How companies are collaborating on sustainability to serve their communities

If we have learnt one thing over the past year, it’s that when com­pa­nies, investors and gov­ern­ment put their heads togeth­er, change can hap­pen very quick­ly. You only need to look at the devel­op­ment of the coro­n­avirus vac­cine for evi­dence, which is one of the most notable feats of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion in mod­ern his­to­ry. It saw com­pa­nies that would ordi­nar­i­ly view one anoth­er as com­peti­tors look beyond short-term prof­it and come togeth­er to solve an imme­di­ate threat to glob­al health. 

In this con­text, it’s clear that col­lab­o­ra­tion is a potent accel­er­a­tor for progress, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to deliv­er­ing change in solv­ing oth­er big glob­al prob­lems, such as hunger, men­tal health, lit­er­a­cy and cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion. 

If any­thing, the pan­dem­ic has only increased the pres­sure on com­pa­nies to col­lab­o­rate for the greater good. “Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, we have seen busi­ness­es come togeth­er with a real sense of urgency to help those most impact­ed in their val­ue chains and com­mu­ni­ties, from sup­port­ing cash-strapped sup­pli­ers to tack­ling the spike in gen­der-based vio­lence,” says Zahid Tor­res-Rah­man, co-founder and chief exec­u­tive of Busi­ness Fights Pover­ty. “The pan­dem­ic has shown our inter­con­nect­ed­ness and what we can achieve togeth­er.”

So have organ­i­sa­tions fur­ther down this path learnt any­thing in the process? And how do those with expe­ri­ence see this trend shap­ing the future of social impact as a broad­er busi­ness prac­tice?

Peer-to-peer collaboration

For small­er, new­er com­pa­nies, such as Tree­p­oints, an app that encour­ages users to off­set their car­bon emis­sions by earn­ing “points” to spend with oth­er com­pa­nies, col­lab­o­ra­tion is at the heart of their busi­ness mod­el. 

“Our entire busi­ness mod­el is pred­i­cat­ed on col­lab­o­rat­ing with com­pa­nies that want to be more sus­tain­able,” says Antho­ny Col­lias, founder and chief exec­u­tive of Tree­p­oints. “You can for­get how over­whelm­ing the cli­mate cri­sis can seem to busi­ness­es that have no expe­ri­ence of this sphere. We quick­ly realised that most peo­ple want to do good, they just don’t know where to start. 

“We’re work­ing on mak­ing it trans­par­ent, clear and straight­for­ward for busi­ness­es of all sizes to have a pos­i­tive impact.”

Financ­ing and pro­cure­ment are anoth­er area where col­lab­o­ra­tion between busi­ness­es is help­ing encour­age brands to increase their social impact. A new gov­ern­ment require­ment, pro­cure­ment pol­i­cy note 06/20, which states that pub­lic con­tracts must fac­tor social val­ue into their pro­pos­als, is just one exam­ple of a con­crete step being tak­en to ensure busi­ness­es are work­ing with char­i­ties, NGOs and pub­lic bod­ies to make sure serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty is a cen­tral part of their sus­tain­abil­i­ty strat­e­gy. 

It is a strat­e­gy also preva­lent in some pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment com­pa­nies, such as Arch­i­pel­ago Eco Investors, which focus­es specif­i­cal­ly on new and nov­el tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions in the plas­tics sec­tor. They are work­ing with busi­ness­es to accel­er­ate inno­va­tion for social good. 

“The fund plans to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tive approach­es between investors and investees, and enable an open and active rela­tion­ship to devel­op tech­nol­o­gy and infra­struc­ture roll­out effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly,” says Lucy Mor­timer, part­ner at the fund. By doing so, Mor­timer hopes to “catal­yse fur­ther pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment by pro­vid­ing evi­dence of tech­nol­o­gy readi­ness and com­mer­cial bank­a­bil­i­ty of new tech­nolo­gies”.

Knowledge sharing

Joan­na Jensen, founder and exec­u­tive chair­man of Childs Farm, a lead­ing UK children’s toi­letries brand, has found col­lab­o­ra­tion help­ful in intro­duc­ing new ideas for how to increase social impact. 

“It’s so impor­tant to bring in the experts,” she says. “There is a steep learn­ing curve in the world of social impact, but bring­ing in the right peo­ple pays div­i­dends in the long term for your com­pa­ny and for the plan­et.” 

Col­lab­o­rat­ing for Childs Farm has meant push­ing out of their com­fort zone and work­ing with those who have more expe­ri­ence and can help them to notice blind spots and oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve. 

“Our work with sus­tain­abil­i­ty experts Plan­et Shine, for instance, meant we could broad­en our per­spec­tives and learn best prac­tice from peo­ple who have gone before us on this jour­ney,” says Jensen. This approach helped Childs Farm to become car­bon neu­tral in 2020.

Many pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies have learnt the val­ue of ramp­ing up col­lab­o­ra­tion with char­i­ties in a bid to dri­ve progress for­ward in their social impact efforts. As Siena Park­er, head of cre­ative respon­si­bil­i­ty at Pen­guin Ran­dom House UK, explains: “Char­i­ties and busi­ness­es work­ing in part­ner­ship can pro­vide vital lev­els of sup­port in times of need and they can also dri­ve more sys­temic and wide­spread pos­i­tive change, which ulti­mate­ly offers busi­ness ben­e­fits too.” 

At Pen­guin, this has seen an increase in col­lab­o­ra­tion to help raise lit­er­a­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly among more dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties, as well as help­ing to improve diver­si­ty in the lit­er­a­ture taught in schools. “We see invest­ing in this area as not just the right thing to do, but also a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for us, both as a book pub­lish­er and a brand,” says Park­er.

World beyond COVID

Look­ing ahead, one thing experts agree on is the renewed focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and social impact that the pan­dem­ic has insti­gat­ed isn’t going away. “Many peo­ple pre­dict­ed the pan­dem­ic would over­shad­ow the bur­geon­ing inter­est in sus­tain­abil­i­ty, but in fact the oppo­site is true,” says Jensen. “Busi­ness has a grow­ing role in push­ing for progress across soci­ety and I don’t see this trend chang­ing any time soon.”

Tor­res-Rah­man agrees. “We don’t see this ener­gy dis­si­pat­ing. The busi­ness­es we speak to see this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rebuild bet­ter, to tack­le the deep-seat­ed inequal­i­ties the pan­dem­ic has laid bare,” he says. 

“Busi­ness­es are step­ping up and col­lab­o­rat­ing on social chal­lenges not just because this is the right thing to do, but because it builds the resilience of their busi­ness­es and is increas­ing­ly expect­ed by their employ­ees, cus­tomers and share­hold­ers.” 

A readi­ness to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er organ­i­sa­tions, whether com­peti­tors, char­i­ties or third-par­ty organ­i­sa­tions, will only mul­ti­ply the impact a busi­ness can have in the com­mu­ni­ty and is a trend like­ly to con­tin­ue as we move towards the post-pan­dem­ic phase of recov­ery. 

“Like so many things in busi­ness, col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­er organ­i­sa­tions gives you a far greater impact than what you can do alone,” Jensen con­cludes. And what could be a wor­thi­er cause than mak­ing the world a bet­ter place to live in?