Inclusive Business – Make or Buy?
Investing externally has become a real opportunity for Corporates now. More than a decade of innovation has brought forth hundreds of commercially viable companies that reach low-income communities as consumers, producers, employees or entrepreneurs. Many of them are ready for growth. Pairing up with a large company can marry the best of both worlds: agility […]
Purpose Precedes Clarity; Clarity Precedes Success
Following my experiences of Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019, I explore the link between purpose, clarity, and success, and share learnings about how companies around the world can embed purpose authentically. In my opinion, Business Fights Poverty 2019 was an event of paramount importance to the world of business. This year, BFP put forth the […]
How Should Business Encourage Family-Friendly Workplaces?
Family friendly workplace policies, such as paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and support for affordable childcare, play a fundamental role in ensuring children get the best start possible in life. But are businesses doing all they can to support parents manage a changing work-family balance? A new study recently published by UNICEF shows that some […]
How Male Mentors Can Develop Women at Work
The workforce includes more women — especially in traditionally male professions — and business leaders are changing workplace environments to be more flexible, collaborative and caring in a calculated effort to attract and retain the best talent, both male and female. Organizations that don’t adapt to this battle for talent risk marginalizing or excluding 50 […]
From Suicidal Depression to Social Entrepreneur: Creating a New $bn Industry for Rural Africa
15 years ago I was working in the London advertising industry, promoting products I didn’t believe in for clients who didn’t appreciate it. I ended up asking myself ‘What am I doing with my life?’ The lack of a sense of true purpose and meaning in my life lead me into a downward spiral and, […]
Applying Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Methods in Cocoa Sustainability Program Evaluations
Working out whether or not your sustainability program is having the impact you intend is more complex than you might think. There’s heated debate among academics and practitioners around how to do it best, much of it pointing out that designing a perfect measurement methodology in theory is a lot more straightforward than applying it […]
Raising the Purpose Banner (Again) is Only the Start
It’s great to see my partners @MartinJenkins and their clients in New Zealand making strides forwards (see here). It is progress when communications and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) teams unite under the purpose banner*. But to deliver sustainable success for all it is critical that Executive Teams and their Board’s grasp the initiative and hot-wire purpose into […]
Big Impact: How Go Give to Create Change
The over 22,000 members of this community are here for one thing: Collaborating for Social Impact. Are we ready, willing and able to be open to how to achieve that? Honestly? Impact, can be defined in many ways and on many levels, in short term, in long term. We can categorize in a multitude of […]
How Can the Healthcare Sector Leverage its Economic Power to Address Climate Change?
Towards a roadmap for Climate-smart Healthcare in Europe Healthcare contributes with ~5% to global greenhouse gas emissions through energy consumption, transport, and product manufacture, use and disposal. The lion’s share of emissions come from the healthcare supply chain – the production, transport, and disposal of goods and services, such as pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, food […]
The Fix Up: Campaigning for the Right Reasons – Marketing Campaigns vs “Advocacy” Campaigns
I’m on a mission to harness the power of brands to add genuine value to societal progress, whether that be social or environmental. Why? We’re facing unprecedented times – a climate and environment emergency has been declared, displacement is a threat for more and more communities, civil space is increasingly restrictive, regressive girls’ and women’s […]
As One: A Different Chapter in Table Tennis Diplomacy
In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon accepted an invitation from China to send an American table tennis team to play some exhibition matches. Several incidents encouraging the interaction between the countries and their teams had occurred prior to 1972, including in 1971 when a U.S. player, who missed the team bus, rode the Chinese bus. […]
How Can Businesses Unlock the Potential of Social Intrapreneurs?
Building on the “The Intrapreneurship Ecosystem: Creating the conditions for social innovation to flourish in your company,” a business guide produced by Business Fights Poverty and The League of Intrapreneurs (LOI) with support from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), CEMEX, and the BMW Foundation, we recently held two online discussions. A panel of […]
Five Ways Companies Embed Purpose into their Business
Zahid Torres-Rahman, CEO and co-founder of Business Fights Poverty, opened the event stating: ‘Purpose is not CSR …confined to the sustainability department. It is this all pervasive force that can drive, and inspire and align how businesses operate and what they do.’ But how exactly do companies embed purpose into their business strategy and operations? […]
How Businesses Can Help Achieve the SDGs for Refugees
The SDGs were launched, to great fanfare, as a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for everyone. As states signed up to the Global Goals in 2015 they pledged to leave no-one behind and prioritise the fast-tracking of action for those with furthest to go. Yet four years on, research shows that […]
Connecting People to Purpose Creates Value for All Stakeholders
Earlier this year Larry Fink, of Blackrock investors wrote to CEOs of companies, including GSK, in a letter entitled “purpose and profit”. He said, “purpose is not a mere tagline or marketing campaign; it is a company’s fundamental reason for being – what it does every day to create value for its stakeholders.” In my […]
New Fund to Address Social Isolation Through Technology Closing Soon
Social isolation is a major public health concern, affecting people of many backgrounds, ages, locations and socio-economic circumstances. Research has shown that this issue can be linked to poor physical and mental health as well as potentially negative effects on communities. And those effects are felt most by those communities affected by additional challenges such […]
Eliminating Violence and Harassment Just Became an Obligation for Businesses Worldwide
On June 21, 2019, the International Labour Organization (ILO) voted overwhelmingly to adopt a Convention on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work. This represents an important step forward on strengthening protections for all workers around the world against violence and harassment. Business should see the adoption of the Convention as a […]
Charities Good! Companies Better?
Fans of George Orwell’s satirical novel Animal Farm will recall how the changing nature of the revolution on the farm was characterised by a shift from the old chant of “four legs good, two legs bad” to the new one of “four legs good, two legs better”. Over the past few years, a similar revolution […]
Six Lessons: Learning from Impact Evaluation in Cocoa Farming
Understanding the impact of development interventions is a complex process. From picking the most suitable measurement and evaluation (M&E) methodology, to designing a suitable plan for implementing it in the field, there might appear to be endless hurdles to the uninitiated. Mondelēz International’s cocoa sustainability program Cocoa Life works with Ipsos as an M&E partner. […]
Registration Open: Business Fights Poverty NYC 2019, 23 September
