How to be an ethically responsible business

Danielle says: “A lot of companies want to do the right thing but you need to really dig deep into what that is, and what it is that you are trying to achieve.”

Danielle says: “Once you have identified why you are trying to do it, write a mission statement that explains the positive difference you are trying to make in the world. That could be helping to address a social issue that your employees care about, it could be about having a positive impact on the environment, it could be about improving diversity in your industry.”

Danielle says: “Look at how your positive impact statement translates into actions for your business. If your aim is to improve the environmental impact of your business, for example, look across your business and work out where your biggest environmental impacts are and what you can do to reduce these. If you are a B2B service company, for example – one that sells its services to other businesses - a lot of your environmental impact is likely to be around your office, so look at whether you can switch to renewable energy and whether you can reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. See where the biggest impact is and then methodically work through that to see work out how to reduce it.”

Danielle says: “Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. But even if getting B Corp accreditation is too big a thing for your business to do, it is brilliant at providing you with a checklist of what best practise looks like. The B Corp framework takes you through the environment, your employees, local community, customers and internal management and governance and shows you what you can be doing to have a positive impact in those areas. It is a really good way of starting the journey.” You can access their impact assessment tool free online at www.bcorporation.net.

Danielle says: “The core team will often include someone from the leadership team, and ideally also someone who has access to internal data so they can get hold of information such like energy usage or employee statistics. Responsible businesses know they are moving in the right direction as they monitor and track it. Having someone who can get easy access to that data makes it much easier to do regularly.”

Danielle says: “The power of tapping into your supply chain is it has ripple effects. So if you start asking your suppliers what they do in terms of environment or diversity, that will in itself have a positive impact because they will start thinking, my customers are asking this and so we need to consider it. Even just giving them a simple questionnaire when you start working with them asking them whether they have an environmental management system, for example, or about the diversity of their leadership team, can prompt action.”

Danielle says: “This is a long-term strategy; it is not something that you can do overnight. It is about starting the process and then constantly re-looking at it and seeing what else you can do. You don’t have to do everything at once so it does not need to be overwhelming. Just take it in bite size chunks and work through one piece at a time.”