Building a responsible business is a lot like baking a cake. Most cake recipes have certain ingredients in common—the flour, the milk, the eggs, and the sugar. The recipe tells you which ingredients to use, how much, when, and at what temperature. All of these affect whether or not you end up with a delicious cake or one that goes into the garbage. Similarly, responsible businesses have common ingredients—sustainable strategies, processes, and implementation practices. However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all recipe that will spark an overnight business transformation.
If charting the course for a responsible business was as easy as Googling a recipe, nearly all companies would have done it already. Professionals must, instead, look to, case studies and frameworks, their past and current challenges, and other industry leaders and colleagues to consider how to help their businesses, and in some cases, their industries, evolve towards more ethical practices that are founded in shared value. Companies can incorporate more responsible business practices with the understanding that each sector and industry has a different recipe.
The 15th Responsible Business Summit brings together high quality ingredients—best practices, frameworks, and over 55 sustainability leaders—this June 7th and 8th. Companies like Patagonia, Salesforce, Janssen, Unilever, Nespresso, Deutsche Telekom, Odeon UCI, Ecolab, Telefonica, and Walgreen will share the strategies and models, as well as the challenges they overcame, to integrate sustainability into their business operations.
Here are four ingredients to a responsible business—and reasons why we’re excited to join the Responsible Business Summit in London this June.
1. Discover the Behind-the-Scenes Reality of Partnership
Partnership is a buzzword in sustainability circles right now. But what does it really take to succeed? Collaboration, particularly with other sectors, is most successful when there is a clear and meaningful foundation of partnership.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 17 focuses in on revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development and will be in hot debate at the Summit. For some, the idea of a collaborative partnership might seem like getting into bed with the enemy—a discomforting thought. The Summit will encourage participants to step beyond their comfort zone to better understand the motivations and needs of potential partners.
The Big Partnership Debate, a session moderated by PYXERA Global CEO, Deirdre White, will dive into these dynamics with a diverse array of sectorial voices from The Fairtrade Foundation, Oxfam, Walgreens Boots Alliance, The Irish Food Board, and REN.
“A collaborative partnership allows the public, private, and social sector to gain insights from one another that often leads to a far greater return than one dimensional programming,” points out White. “Understand that a business imperative can also be a social priority. Making a profit is not a bad thing—it’s necessary. Be honest about what your organization wants, expects, and the challenges its facing to find real value for your brand and reputation.”
Learn more about effective partnerships here:
- Five Lessons in Partnerships
- Cross-Sector Collaboration Starts with a Meaningful Foundation of Partnership
2. Hear from CEOs at Virgin Atlantic, Nespresso, and the Fairtrade Foundation on what it takes to pioneer the brand of the future.
It’s a rare moment when nine CEOs from the private and social sectors assemble to candidly discuss the challenges of pioneering and maintaining sustainable business practices. The Summit just announced Craig Kreeger, CEO of Virgin Atlantic, as keynote speaker. In addition to Kreeger, CEOs from Nespresso, the Fairtrade Foundation, Heathrow, Odeon UCI, Fairphone, and others will talk about topics such as leveraging responsibility to stay ahead of business risk, influencing customer behavior, and partnering with marketing to drive sustainable innovation and build the brand of the future.
3. Learn how to influence customer behavior, break through siloes, and partner with marketing departments.
Studies increasingly point to consumer desire for ethical and responsible sourcing and positive business practices with a social orientation. Sustainability professionals have a unique opportunity to educate their marketing colleagues on the work being done in the company’s supply chain and its global and local communities. Better collaboration between marketing and sustainability initiatives can lead to authentic sustainability messaging that generates real value for companies.
The challenge however, is that not all sustainability professionals have the right language to break through siloes and forge cross-departmental partnerships. During the Summit, Unilever, M&S and Patagonia will reveal how their businesses are changing direction to what their consumers want. They will share what customer-led innovation looks like, techniques to discover customers’ changing expectations, and ways to integrate this into sustainability and marketing strategies.
4. Address climate change in your business operations through circular economy principles.
In 2014, 6,000 of the largest companies in the United States sent 342 million metric tons of waste to landfills and incinerators. This translates into millions of dollars in revenue spent on materials that are wasted. The “Take, Make, Waste” economic paradigm, a mainstream approach wherein companies design, use, and dispose products and packaging through a linear “cradle to grave” system, yields high environmental costs and is no longer economically viable. Yet, the reality of instilling circular economy practices into operational management requires a revolution in how companies extract, process, and sell products—and how consumers consume these products.
The Responsible Business Summit challenges participants to look at issues in sustainable packaging, water stewardship, food waste, and their brand’s carbon footprint. Timberland, Etsy, GKN, and Willmott Dixon will share case examples on how they transformed their corporate cultures into one where sustainability is integrated into the mindset and role of every employee. Circular economy roundtables and discussions will reveal what companies are doing on the energy agenda and new ways to invest in clean technology. Lastly, “regulation clinics” will to help participants understand how upcoming regulatory changes in climate change will affect their business.
Responsible business practices are about experimentation rather than a pre-determined recipe. These are just a few of the ingredients and we are excited to participate in this year’s Responsible Business Summit to deepen collaboration and learn more from our industry colleagues.
Join major brand CEOs and leaders in London this June 7th and 8th. You will have the opportunity to network and engage with leading speakers and over 400 professionals who are passionate about the power of business as a force for social and community good.
Photo from Sebastianfiebak.
By Morgan Singer and Katie Levey
![KATIE LEVEY]()
Katie Levey
Katie is Director of Media Relations at PYXERA Global where she designs communications and press strategies to empower nonprofits and corporations that are impacting positive social change through their programming and their business. Before PYXERA Global, Katie founded the nonprofit communications consultancy, Wake Up for Good, where she worked with organizations including American Diabetes Association, Smithsonian Institution, Catchafire, and saveup.com.
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