Purpose is perhaps the most discussed yet misunderstood goal in business today. Yet, when brands and business leaders get it right, they can effect serious and substantial change across not just their own industries, but also further afield.

#BITELIVE19 saw two such leaders take to the stage, both of whom are paving the way for a new era of purpose led business. Xav Rees is CEO of creative agency Havas London, overseeing the agency’s certification as B Corp in 2018. Mark Cuddigan is CEO of Ella’s Kitchen as well as being Head of Sustainability and Marketing for Hain Celestial Europe, Ella’s Kitchen’s parent brand.

Both businesses are B Corp certified, a process which each CEO admits to being lengthy but eye opening. For a business to become B Corp certified, they must complete a 200-question assessment to establish whether they place people, planet and profit on an equal footing. As Rees said of certified companies, they become “a proudly commercial business that believes that actually during the course of running a commercial profitable business you can have a positive impact and reduce your negative impact on both the people around you and the planet.”

Putting profit on an equal footing with people and planet

It took Havas London two years to certify, having completed the questionnaire and scoring only a quarter of the points necessary at first. For Rees, B Corp certification is “a mechanism to help you change.”

For Cuddigan at Ella’s Kitchen, the business was ready to certify for a year and a half; it just took that long for Cuddigan to convince the board of their parent company that the certification process would be good for business, not just “saving the dolphins”. Cuddigan says he went back several times but, the shift came when, he said, “I went back again, and I said look, I’ll make you more money.”

The strength of becoming B Corp certified for business is that it does not sacrifice profit for the sake of planet and people, but instead demonstrates how each component can harmoniously exist alongside one another. The beauty of balancing all three, for Rees, is that “It actually made us a better business, we’re more profitable, we’ve got more engaged people working for us.”

For smaller brands who are governed by parent companies or holding companies who also govern decision making, Cuddigan offers some reassurance, “This is the frustrating thing but also the simple thing is companies that are doing good are going to be better companies and are going to be more successful.”

The responsibility of the creative industries

As we are seeing across the globe, businesses are having to step up where governments are failing, both to bring about change and remind people that business as usual can be disrupted. Nowhere is this more apparent than within the creative industries, with the recent Create and Strike initiative launched at the Global Climate Strike inviting industry individuals to harness the power of creativity to battle the climate crisis.

For Rees, becoming B Corp “was exactly something I’d never heard of but had been looking for. Because I spent my whole career thinking the only impact we could have on the world beyond the agency was through our clients’ brands.” Rees wants to see more agencies taking responsibility for their own businesses, not just the work they do for their clients. “A lot of agencies undervalue their own business and the impact that their organisations can have because we’re so focused on delivering for our clients’ brands,” Rees adds.

Leading by example

Those agencies who certify, and the leaders at the helm of those businesses, do their best when they lead by example. For Cuddigan, this is essential as “We’re going to be the first generation of leaders that aren’t going to be able to look back and say, ‘we didn’t know’.” Both CEOs believe that business needs to step up, that “Business needs to fulfil a different purpose,” as Cuddigan adds.

No longer can business leaders kick this issue down the path to the next quarter or the next year; “We know what the problem is; we can see it; we can feel it. We need to step forward regardless of whether we think we’re going to get criticised for doing so,” Cuddigan explains. For him it’s both a simple and binary reality; either you believe in doing the right thing, or you don’t. And you should run your business accordingly.

Doing the right thing

Doing the right thing for agencies extends to thinking critically about the brands they work with. B Corp, for Rees, also gave people working for Havas the means to question the way the business was run, offering a framework by which employees could hold the agency to account. “It’s quite a good canary in the mine because they’ll [your people] come and go, well that’s not really a very B Corp way of doing things. So, that is a reasonably regular conversation, but I like it because it allows us to try and be a better business,” said Rees.

For Cuddigan, the decision is very black and white: “I’m not sure it’s always a binary choice. We’ll challenge ourselves at Ella’s to just do the right thing.” Judging what that right thing is comes from working closely with the B Corporation and B Labs, the UK charity that provides support for B Corp companies and for whom Cuddigan sits on the Board of Trustees.

Cuddigan rendered the room silent as he offered up his advice for business and its leaders looking to be the change: “The best definition of integrity I’ve ever heard is doing the right thing, when nobody’s looking. I don’t think there has to be this balance. Either you believe it, or you don’t believe it. And because we believe it, we’re never going to compromise that.”

The butterfly effect

The expansive discussion also extended to the butterfly effect that one business’ certification can have on another. Both Rees and Cuddigan highlighted the fact that Havas London became a B Corp because of the influence of Ella’s Kitchen and Cuddigan’s personal passion in particular. That passion shone through as Cuddigan explained how he felt watching Havas London receive its certification: “this is one of the proudest moments not of my business life, of my life, you guys certifying as a B Corp because the unintended consequences will be huge.”

Cuddigan urged the audience to not let the size of the business they work at hold them back; it only takes someone small to kick start something huge. “As Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. Don’t wait for someone else to go; we need to do it together,” he added. He also acknowledged that the size and scale of Havas London will mean that people will (hopefully) follow suit. It’s something Ella’s Kitchen are doing with their own supply chain, encouraging their top ten suppliers, as well as manufacturers and agencies around the world to use the B Corp assessment. He added, “Out of our top ten suppliers, seven have said they’ll certify this year because of us.” The company are also looking to extend this conversation to their top twenty suppliers later this year.

For Rees, when asked if Havas London would only work with companies that are B Corps, his answer was an adamant no. “It’s more helpful to bring people who aren’t on the journey, onto the journey,” he explained. Rees believes that it is better to have a small effect on many more people than simply speaking to those already in the know. He pointed out that three other businesses in the Havas network are on their way to certify while he has been invited to speak to the global team in Paris about the process of certification.

The open, collaborative conversation brought to the fore the benefits of B Corp certification whilst also shining a light on the success it can bring about for a business. From both a creative agency and an FMCG brand, the advice was clear: do the right thing, balance people, planet and profit and you’ll be a better business as a result.

Photography © Steve Brown