Systems Leadership Can Change the World – But What Exactly Is It?
Transforming a complex system – such as the energy, health or food system – is a monumental task requiring coordinated action by people with very different viewpoints. Systems-change initiatives often engage hundreds of organizations – governments, companies, civil society organizations, worker associations, research institutions and others – combining their capacities to achieve a shared goal. […]
To Change the World, Business Must Share its Profits and Power
Achieving the SDGs will take more than redefining the role of business in our unequal society. This year’s UN General Assembly is finally here, and pledges to once again achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have already begun. Much of this activity is focused on the private sector, a key actor in delivering on these ambitious […]
There is No ‘I’ in team: How Collaboration and Innovation are Enabling Inclusive Businesses to Achieve Greater Social Impact
The world of inclusive business isn’t any different. We’re seeing more and more inspiring collaborations that are achieving exponential results, demonstrating the value of partnerships, and the opportunities for innovation that these alliances allow. Take a look at the recent partnership between BCtA member Essilor and Chinese commerce giant AliBaba – together they’re providing access […]
Being Authentic About Purpose: From Words to Action
Recently, a group of 181 CEOs, collectively representing over 15 million employees and more than $7 trillion in annual revenues, declared that they are no longer putting shareholders before everyone else. The “Statement of Purpose of a Corporation”, issued by the Business Roundtable, is a bold re-imagining of the principles of corporate governance that they […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
Purpose Goes Hungry Without Culture
Business Fights Poverty is currently asking: “How can we embed Purpose authentically into business.” But what can this look like in practice, and where do we go from here? First, the Purpose has to be worth embedding! In other words, it has to be inspiring and convincingly explain how the business creates value for itself […]
Supporting Business Solutions To Poverty
Over the past few decades, much progress has been made on a range of development challenges – including poverty reduction, preventable disease and access to education. Yet much remains to be done and the urgency of dealing with intractable, global problems that put these gains at risk has increased. With so much at stake, the […]
Plan for the Future
This requires having a clear Purpose, which is authentic and inspiring, explains why the business exists and how it creates value for itself and for society. It is about having a comprehensive Plan, which minimises negative social, environmental and economic impacts, maximises positive impacts and covers all aspects of the business and extends into the […]
Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 – Last Chance to Register
The Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2019: Open for Applications Until 30 June
The , delivered by Unilever and the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, support and celebrate inspirational young people from all over the world who have initiatives, products or services tackling some of the planet’s biggest sustainability challenges. Now in their sixth year, the Awards have reached over 5,800 entrepreneurs, and provided tailored support […]
Corporate/ Impact Enterprise Partnerships – Part 2 – Now for the Hard Part
Last time, I talked about the considerable potential for partnerships between corporates and impact enterprises. In this blog, I’ll focus on the undoubted challenges. Again, I’m building on several published sources, my own experience, and conversations with entrepreneurs, corporate staff and investors. In the opening lines of Anna Karenina (“Happy families are all alike; every […]
The Best Kept Secret: The Role of Corporate Foundations in Building Sustainable Brands
For too long, companies have overlooked and undervalued the role of corporate foundations as partner for sustainability. Corporate foundations have been perceived as a nice social appendix to a company’s CSR report, or as a means to fulfilling the moral responsibility and stakeholder pressure of being a good corporate citizen. Lately, however, front-running companies are […]
Building Back Better in the Caribbean: The Clinton Foundation and Partnerships for Change
How do we empower communities – especially those furthest behind – to have a chance to succeed, improve their lives, and build a better future? There are several answers to the question – create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service. These are the core elements that drive the work we […]
Why Large and Small Businesses Need to Collaborate to Compete in Complex Markets
The expression ‘no man is an island’ could be re-phrased ‘no business is an island’ with just as much validity, as it is self-evident that individual businesses, wherever they are located, are just one small part of a complex ecosystem, which normally extends far beyond the immediate locality of their geographical base. But as in […]
To Boldly Go Where We’ve Not Been Before Doesn’t Need to be a Leap of Faith
Sometimes the future is not hard to predict – it’s totally logical. Widely cited, Star Trek’s Chief of Logic (COL), Spock nailed it when he said that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” If we are bold and if we act now to change our organisations and our systems we […]
Business as Usual – Or Business with Purpose?
While the debate on business’ social and environmental impacts (both positive and negative) is not new, when the CEO of Blackrock, one of the world’s largest investors, and the head of Oxfam International are both talking about the potential for business to help achieve inclusive and sustainable development, it feels like we’re at a tipping […]
VIDEO: Skoll World Forum Ecosystem Event – Cross-Sector Collaboration for Sustainable Supply Chains
On 9 April, we co-hosted a Skoll World Forum Ecosystem Event with Acumen focused on Cross-Sector Collaboration for Sustainable Supply Chains. The event was sponsored by Hershey, Bayer and Jacobs Foundation, and in delivered in partnership with the League of Intrapreneurs. The event brought together over 100 participants representing leading global corporations, innovative social enterprises, […]
Corporate / Impact Enterprise Partnerships: Still Hard, Still Worth It.
I’ve often worked at the intersection of multinational corporations (MNCs) and smaller, BOP-focused ‘impact enterprises’, some of them led by the most extraordinary entrepreneurs on the planet. Much of the help corporates offer them is time bound investment or technical support to strengthen their businesses. From time to time, though, the opportunity presents itself for […]