Is your revenue distributed fairly?
Hannah Keartland - outsourced Chief Impact Officer
Scale up your impact | Founder of B Corp? consultancy Keartland & Co - helping business leaders have a meaningful impact through their business | Board Advisor | TEDx speaker
Hello!
One of the highlights of the last month was the B Corp Louder Than Words festival in Oxford. Were you there? What’s really stuck in your mind?
The highlight of the event for me was spending time with such a wonderful group of people – good friends, people I’d only met online, familiar faces from LinkedIn and people I met while I was there. It was a hugely energising way to kick off the autumn.
Something Patrick Grant said in his keynote has really stuck with me and is the topic of this month’s newsletter. I hope it gives you some food for thought too.
In traditional artisanal creation, the person doing the work sells directly to the end consumer and gets all the revenue. In most businesses today, we have lots of intermediaries – there are a lot of steps from the people growing and/or making the stuff through to the people who buy it. And they all take a slice. The person at the beginning of the chain often gets very little.
And this I found shocking – many businesses spend far more money persuading you to buy stuff than on actually making things. That feels out of kilter.
Doughnut Economics talks about ‘distribution by design’ – economies that are designed to distribute the value they create fairly, rather than wealth being concentrated in a tiny percentage of people / businesses.
I then spent last week with Dan Webber founder of Chimney Fire Coffee . Their goal is to use direct sourcing practices to enable redistribution of value back to the people who grow their coffee. They build long-term relationships directly with growers and producers, buying directly from them and importing the majority of the coffee to the UK themselves. Pricing and contracts are agreed directly with producers based on the needs of their businesses and communities.
On average they paid their coffee producers more than 40% above the Fairtrade price in their last financial year, always committing to paying every producer at least 25% above the current Fairtrade price.??
You can find out more about their approach in their recent impact report – I learnt a lot!
The question I’d encourage you to ask yourself is:
How are the revenues in our business distributed? Is it fair??
Check out this short video (under 3 mins) where Kate Raworth, the mother of Doughnut Economics, introduces the concept of Distributive Design.
领英推荐
While we were at the B Corp festival, Nicky Leach and I led a walk in nature where we were joined by business leaders and explored how to stick to your values and long-term plan when times are tough.?
I then led another netwalk for Surrey Hills Enterprises with Dan from Chimney Fire Coffee, where we explored how to make meaningful impact through your business.?
We’re keen to run more of these – let me know if you’re interested.
Out and about – where I’m going to be
It’s conference season and so I’ll be out and about quite a bit over the next few months. Let me know if you’ll be there too as I’d love to have a chat:
Next B Local Surrey flagship event.
We’ve just launched our next B Local Surrey flagship event.?
We have a couple of awesome speakers:
It’s on Friday 6th December at Denbies vineyard.
More details and book your spot here. You don’t have to be a B Corp or based in Surrey!
As always, let me?know by commenting below, DMing me or emailing?([email protected]) what you'd like me to include in future editions of the newsletter. What help do you need to turn your business’s sustainability / responsible business commitments and plans into action that delivers meaningful impact?
P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter please share it with a friend and encourage them to sign up.
Founder & MD at Chimney Fire Coffee
5 个月Brilliant topic to focus on, really enjoyed discussing it in our Netwalk a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for sharing Hannah!
Storytelling Action-taking Sustainabologist, Striving to be a Good Ancestor. Climate Concerned Pragmatic Optimist, Forensic Long Term Systems Thinker // Strategic Project Leader & Sustainability Advisor (Pharma R&D)
5 个月First, as I think I mentioned to you when we met a few weeks ago, I’m a massive fan of the ‘Better Business Bites’ format you use - I am working hard on finding a way to replicate it with integrity and not just copy it ?? It’s so accessible and suits the way I digest information perfectly. Second, there are not many things that make me more cross than when something isn’t fair; I feel very strongly about doing all I can to support the transition to a distributive economy, so the topics you wrote about were of high interest to me. Thirdly, it’s why I’m at the #RSA today to listen to ?? because learning from history is essential to ensure the well-being of current and #futuregenerations. https://www.thersa.org/events/2024/09/history-for-tomorrow-with-roman-krznaric
Storytelling Action-taking Sustainabologist, Striving to be a Good Ancestor. Climate Concerned Pragmatic Optimist, Forensic Long Term Systems Thinker // Strategic Project Leader & Sustainability Advisor (Pharma R&D)
5 个月This is brilliant, thank you Hannah.