ESG, Beer, Democracy, Inclusivity, Flowers

Giles Gibbons
Good Business - Sustainability | Strategy | Impact

March 17, 2023

1 Breakfast is on us - Join us at Echo Research's ESG breakfast briefing

ESG – at least in terms of how the financial sector assesses businesses' sustainability performance – is in the throes of some teenage growing pains. Some have criticised it for not being robust enough, too hard to draw comparisons, too voluntary,… the list goes on. We believe increased regulation is one (of many) answers to these issues. And it is arriving thick and fast.  

Some of you may think many businesses spend too much time focused on sustainability reporting rather than actually creating meaningful change. And we’re sympathetic to that view. Change matters more than telling people about the change, after all. However, stakeholders need to understand where an organisation has come from, where it is at and where it is heading… and reporting is a fundamental part of that.   

We are getting together with our friends at Echo Research, IFRS and RELX over breakfast next week to discuss this very subject, thinking about what's on the horizon and the impact the regulations might have. Please join us at 8.30am at the RELX HQ 1-3 The Strand, WC2N 5JR. It’s free to join and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible next week – in person! Do let us know if you can't make it but would like to receive an update on these new requirements.

2 Out with the old...

Miller Lite – an American beer brand – has recently admitted to a history of sexist marketing and reflected on the brewing industry’s objectification of women on poster fronts and adverts. 

Beer advertising has traditionally reinforced traditional gender roles, portrayed women as seductive and featured women as sexual objects. If you’re not aware of the problem already, a quick google image search of “sexist beer ads” can give you an idea of its extent.   

Miller Lite is aware of their its contributions to this. In a bid to make amends, they have launched the Bad $#!T to Good $#!T campaign, collecting old copies of sexist advertisements and turning them into fertiliser to help grow hops for women brewers. 

The campaign works by buying back and collecting old advertisements, not only their own but from other brands too, which are then shredded and composted. After a couple of months, this gets fed to worms, who create castings (worm poo) that becomes compost fertiliser. Female farmers then use this fertiliser to grow hops, which are subsequently donated to over 200 female brewers to produce beer.   

The Bad $#!T to Good $#!T campaign demonstrates a unique approach to promoting equity after a history of objectification and sexism and celebrates and supports women’s contributions to brewing (after all, until it became an industrialised process, brewing was largely dominated by women). While one modest campaign won’t undo decades of sexism, Miller Lite’s campaign is a nice example of a brand owning up to its role in a problem and coming up with a creative solution that delivers social and environmental impact. 

3 Talking politics

We’ve written a fair amount about the right (and wrong) way for businesses to respond to, and engage with, political issues. From social justice issues like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo to the business response to Ukraine, the front line between business and society is blurring and customers, employees and investors want to know about a business’s principles as well as its profits.  

So we welcome Jericho Chambers’ new Business and Democracy Commission which will explore, and report, on these issues. It will work with business and civil society leaders to determine a set of recommendations focused on the role of business in a healthy democratic society.  

While businesses have spoken up about political issues since the early days of capitalism – no one is surprised to hear a CEO discuss the minimum wage, or windfall taxes, or trade agreements – it’s on cultural and social issues where the fissures and dividing lines become most apparent. We believe businesses have a role to play here in joining the conversation, however contentious the issues may be. Businesses are, after all, a collection of people and in many ways reflect and represent society. They aren’t a neutral profit-making entity that is regulated and operates in a vacuum – political decisions affect the people who work for them, and the people who work for them and who run them will have views on social issues. 

That said, engagement in these issues can come with a cost – look at The Walt Disney Company’s issues in Florida, or businesses that took a stand on Brexit. And in a world that seems ever more polarized, crafting an effective response matters more, and is more challenging than ever – where you put your lobbying dollars, how you use your advertising, and even how you choose to position pay increases for your employees.  

It’s not an issue that is top of the responsible business agenda, but perhaps it should be. It’s easy to talk about stakeholder capitalism, but what does that actually mean in terms of the hard choices a business has to make about who it pleases, and who it will inevitably upset?  

What’s also interesting is the way Jericho Chambers has chosen to support the Commission’s work. It is acting on a pro bono basis and has launched a Crowdfunder campaign to make it a reality. It’s intentionally designed to democratise the process and make it more transparent. They are seeking funding but also other forms of in-kind support including interviewers and contributors. Crowdfunding is a great way of building like minded communities around a cause or issue, so we are excited to see where this ends up, as well as the final conclusions of the Commission. If you’d like to support it, head over to their Crowdfunder page and join the discussion. 

4 Words matter

What do you think of the term “developing countries”? Worried about how to describe the breadth of gender and sexual diversity without offending? Ever felt uncomfortable saying “beneficiaries”? Wondered at the history of the phrase “committed suicide”? 

Oxfam has released a new inclusive language guide, which sets out why it’s time to consider the power of the words that we use. The guide is designed for the NGO sector, but it is an interesting read for anyone wanting to think more consciously about their use of language. It spans intersecting forms of inequality, such as physical and mental health, migration, gender justice and race, to name just a few.  

This guide should be seen as just that- a guide. Oxfam highlights its inevitable imperfections and necessity to be work in progress as our understanding of language changes over time. But it is an effective prompt for thinking about the impact our words have in the context of power, history, reinforcing stereotypes and maintaining inequality.  

For example, the guide highlights how ‘Global Majority’ and ‘Global Minority’, instead of ‘the West’ and ‘Third World’, can shift away from the idea that everything is led by wealthier and white-majority nations that historically were colonizers. It recentres Black, Indigenous and People of Colour as the majority. And the use of the phrase ‘is affected by’ to describe a person affected by a particular disability avoids defining a person by a health issue and the negative connotations of ‘suffers from’.  

There is no one size fits all approach: language is context and audience specific. But there is no doubt, language has power. The things we choose to say, to our colleagues, our friends, the café barista, can all help foster diversity and inclusion. We encourage you to have a browse through the guide, and think about what works best for your purposes. 

5 Blooming sustainable

This Sunday marks Mother’s Day here in the UK, the second most important day of the year for the floral industry (pipped to the post by Valentine’s Day). But have you ever considered the impact of the flowers you buy? From artificial cultivation of all varieties of blooms all year round, to the transport of these flowers across the globe and the packaging in which they are sold, the cut flower industry has a significant impact on the planet. 

Many of the bouquets you’ll find on the high street are grown in industrial greenhouses overseas, using large amounts of water, energy, pesticides and fertilisers, before being flown thousands of miles in refrigerated holds. The carbon footprint of imported flowers can be up to 10 times that of a homegrown bunch. But domestically grown flowers are often no better if not grown seasonally and sustainably, requiring even more artificial light, heating and nutrients to grow out of season or out of their natural climate.  

So in the spirit of B Corp month, our first shoutout goes to Petalon, currently the only B Corp certified floristry service in Europe, offering seasonal bouquets delivered in carbon neutral transport and biodegradable hessian packaging. While currently still importing some flowers to keep up with demand, the team behind Petalon are beginning to offer beautiful British blooms grown on their own regenerative flower farm in Cornwall, aiming to create a circular system that gives more to the environment than it takes.  

For low impact options beyond the B Corp community, we love the sustainably sourced and certified carbon neutral bouquets from Freddie's Flowers, which carefully selects its growers and buys British as much as possible. Or you could even cut out the middleman and get your bouquets direct from the source; find your local grower here. 

So, whoever you’re buying flowers for this Mother’s Day and beyond, consider where your blooms have come from and support a blossoming sustainable floristry industry. 

We are getting together with our friends at Echo Research, IFRS and RELX over breakfast next week to discuss reporting and compliance, thinking about what’s on the horizon and the impact the regulations might have. To find out more about how you can join, check out this week’s Friday 5. This weeks edition also continues our celebration of hashtag#bcorpmonth, with a shout out to Petalon - who offer beautiful British blooms from their regenerative farm in Cornwall. hashtag#business hashtag#bcorp hashtag#esg