Start-ups & sustainability: 3 tips to make an impact from day one.

In June 2021 alone, more than 448,000 new businesses were filed in America, and according to the Office of National Statistics, the UK saw a new tech business launched every 30 minutes throughout 2020. This seems to be a global trend - new research by startupticker.ch and SECA has shown that Swiss start-up investments have grown by 130% in the last year, practically doubling in just four years!

More than ever before, we are seeing this drive for people to become their own boss, and to live their 'best life' as an entrepreneur. But with this rush to join the start-up world, how can we make sure that all of this energy goes towards something positive?

Making a difference is very important to me personally, so as an entrepreneur, I made it a top priority to ensure that my company, SmartPurse, would have a positive impact not just through its goal to close the financial education gap, but also through its actions and its very existence. Our charity partnership with SafeLives, for example, means that as our community become more financially confident, they are also helping women in need to do the same.

To help share some insights into making your start-up more sustainable, I had the pleasure of speaking to Olivia Sibony, award-winning entrepreneur and sustainability enthusiast. Olivia worked at Goldman Sachs, before leaving to found the food-tech start-up GrubClub. Since then, she has also launched SeedTribe, 'a community for people who believe in business as a force for good', and from her position as vice-chair of the Mayor of London's board for Women in CleanTech, she co-founded the new nonprofit FiveThirteen.

Starting a company takes determination, knowledge, and passion - a trio of traits also necessary for sustainable investing. If we are continuously engaging existing corporations and old-money entrepreneurs to be more considerate of their impact, the start-ups today must do the same from day one. New companies simply cannot function without sustainable, impactful practices already in place. Here are three ways to do this.

Understand your industry & the related sustainability challenges

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of older ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.

- Mark Twain

There's no such thing as a new idea, but if you're starting a company, you must believe that you are building something better than its alternatives. The most effective way of making sure that this creativity is also sustainable is to examine who came before you.

You can begin the process by researching your industry at large. What are the immediate challenges to sustainability - for example, in the fashion industry, environmental waste through 'fast fashion' is a serious issue. Collect a list of your competitors, and besides the standard research into their pricing models or their marketing strategy, pay close attention to how they tackle sustainability.

This could include:

• How do they minimise environmental damage - are they offsetting their impact?
• What is their reputation like - how do they show they are ethically and socially responsible? Do they have a track record of continuous development?
• What specific impact activities or strategies do they use? Are they doing something you haven't seen before? How can you find a unique way of maximising your impact?

Note the good ideas you find, and use them as inspiration to do better. In the same way, use the problems you discover as motivation for your own improvement. Olivia shared how her past experiences working for larger corporations served as motivation for her own company, and that feeling uncomfortable is what pushed her to create the change she wanted. 'Anger and frustration can be wonderful drivers for change', she explained, 'experiencing huge, growing problems around us provides a perfect opportunity to tackle them'.

Establish your core values - and stick to them

Everyone can say that they want to be sustainable, but without action, these are just words. To truly make a difference, you need to be making sustainability a given, not just an option in your company.

I feel so strongly about this that I don't understand how anyone starting a business today could make it anything but sustainable, in every sense of the term.

- Olivia Sibony

Once you have established your values and methods to bring positive impact, you should set up ways to review, benchmark, and constantly improve your actions. Holding yourself accountable can come in many forms, and there are many external companies who can help you to realise and organise your efforts:

• Business in the Community (BITC): a network of businesses 'who want to make a difference within society, and who are prepared to collaborate to bring about change'.
• Carbon Trust: help support companies and governments 'in realising ambitious plans for a sustainable, low carbon future'.
• Forum for the Future: a leading sustainability non-profit 'working to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable future'.
• B-Corp Certification: 'determines where a business meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose'.

Surround yourself with like-minded people

Find people who share your values, and who will help your company continue to grow. While writing this issue, I found an interesting fact from TechFounders 2020 'Sustainability in Startups' report. Their research revealed that, of the start-ups surveyed, 75% of those who had not received any Venture Capital had implemented sustainability measures, compared to 60% of VC-backed start-ups. 'While we cannot argue the reasons for this', Tech Founders explained, 'it makes clear that VCs are currently not consistently driving start-ups to think about sustainability'.

This raises the same point for potential entrepreneurs and founders of emerging start-ups: the best way to ensure a sustainable impact from day one is to make sure every part of the process includes sustainable forethought. If your investors are involved in and encouraging of your mission and your values, it will be far easier to maintain them down the line and in future funding rounds.

Surrounding yourself with like-minded people also helps to combat some of the challenges that Olivia identified: 'Lack of cultural understanding, lack of imagination, and lack of incentives'. But she also noted that 'in these past 18 months', 'culture has shifted in its realisation that climate change is not going away', and that this has helped bring people together in a cultural shift which is significantly 'influencing how businesses work'.

Olivia's new nonprofit, FiveThirteen, shows the value of networking and supporting sustainable companies, inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals. FiveThirteen helps to promote women-founded companies that are helping to tackle climate change, and boosts the flow of capital towards these impact-driven start-ups.

There are countless opportunities to both invest in, and to promote your own sustainable start-ups:

• Olivia is also the CEO of SeedTribe, 'a community for people who believe in enacting positive change through business'.
• Eve Angel Investors is 'a female-led business community which invests in small and mid-sized organisations, regardless of gender'.
• Sustainable Ventures invest in 'early stage start-ups, specifically addressing climate change and resource scarcity'.
• SEIF helps to support passionate, impact-driven entrepreneurs in their scale ventures, with positive impact at the very core of their business model.

A slightly less spoken about aspect of your network is the value of your customers. Sustainability is also a personal activity, meaning it's something we can all do every single day, and you never know who you might reach through your business. Every person who interacts with your company has a different life experience - who knows who might email you with a suggestion for sustainable impact you would never have thought of yourself.

A recent study in Sweden found that 'Gen Z sets higher expectations on employers regarding values and sustainability contribution'. With our future generation of investors already setting the bar high, this helps to cement that, aside from being the morally responsible way to start a company, sustainability in start-ups is now a necessity. There is no longer any way to excuse your lack of action.

A huge thanks to Olivia for sharing her thoughts in today's issue, and for her optimism towards the future of sustainability in start-ups:

There are so many ways to get involved in this vast space, and with enough curiosity, passion, and drive, any one of us can play our part in shaping the world of tomorrow, and in leaving behind a legacy that we are proud of.

- Olivia Sibony

Are there any new start-ups you're excited to see grow? Leave them in the comments so we can celebrate those making a real difference to the world together!

1. Article: Startups Magazine, '5 steps to building a sustainable startup'.
2. Podcast: SeedTribe, 'Liv Sibony on Connecting Investors with Impactful Stories'.
3. Report: TechFounders, 'Sustainability in Startups'.
4. Report #2: SEIF, 'Small Sized Impact Investing Fund - Challenges and Opportunities'.