Change for Good

An Action-Oriented Approach for Businesses to Benefit from Solving the World's Most Urgent Social Problems

Paul Klein

• Editorial: ECW Press
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781773059310
• Categoría: Economics
• Categoría: Sustainable Development

An action-oriented approach for businesses to solve the world's most urgent social problems — and benefit from doing so.

More than a year into a global pandemic, profit and shareholder value are no longer the primary metric of business success. Customers, shareholders, and communities are demanding that companies do good, do more, and do better. In Change for Good, Paul Klein shows how companies must move beyond what he calls "corporate social responsibility light" and demonstrate how they can help solve social problems that have been defined as UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Change for Good is a new system for making social change through business that reflects Paul's experience over the last 35 years. One of the core principles of Change for Good is including people with lived experience of social problems in identifying promising solutions and collaborating to bring these solutions to life. This methodology can create impactful and sustainable social change in society in ways that aren't possible when executives make decisions in their boardrooms that are intended to impact the lives of vulnerable people.

Through personal experiences, case studies, and practical tools, Change for Good will inspire readers and their organizations to make the shift from a passive social responsibility to taking action to help solve the world's most pressing social problems.

Chapter 1
Change for Good Today

The time difference between West Tennessee and Kathmandu is 11 hours and 45 minutes. That’s why I was in the lobby of the La Quinta Inn in Memphis at 2:15 a.m. having a conversation with Nepal’s sole billionaire, Binod Chaudhary, the chairman and president of the Chaudhary Group, a conglomerate that owns businesses operating in categories ranging from finance to consumer goods to hospitality. “We believe that the biggest reward is when we see a man in a simple village or mountain become an entrepreneur, start employing people, start producing goods or services, that’s all we want,” Chaudhary told me.¹

A few years ago, David Patchell-Evans, founder and CEO of GoodLife Fitness and a global health and fitness entrepreneur, told me that having a successful business is difficult, creating social change is difficult, and doing both at the same time is extremely difficult. However, despite the challenge, that’s exactly what Change for Good is all about.

As we’ll see throughout this book, the intersection of business and social change is a space that is inherently filled with contradictory behaviour and questions that are difficult to answer. To what degree can, and should, a company’s contributions to society be independent of its financial objectives? What about companies that are being responsible and irresponsible at the same time? How do we know if companies are genuinely committed to social change or are only interested in creating a positive impression to help drive sales or mitigate criticism?

In this chapter, I’ll be sharing why businesses today need to deliver value to consumers at the same time as helping to solve social problems. I’ll also introduce the concept of “CSR Lite,” which is when businesses are socially involved only for the purpose of being seen to do something rather than actually committing to a specific social change goal. Plus, you’ll find the first in a series of practical tools and advice on how to take action that I’ve included in each chapter. These are based on my experience in helping businesses improve their impact on society, and they are approaches that can be adapted for use by businesses in any sector. Finally, I’ll begin to discuss a paradox that has characterized the relationship between business and society from antiquity to today: contributing to positive social change and being socially irresponsible at the same time.

Identifying and Solving Social Problems

In the past, businesses became successful because they helped their customers solve practical problems or fulfill unmet needs or desires. That meant having a deep understanding or insight about what people needed or wanted that they didn’t already have. People paid for goods and services, whether that was purchasing a dependable toaster or finding an experienced accountant. Beyond this basic exchange were variables in quality and convenience that influenced the price consumers were willing to pay. While this still holds true for business to be successful today, they now also need to understand the social circumstances and concerns of their customers and demonstrate that they are helping to solve these problems too.

Recently, I needed to purchase a new winter jacket and looked at many brands including Canada’s Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), which is modelled after US-based REI. MEC has built its reputation on selling exceptional products at fair prices, having the smallest possible environmental footprint, conserving the outdoors, and helping Canadians get active outside. For someone like me, this is a perfect combination. MEC could help solve my problem of needing a new winter jacket in a way that would also help to protect the environment, which is a personal priority of mine.

I almost bought the MEC jacket but then decided to have a closer look at Patagonia, a company that’s consistently referenced as one of the world’s most responsible and sustainable businesses. Comparing these two companies, both of which have a reputation for being socially and environmentally responsible, was revealing. Both are socially responsible companies that offer similar high-quality products at comparable prices. However, Patagonia has made it virtually impossible to purchase its products without knowing the problems caused by the clothing industry and what the company is doing about these problems.

Before clicking through to purchase my jacket, I got this message: “Everything we make has an impact on people and the planet. So does everything you buy. The clothing industry contributes up to 10% of the pollution driving the climate crisis. And apparel workers are among the lowest paid in the world. That’s why we make high-quality clothes with recycled materials and promote fair and safe labour conditions for workers. There are some things you can do, too. Buy less. Buy used. Repair what you wear out. Buy from brands that care for their people and the planet. Your purchases are your demands.”

The difference in how each company is being socially responsible is reflected in their mission statements. MEC’s mission is to inspire and enable everyone to lead active outdoor lifestyles by selling outdoor gear, clothing, and services. The last line of Patagonia’s mission statement is “to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” I bought the Patagonia jacket because I felt like doing this would contribute to solving problems that I think are important — climate change, low wages and poor working conditions in developing countries, and excess and unnecessary consumption by consumers.

(In 2020, MEC was sold to private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management and is no longer a cooperative social enterprise. I think part of the organization’s business challenges had to do with losing its connection to its roots as a cooperative organization and being run like a private enterprise. Ironically, the organization lost its social purpose at a time when this could have contributed to a significant competitive advantage. Today, MEC is just another business that sells outdoor gear.)

Change for Good starts with companies asking themselves: Do we make our employees and our customers feel like they are making the world a much better place? Today, understanding what needs to be changed to make the world better is grounded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United Nations Member States. It provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. The 17 SDGs that are central to the 2030 Agenda recognize that “ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth — all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.”²

The SDGs for 2030 are:

1. No Poverty: Access to basic human needs of health, education, and sanitation.
2. Zero Hunger: Providing food and humanitarian relief and establishing sustainable food production.
3. Good Health and Well-being: Better, more accessible health systems to increase life-expectancy.
4. Quality Education: Inclusive education to enable upward social mobility and end poverty.
5. Gender Equality: Education regardless of gender, advancement of equality laws, and fair representation of women.
6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Improving access for billions of people who lack these basic facilities.
7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Access to renewable, safe, and widely available energy sources for all.
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth: Creating jobs for all to improve living standards and providing sustainable economic growth.
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Generating employment and income through innovation.
10. Reduced Inequality: Reducing income and other inequalities, within and between countries.
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Making cities safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.
12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Reversing current consumption trends and promoting a more sustainable future.
13. Climate Action: Regulating and reducing emissions and promoting renewable energy.
14. Life Below Water: Conservation, promoting marine diversity, and regulating fishing practices.
15. Life on Land: Reversing man-made deforestation and desertification to sustain all life on Earth.
16. Peace and Justice and Strong Institutions: Inclusive societies, strong institutions, and equal access to justice.
17. Partnerships to Achieve the Goals: Revitalizing strong global partnerships for sustainable development.

The SDGs are overlapping, but most are built off goal number one: no poverty. Prior to the pandemic, the world was already off track by 6 percent in ending poverty by 2030. As a result of COVID-19, global poverty increased for the first time in decades: over seventy-one million people were pushed into extreme poverty.³ The likelihood of achieving the first SDG goal by 2030 was low and is now even more remote. Not just that, the intersectionality between poverty and most of the other SDGs means we’re now far from where we need to be in areas that the United Nations has determined are critically important for the future of humanity.

Pre-COVID-19, there was a growing imperative for businesses to help solve social problems. However, as a result of COVID-19, social problems have been exacerbated, and businesses now have an even more important societal role to play with respect to issues that are related to their operations. These include work-life balance, mental health, sustainable transportation, diversity and inclusion, and climate change.

For example, owning a bicycle became more of a priority when taking public transit was seen as risky. Not having a suitable home office wasn’t a problem until going to work at an office wasn’t possible in the same way. Remote learning became ubiquitous for children in elementary schools, for youth in secondary and post-secondary schools, and for others in adult learning programs. Shifts such as these propelled an unprecedented growth in bicycle sales,⁴ a surge in goods and services needed for home offices,⁵ and a massive spike in the e-learning industry that saw growth of more than 36 percent as schools migrated to new learn-at-home technologies.⁶

In addition to having more sales, some companies became leaders by helping to solve practical problems in order to increase sustainability in cities and communities, improve good health and well-being, and increase access to quality education — all of which are SDG priorities. For example, prior to the pandemic, Cadillac Fairview, a Canadian company that owns and manages commercial real estate around the world, had identified social detachment as the focus of its corporate purpose, “Transforming Communities for a Vibrant Tomorrow.” As a result of the pandemic, Cadillac Fairview’s purpose and focus on social detachment became even more important and the company recognized the need to look more closely at how this issue was impacting communities where it had operations in Canada. This led to the development of new partnerships with community organizations that are addressing the root causes of social detachment and developing new solutions to this problem. Jason Anderson, senior vice-president Brand, Marketing, Communication, had this to say about the company’s actions during the pandemic: “Despite our industry being hit hard by the pandemic, our Purpose became a great filter by which we could make decisions quickly during such an intense time. We made a commitment to our more than 3,000 employees and third-party contractors that we would not lay them off. We worked individually with our hundreds of clients on rent deferrals and navigating government assistance programs. We also supported front line health care workers across Canada with hand sanitizer, PPE, and even free parking spots.”

Similar to Cadillac Fairview, many companies complement business activities that contribute to social change with community programs. For example, Trek, one of the world’s leading bicycle manufacturers and distributors, has an initia...