On Impact
Searching for the intersection, finding innovation.
Start-ups have a unique advantage over the incumbent.
They have a disproportionate ability to create positive impact and systemic change. Existing brands who want to have a greater impact on society and the environment need to embark on a lengthy, complex, and risky journey. They need to retrofit their products, create new mission statements, and build adjacent ESG strategies with cause marketing programs to progress.
Founders –
You can fast-track all this. By starting now with impact at the heart of your proposition, before getting to product-market fit, you can build with purpose and authenticity; multiplying your chances of success. You have the freedom to make your product the embodiment of the change you want to create in the world – take it!
When rooted in purpose, we make intentional decisions on what to create and how to do it. Translating purpose into actions is what creates impact.
There are three interconnected pillars to defining Sustainability.
People (the social impact), Planet (the environmental impact), and Profit (the economic impact).
Businesses tend to see these pillars as individual stand-alone goalposts for businesses to reach, as individual actions to take. Yet, they’re a system. They’re interdependent and mutually beneficial. Change happens when innovation emerges from the intersection.
Consider how food produced using regenerative agriculture practices benefit both the Planet, improving soil health and biodiversity, as well as People, producing more nutrient-dense and healthier foods. Consider the economic impact created by companies like Patagonia when they make Planet and People their shareholders. What if embracing more gender-neutral solutions for sports businesses enabled more circularity? What if new planet-friendly tech could also create more health for the every-day?
Building at the intersection between People, Planet & Profit is where the start-up power lies.
We need to move away from stand-alone ESG strategies as an after-thought, and instead embed Impact in our products and strategies from day one. We must create product solutions at the intersection to create sustainable change.
As Steve Jobs famously said “Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing.”