Good Business

In this week's Friday 5... 📢 The results of our second Sustainability Leaders Panel survey 🔎 The business case for hiring ex-prisoners 💻 How tech companies are meeting the energy demands of #AI 💼 A look back at #RatanTata's career 👖 Two innovative brands addressing the entire #lifecycle of garments.  #newsletter #sustainability #climate #innovation #survey

🎉 Congratulations to Sunrise GmbH for achieving this milestone! It’s been great working with the team at Sunrise to develop these targets and we look forward to continuing to support their journey towards a sustainable future. #SBTi #ScienceBasedTargetsInitiative #Sustainability

📢 We're hosting a webinar on Wednesday 16th October at 12pm BST, with our friends at Echo Research, to report back on the findings from our second Sustainability Leaders Panel survey, which brings together 150 sustainability leaders working in large multinationals across the world to explore trends in the global sustainability landscape. This wave we focused on the upcoming regulations, the impact it is having on sustainability internally, what's working (and what's not!) and how to maximise the impact on the business and society. Contact kerry@good.business to join the webinar and find out more! #Sustainability #Business #Survey #Webinar

Have you got a hoard of unwanted, broken cables clogging up your drawers at home or in your office? Then get involved in The Great Cable Challenge, a UK wide challenge to recycle one million cables in the run up to International E-Waste Day on Monday 14th October! The average UK home has five unused cables gathering dust and five million cables are binned every year. Cables contain one of earth’s precious and finite metals – copper: infinitely recyclable and can be done so over and over without losing any of its power. All old cables deserve a new lease of life, so gather your households and colleagues and head over to your local recycling centre with your old cables to take part and save a whole load of copper from going to waste. You can find out where you can recycle here: https://lnkd.in/dVMvfve #eWaste #Recycling #Sustainability

🎉 We’re thrilled to announce that we have successfully recertified as a B-Corporation, reaffirming our commitment to operating as a force for good. We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made since we were first certified in 2021, improving our score from 107.3 to 115.0 through increases across all metrics, from supporting our team and engaging with our community, to enhancing our environmental practices. We’ve also continued our focus on delivering better service and value for our clients, all of which contributed to our improved score.   As a proud #BCorp, we’re excited to continue delivering a positive impact in both how and what we do, along with the over 9,000 B Corps from across the world, as the B Corp movement continues to grow. If you’re thinking about becoming certified, or need advice about or support with the process, please get in touch. B Lab UK #Sustainability #Business

In this week's Friday 5... 1. A new study which rejects ‘Go broke, Go woke’ 2. Octopus Energy’s new “Zero Bills” target   3. #Supermarkets misleading shoppers with fake #British farm brands 4. We review a fascinating account of the basic materials that support the modern economy The Goods: How heating the human could help reduce #corporateemissions #newsletter #climate #netzero #edi

In this week's Friday 5... 🍏 A week of global problem-solving at #climateweeknyc 👚 eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund is back 🎵 Turning #nature into an artist that receives royalties 👨🍼 A new campaign draws attention to the challenges of paternity leave 🔌 The UK's #GreatCableChallenge #newsletter #climate #netzero

In this week's Friday 5...  💻 nexfibre launches its partnership with UK Youth 💝 New reports call for stronger food regulations to boost #publichealth 💼 The UK’s first survey on businesses’ climate performance 🐝 Good Business recertifies as a #BCorp 👩🔧 👨🔧 The inspiring changemakers featured in this year’s Grist 50. #newsletter #climate #netzero #digitialinclusion #health

🎯Are ambitious corporate sustainability targets a good thing? 🎯 This weekend I read an interesting article by Good Business about Volvo. Volvo has been a pioneer in the electric vehicle market, and was one of the first to commit to a complete switch to electric. Its target was to sell only electric cars by 2030. It was an ambitious, sector leading target. However, due, Volvo says, ‘to the decline in growth of the electric vehicle market and consumer concerns about charging infrastructure’, Volvo now aim to turn 90 to 100% of its sales to electric or hybrid by 2030.  Critics have been quick to criticize and judge companies who are pulling back and admitting their targets may have been too ambitious. As Good Business reports this is ‘a tactic increasingly used by the anti-ESG movement to undermine corporate commitments to sustainability’. In so doing they undermine all progress, encourage companies to play safe and so slow our transition to a green economy. Volvo have made significant progress towards electrification. In the spirit of constructive criticism I do have questions: 🎯 Was Volvo working hard enough to achieve the target 🎯 Is Volvo simply using ‘the market’ to give them a free pass 🎯 To what extent have Volvo put profit ahead of their target and the planet 🎯 Did Volvo need to water down its target as much as it did? But I do know that focusing on the shortfall to target, not the gains can damage the broader climate cause. Sending signals to others to set ‘safe’ business as usual climate targets. I also know that in the real world, business will not always meet their targets. Many sustainablity targets have been set at a point in time when the organisations did not have a fully fledged road map/ plan/actions to achieve them. And that is OK. In my experience targets do work. In business you so often get what you measure. When targets are ambitious, stretching, challenging, when they are a BHAG (a big hairy audacious goal - not sure I ever liked that phrase!) they can inspire creativity, innovation and encourage all to go the extra mile. What is crystal clear is the time for business sustainability targets that are modest, achievable, safe and embody incremental business as usual change has long gone. We need businesses to set ambitious goals and targets, do their absolute level best to achieve them, and as Good Business suggest explain to stakeholders the context that surrounds the targets and encourage stakeholders to see the targets ‘in the round’ with the focus on ‘progress over perfection’. They conclude ‘let’s not weaponize imperfection but instead use it as a stepping stone to greater achievements.’ 🎯Are your business sustainability targets ambitious enough? 🎯 #climatecrisis #climateactionnow #sustinabilitytargets #esgtargets #climateleadership #ambition

📢 There's still time to register for tomorrow's flash webinar to hear our very own Giles Gibbons join Mishcon de Reya LLP for the latest instalment of their Disputes Nightmares flash webinar series, to discuss the question: 'What would you do if you discovered child labour in your supply chain?' Find out more and register here: https://lnkd.in/e_7EsgtS #Sustainability #Business