Published on June 10, 2022

1. Sustainability: A Good Investment? 

ESG investing, the Financial Times wrote this week, has reached a reckoning.

Factoring environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions seems like a no-brainer. But in practice, the approach has its critics. Some warn that ESG has become a catch-all term, whose loosely defined criteria provide a screen for corporate greenwashing. And, as we wrote recently, ESG investment criteria can miss the most crucial elements of a company’s impact – including its business purpose.

Which raises a crucial point. Being a sustainable, purpose-driven business should mean much more than having a high ESG performance rating. ESG criteria provide a marking system to test how well a company is delivering against the expectations of one stakeholder group: investors. But even if ESG investment ended tomorrow, the imperative to be a progressive business would not.

Employees want to work for sustainable companies – in fact, three quarters want their employer to be more transparent about its environmental impact. Customers want to buy from ethical businesses: 90% of Gen X consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. And other stakeholders – from governments to NGOs – will continue pushing businesses to cut their carbon footprint, reduce their packaging and report their impact.

If a maths GCSE paper was revealed to be a poor test of mathematical ability, we wouldn’t stop teaching children maths. Even if ESG criteria aren’t measuring the right things, the principle behind them – that doing good is good for business – endures. And stakeholder capitalism means serving not just investors, but employees, consumers, communities and society. That’s the route to being truly progressive – and profitable too. 

2. Donate the Rebate

Last month the UK government announced that it would provide a £400 discount on energy bills for all households to help with the cost of living crisis. The energy rebate will be automatically credited to households in October of this year, providing much needed support to the millions of households that will struggle to pay their bills in the coming year.

But what about those who aren’t struggling?

The speed and scale of the government’s response to rising costs of living is to be commended. But in this case, acting quickly also means acting indiscriminately – the net result being that the energy rebate will be provided to all households, regardless of need.

While a free £400 sounds nice, our friends at Crowdfunder have a big ask for those households who are more financially secure: donate the rebate. Crowdfunder is calling on households to consider donating all or part of their rebate to charities that are on the front line of the cost-of-living crisis in the UK. Since rebates won’t show up in your account until the autumn, you can also pledge now to support later in the year.

In the absence of a perfect system, it’s up to all of us to play a role in redirecting support to those who need it most. For some households, £400 could be the difference between heating and eating. If you’re fortunate enough not to be one of them, why not pass it on. 

3. Supercharging Sustainability

In a post-lockdown world, we appreciate the need for connectivity at very close quarters: whether it’s the ability to transition (mostly) seamlessly to remote working or keeping in touch with friends and family.

The telecoms industry is central to facilitating shifts in how we live and work, but also to sustainability: these are the companies installing and managing the vast system of cables under our streets that connect our homes and workplaces, selling much of the technology we use, and employing a large workforce. They make digital living a possibility but also hold the key to a low carbon future, where we travel, work and communicate differently and with a lower carbon footprint. 

So we are pleased to see our friends at Virgin Media O2 launch their new ESG strategy: the Better Connections Plan. It builds on existing work across their pillars of connected communities, circular economy and zero carbon future and sets some bold targets: connecting one million digitally excluded people by 2025, to recycle all products customers return, and reduce carbon emissions in their value chain by 90% by 2030.

What's more, they are going beyond their own scope 3 carbon impact, setting a target to accelerate the national transition to net zero, by helping their customers make low carbon choices, supported by the products and services they provide, with a view to empowering customers and the UK to avoid 20 million tonnes of carbon through supporting changes in the way we live, work and travel.

Avoided emissions - what we call “scope X” - don’t reduce a business’s own carbon footprint, under carbon accounting standards. Nonetheless, this sort of support and facilitation is exactly what is needed on the journey to a low carbon future.

4. Climate Gets Creative 

How would you lay the table if you were expecting a fox, a wasp, or a pigeon for dinner?

This inter-species dinner party is one of the more radical installations at the Barbican’s exhibition Our Time on Earth. Eighteen different artists from twelve countries each offer a creative response to the climate crisis. Rather than a warning or depiction of the problem, what it presents is a mix of fantasy and hope through an interactive and immersive experience.

It takes insights from indigenous communities, such as the living root bridges used by the Khasi of North India, to explore the use of root canopies as an urban transport network in a rewilded world. There is the reinvention of fashion design via regenerative materials like mushroom leather, carbon emissions and the engineered spider silk from North Face. Then there are the farfetched experiments including a single enormous 165-storey city of 10 billion people, designed to allow humans to step back and let the rest of the planet heal.

Even if the pragmatist in us can’t help but scoff at the more extreme speculations, it shows how artists can offer visions of how we might rethink our place and interconnection to the natural world. It provokes a dialogue between alternative ideas for nature and capitalism to co-exist.

When we’re so often drowned in news about how bad things are, we should applaud this daring optimism to discover new potential ways of living, some of which are still within our reach. If you have a chance to visit the exhibition it runs in London until end of August and then tours internationally.

5. Nudie Nudie Nudie

The staple of any wardrobe, the humble jean. A question that has puzzled great minds for decades…does the perfect pair exist

Well, we’re here to tell you that, yes. It does…

Nudie Jeans is a Swedish outfit (pun intended) founded in 2001, with 35 stores and repair shops in 23 cities around the globe. In their own words, their offering is simple, they make jeans. But they have made the choice to manufacture their product in a fair and ethical way. An opportunity every company is given, but few take.

So, what sets them apart? For starters their denim selection is made from 100% organic cotton and every pair of Nudie Jeans comes with a promise of free repairs. No matter when or where you got them. But their commitment to sustainability goes well beyond this.

From the materials they use, the transparency of production lines and supply chain, the impact after purchase, to how they treat their employees – this is a business that truly puts care into everything it does.

After all, who can say no to jeans for life?

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