The Crowd

#Purpose in times of political change: What a timely and insightful discussion last week at #PurposeFest2024! Our expert panel reflected on the new government and how policy can enable businesses to take a leading role in economic renewal and the green transition. Natalie Bennett was hopeful that the new Labour government will bring some maturity and stability to the economy, and clarity over regulations so that business has a level playing field. However, Natalie was less optimistic that the new government would focus on socially innovative approaches to work (such as the 4-day working week) or localised environmental targets and minimising resource usage. She emphasised that leadership doesn’t need to come from the government on these issues, businesses can lead on the front. Rishi Madlani, Head of Sustainability at Investec, drew on his own experience in local politics on issues including equality and diversity, engaging resident voices on climate issue, and financing green initiatives. He pointed to Labour’s five missions as a roadmap for systemic change and a route for business to align their purpose-led initiatives, collaborate across sectors, and hold government to account. David Symons, UK Sustainability Director at WSP, echoed the call for business to work in partnership and connect into the government’s missions. This has the potential to be constructive, productive and profitable should we reap the benefits of green growth.   Prompted by the chair, Esmé Clifford Astbury, the panel also discussed what they see as priorities and opportunities for business to lead in the current context. These included: - Tackling the climate and ecological emergency through robust business planning - Addressing culture wars in the community and the workforce - Focusing on public health challenges and championing healthy environments for employees and customers - Future-proofing design and supply chains to include business value and climate resilience #GE2024 #LabourGovernment #PurposefulLeadership #Missions #SocialInnovation #GoodGrowth #JustTransition

If you missed the Poking the Bear workshop at #PurposeFest2024 last week, here’s some insights and top tips from workshop co-hosts Revolt! As Olly Lawder and Pippa Morris outlined last week, although purpose is recognised as a powerful force in building reputation and attracting talent, businesses can still shy away from controversial debates and difficult terminology. Yet consumers expect leading brands to take a stand on social issues in the context of #CultureWars. These 5 key principles help ensure businesses can navigate the opportunities of purpose-driven comms and marketing in an age of #polarisation: 1. Understand the bear you’re poking (the issue) 2. Tame your grizzlies (take care over language and framing) 3. Bear-proof your strategy (ensure you have permission to play and have earned your stripes on the topic) 4. Plan for the bear to wake up (anticipate controversies and prepare for backlash) 5. Have your pack’s back (collaborate with others) For more, have a look at Revolt’s playbook on purpose in the age of polarisation: https://lnkd.in/e5ZpW4gJ #Purpose #ESG #Sustainability #SustyComms #SustainableLeadership

Such an inspirational time at #PurposeFest24 yesterday – thank you Caroline Macfarland and The Crowd for a great day hearing from incredible speakers who are making big steps and sharing ideas for how we can move faster together. Gives me the energy to kick it up a notch! A few personal highlights below which can be summed up as ‘we need to know our audiences better to create change’ and ‘we need to push for innovation beyond R&D within individual companies’. >David Croft talking about how the focus is no longer the science of climate change, but the science of (people) change – how to get buy-in across different audiences, from colleagues to consumers. >Natalie Bennett talking about the need for more social innovation, such as the early success in pilots of the 4-day working week, rather than just ‘business as usual, with more tech’ >The exciting work delivered by Astrid De Reuver and Anthesis team on industry pivot funds – to put €100m shared funds into tackling pre-competitive industry challenges like packaging recycling infrastructure >Know your audience and pitch to it – by reframing sustainability as a business movement and leading with commercial measures of success such as program efficiencies and waste costs, Joanna Gilroy (MBA) helped build momentum needed for action at Balfour Beatty. But don’t assume the same for all – for another person I spoke to in the break, framing sustainability in terms of reputational and commercial benefits frustrated the board who wanted to focus on the values of the company.

At #PurposeFest2025 last week we heard some expert top teams from the team at Given on how to bridge the #PurposeGap - the difference between what organisations claim as their purpose and their actual performance in achieving it.   Ben Hayman shared some of the barriers to successfully implementing a purpose strategy, including financial constraints, employee understanding, prioritisation, and turning commitment into activation. Lloyd Burdett explained how culture change can be achieved despite these obstacles. He emphasised the need for both "hardwiring" (rewiring existing practices, policies and systems) and "softwiring" (influencing behaviours and mindsets through informal channels and rituals) to achieve culture change within the business. During the workshop we also heard tips and practical examples of co-creating purposeful initiatives with employees, integrating purpose into decision-making, involving senior leadership, helping employees to understand their role in achieving purpose, and effective communications. If you’d like to know more, check out Given’s Insiders Guide to Purpose Vol. 3: Bringing Purpose to your Culture: https://lnkd.in/eQzTeaeu

CAF's Principal Corporate Advisor, Lucy Mantella, led an insightful workshop on designing and implementing ambitious corporate giving programmes at #PurposeFest2024. The session explored best practices, building a robust business case for increasing corporate giving budgets, integrating giving programmes into business operations, and achieving effective impact. Key insights from Lucy's session: ⭐ Engage stakeholders from the outset; it is essential no matter what it is you’re tackling ⭐ Understand your why ⭐ Align your strategy/programme to broader business strategy, don’t be afraid to be bold ⭐ Build compelling stories about your programme to tell both within and outside the organisation to bring people with you A big thank you to the The Crowd for creating an impactful forum to discuss the integration of purpose into business strategy, culture, and leadership. Want to transform your company's ambition into action but aren’t sure where to start? Learn more about how we can help: https://lnkd.in/etzJMKKg

Here’s some highlights from another #PurposeFest2024 workshop earlier this week, ‘Transformations and tipping points: How to embed purpose in the value chain’. David Croft from Reckitt encouraged participants to think about influencing not only upstream but downstream too, as well as aligning climate, social and nature through core business activity. Jessie Macneil-Brown (she/her) used the example of Ben & Jerry's work with refugees and displaced people to prompt everyone to think about the opportunities to harness talent and bring equality and inclusion into the business. Liam Jones from Olio • Share More, Waste Less asked participants to consider what would be different if you approached things from purpose-first perspective, with the business case/ following from that. Finally Chris Dooley from JCDecaux prompted us to consider stakeholder engagement and what’s needed to achieve a tipping point across the value chain. #Purpose #SupplyChains #EDI #CSR #ResponsibleBusiness #ESG

Brilliant day at #PurposeFest2024 yesterday, listening to such great speakers talk about turning purpose into impact, how innovation can help deliver on purpose-led ambitions and embedding purpose in the value chain. Great panel on "Purpose in times of political change" chaired by ReGenerate Policy Director Esmé Clifford Astbury in conversation with Natalie Bennett, Green Party of England and Wales peer and former party leader, David Symons, UK Sustainability Director at WSP and Rishi Madlani, UK Head of Sustainability for Investec. Key insights below 👇 ➡ Leadership will need to come from businesses, not government alone. ➡ IMF points to growth slowing in the next decade, so there is a need to focus on social innovation to increase business productivity and retention rates. We have a real opportunity to renew focus on valuing people. ➡ We need to ensure that businesses who want to do good are operating in the same playing field as those who are further behind. ➡ A mission-led government will work best by addressing change across the whole of government, rather than adopt a department by department approach. ➡ Businesses need to partner with government by building on national priorities, rather than making new asks. Asks should connect to the government's key missions. ➡ Businesses should align pressing social and environmental issues with their core mission and purpose, rather than view them alongside core business activity. ➡ We need to restore people's individual sense of empowerment while encouraging collaborative work to deliver systems change. Huge thanks to Caroline Macfarland & The Crowd - give them a follow to keep up to date with future events!

Great to share thoughts with Rishi Madlani, Natalie Bennett and Esmé Clifford Astbury on how business and government can work together to deliver faster action at #purposefest2024. Key points I took away were: 🇬🇧 Support the government's Five Missions. Link our asks to those rather than running in parallel. ✅ Link purpose to growth and other priorities in your business. ⚖ Get beyond legal compliance. Growth comes from innovating and thinking differently. 🏃♀️ Take action - don't wait for others. There's no need for it to be perfect. 👩👩👧👧 Join www.pledgetonetzero.org to be part of a great industry movement. Thanks to Katie Banham and Caroline Macfarland at The Crowd for an excellent and thought provoking day, and well done for pulling off an outside venue in this summer! #wearewsp #togetherwecreate #futureready

At the #PurposeFest2024 workshop on turning purpose into impact, the panel shared their top tips on defining and measuring success of purpose-led initiatives. Joanna Gilroy (MBA) from Balfour Beatty spoke about using the language of business (rathe than the language of environmentalism) to reframe #sustainability goals. Sharing his experiences from the social care sector, Jonathan Freeman from CareTech spoke about demonstrating #impact on individuals and society, and considering the means as well as the ends. And Phoebe Whittome from SB+CO prompted everyone to distill impact into one simple #metric that would measure success. Attendees then discussed practical ways to reframe the understanding of sustainability across the organisation, engage people across different levels of management, find meaningful data, and simplify impact metrics. Thanks again to all the speakers and the session Chair, Joey Tabone.

Our opening panel at #PurposeFest2024 with Sacha Romanovitch, Janine Cole, Harriet Lamb, Kate Levine and Astrid De Reuver explored new horizons for purpose-driven leadership, strategies, and initiatives across a range of sectors. The wide ranging conversation included insights on: - supply chain collaboration - the importance of knowledge sharing - the need for internal alignment on purpose before external communication or campaigning work - enabling people within organisations to lead - listening to the system and knowing what power you have to change something specific in the system. #PurposefulBusiness #Leadership #SocialImpact #SustainableBusiness