’t grow as much food as it needs and because extreme weather increasingly threatens crops and homes, in turn driving up insurance premiums.
It matters to us as humans because getting out in nature helps our physical and mental well-being. Unlike the NHS, which is funded through rapidly-rising taxation, nature is healthcare that’s truly free at the point of delivery!
We realise not everyone has the same attachment to nature as we do, but for us it’s also personal.
I remember walking down a country lane in Romania and stepping aside when I heard a vehicle approaching.
No car. I must have imagined it.
A few hundred metres further on the same thing happened. A distant hum and still no vehicle in sight.
Eventually we realised this is what nature sounds like. An intensity of insects that at random builds to a crescendo so loud you feel the need to step aside! Not in Britain anymore.
Britain has lost almost 20% of its bird population since 1970. Yet doesn’t everyone love seeing a cheeky robin hopping on the lawn? For us, the end of winter is marked by the unmistakable song of a skylark as it hovers precociously above a farmer’s barren field. It’s a sound of pure joy.
So one of our sustainability strategies for the next ten years is to do more to promote nature. Not just to campaign for it – but to help others feel the joy and well-being benefits that connecting with this extraordinary world can bring.
Think global, act local with a sustainable business
Many people find that saving the planet takes too much brain power. Untangling politics, nature and the climate just feels like a problem too big to fix.
So although we advocate for nature across the world, our business activity focuses on our local community. This is something we’ll double-down on in the next ten years.
If you want a virtual assistant or some marketing collateral it’s possible to buy this at rock bottom prices from countries like South Africa or the Philippines. But doing that hollows out your local business community. How long before someone replaces you with a short-term contract on fiverr?
In response to this we have a deliberate purchasing policy of finding services within 50 miles of our head office.
Tactically this might cost us more job to job. But strategically it means we have sustainable, long term relationships with people who are engaged with the business. It’s a two-way thing of course, with our marketing comms primarily focusing on local organisations where we can work 121 with teams and build long term partnerships.
The ‘act local’ mindset also drives the events and networking we host. In the last five years we’ve welcomed over 200 business owners to our Federation of Small Business networking, sharing sales and marketing insight with them, and giving them a place to connect and make friends.
In a world rapidly being shaped by AI there’s emotional and economic benefit in building these robust local business communities. People will always need other people and it’s the power of human connection that promotes economic well-being for the long term.
If you’d like to chat about what a sustainable business will look like in 10 years’ time then get in touch. We’d love to hear your thoughts.