#35 Why the Brand Your Buy Matters: Impact Beyond the Price Tag

Foreign.

Welcome to the Be Better Podcast. This podcast is aimed at helping you go B Corp and beyond. And in this podcast, we connect with other certified B corporations, aspiring B Corps, and other aligned individuals to help you understand the what, why and how of B Corp certification.

Hello and welcome to the Conspiracy of Goodness podcast where you'll hear conversations that.

Generate one aha moment after another for you.

Today we're introducing you to a wonderful thought leader who will help restore your faith in humanity and where we're going.

I don't want to give away too much right now.

In any case, what we're going to do is turn you on to a whole world where you can feel like when you spend your money, you can do good in the world. At the same time, there is an enormous wave of goodness and progress happening in the business world right now that almost no one knows about. And today we're going to talk to a wonderful thought leader in that world named Tim Jones. So Tim is the grow good guy. He's a specialist in helping people embed purpose into their businesses at the very beginning, like from the outset, and then navigate this whole world called B Corps. It's a framework I'd like to describe as something between the dot orgs of the world and the straight up business just to please shareholders world B Corps. I know it sounds like this could be a boring topic, but I promise you it's not going to be just by the way that Tim Jones radiates good humor and sort of a great way of teaching us about a world that is possible for the future. In fact, Tim thinks that the way the B Corp status is growing and the trustworthiness of this new system could be the future of all business. So welcome, Tim.

Hello. Thank you for having me. Or I should say Kyota, as we would say in New Zealand, which is where I'm currently based. But I'm originally Welsh and I'll throw a Shamay as well, or a Borda, which is hello in Welsh. So there you go, you're learning from the outset.

Perfect. Okay, this is the way this podcast goes.

Last week it was kindness. This week it's let's get to the business of the future. Because we all are a part of something I think I'm calling the gratitude economy. When I say that, I mean that in my work at the Goodness Exchange, we've written about thousands of innovators who are fundamentally changing the future for us all. And as I mentioned in the outset, almost no one knows about this wave of goodness and progress because it's just not rising to the top of the news or the Internet. But you're in the thick of it, Tim. Pretty much, yeah, pretty much.

Definitely feels like it at the minute.

It is such a bright and positive future for business. The reason why I'm referring to your work as the leading edge of this gratitude economy is that I'm noticing, and you can speak to this if you'd like or if you disagree, but I'm noticing that more and more consumers, in fact I looked it up, there's a really well published study done where 69% of us now identify as values driven consumers. Meaning we want to spend our money with people who share our values and are trying to make the world a better place. So the way I hope this conversation goes is you'll just get us more and more excited about this trend in business that many people I know, I've been asking around lately. Many people don't know much about and it's called the B Corp world. So first of all, tell us a little bit about your background about how you got here and then share with us. Then we can start this conversation of sharing all that we should know and help make our consumer choices even more impactful.

My sort of life story into a couple of minutes to give you the background as to how I found B Corp. So originally from the UK, I ended up in New Zealand in 2004 and for 10 years I used to sell medical devices. So I worked for I started out on the graduate training program for Johnson and Johnson selling hips and knees in the uk, Moved to New Zealand. I then ended up selling spinal instruments and implants to orthopedic and neurosurgeons for about 10 years. Worked for a range of multinational and then regional companies. And the reason why that's relevant? Well, there's two there's quite a few parts to it. If you haven't seen the documentary, it was on Netflix. It might not be on there anymore, but you should be able to find it on the Internet. It's called the Bleeding Edge and it's basically a massive expose of the corruption and nefarious behavior of the medical device industry. Now, we kind of all know that the pharmaceutical industry, you know, has had its bad moments, but the medical device industry is twice as big and twice as, well, unknown in terms of its activity and what it does. I was working for these multinational companies and it became pretty obvious globally that there was a lot of corruption happening at the surgical level. So surgeons were taking backhanders and bribes from companies to use their products. The U.S. department of justice subpoenaed every major medical device company globally to get to the bottom of that. There was bad stuff happening here in New Zealand where surgeons were sort of taking money in the private practice sector and squirreling that away. There were products being designed and released into the market that were too, you know, that hadn't been fully tested and were killing people. And I was a part of this bubble for 10 years. And when you're young and in your 20s as a male, you know, and it's about money and I used to get to go to Sun Valley, Idaho every year for a conference. I get to go to Davos in Switzerland every year for a conference. You kind of, it's easy to be, to be taught and shown to turn a blind eye to some of this stuff. Anyway, 2010, 2011, here in Christchurch, New Zealand, we had some massive earthquakes. I think they made the news in the US So that for me was the beginning of the end of that journey in that I had essentially a near death experience. 2012, my daughter was born, another massive life changing experience. And collectively those two experiences led me to have what's called a subconscious awakening. So basically you realize that the whole, the whole thing is a charade or a charade and you know, what is it all about? And it's not uncommon that people have that kind of life altering experience or experiences which lead them to think about what they're doing. So I quit the medical industry. I then got into a leadership position for a firm of surveyors and engineers. Really, really random, but I wanted to get out of medical, I wanted to get into a leadership role. I did that and I quickly realized that I kind of thought the medical device world was full of corruption and all about making money. And then I got into working with commercial property developers and I realized, oh my word, there's an even worse group when it comes to just wanting to make money and destroy the planet and humanity. And so I had this, I had another existential crisis of like, I've got another maybe, you know, 40 or 50 years of working for these companies which just about making money and who cares about the people or the planet around it? And yeah, I really hit some, some almost depressive states where it's like, is this as good as it's going to be? And that as well as there being some cultural issues within the company. I was working for this, this engineering surveying firm. I started just googling, like just how do we fix stuff? And I was mainly looking to fix the culture in the company. That I was working for. And on that journey I stumbled across this thing called B Corporation. And I was like, okay, well this is interesting. This is at the time it might have been about 1800 or 2000 businesses. This would have been 20, 2014. Yeah, 2014. There was like these handful of businesses around the world who had stepped up to say, hey, the way we're running the show is not working for people on planet and we want to do things differently. And it was like I'd found my tribe. I was like, oh my word. There's a group of people who've, who've had the same experiences. Like I might be crazy, but there's 2,000 other people that are equally crazy as me. Hallelujah, let's go. And so I literally just thought, well maybe we could, this company I was working for, maybe we could be the first B corp in New Zealand. So I had a quick look and I was like, damn it, there's two B corps here in New Zealand already. I was like, okay, maybe we could be the first in the South Island. For those of you that don't know New Zealand, it's actually made of three islands. They've got the north island, the south island and Stewart island is the main islands. You've also got the Chatham Islands, but that's a whole different thing. And I thought, well, maybe we could be the first in the south island of New Zealand. And I was like, damn it, there's already a B corp in Christchurch. So I emailed the CEO and said, hey look, I've just stumbled across this thing called B Corp. I see that you're a B corp. Could I come and have a cup of tea with you and just have a chat and see what it's all about. And so Steve Arda, who's the CEO of Eagle Protect, they were New Zealand's first B corporation. He was like, yeah, sure, come and have a cup of tea. And so we booked like a 45 minute meeting. And I left his office about two and a half or three hours later with my mind just exploded. I was like, oh my word. Like this is what I've been looking for. And so that's how I came across B Corp. And for the first probably 18 months I was just a massive B corp groupie. So Steve was, was big at trying to build a community. He would run events, they would do movie nights, they would have open nights where they just get people to come to their, you know, their sort of warehouse facility and head office facility. And I was like, just sign me up, I'm happy to come along. I'll hand out drinks, like whatever, just let me know then. That ultimately led me. I left the, the engineering firm and started working for a company as a trainer and coach doing sales. And I tried to pitch B Corp to them, but there were two B Corps in New Zealand at the time and they were just like, what is this thing? No, not just. It's not going to be on our radar. And so with getting more involved in the B Corp movement and trying to get the companies I was working for to become a B corp and getting the resistance, ultimately, late 2015, I got made redundant from the trading company. And I kind of thought, well, I'm telling everyone else they should be a B corp. Maybe this is the sign from the universe that I should start my own B corp and give it a go. And here we are. It kind of worked out. So that's the creation myth story of grow good.

All right, all right. So now we know that, that life is just a giant journey. And could you, could you go missing one single minute of those experiences and still be where you are today?

I don't think so. I've been asked this question a few times on podcast interviews. You know, if you could go back and tell your 20 year old self something to change, it's like you can't chat. Like, it's like if you go, go, you know, we all know those movies. If you go back in time and you know, assassinate some bad world leader like Hitler or something that you don't want to, you don't know what's going to unfold. And I love where I'm at right now. I love the work I'm doing. Or as we'd say, I'll drop as many Mori phrases as I can. Work in New Zealand in Maori is called mahi. So I love the mahi that I'm doing right now. It's super cool. Yeah. I don't think you can change the journey because if you change the journey, you wouldn't be. You are today.

Absolutely. And that's my point for asking you. That is just we talk a lot about finding, finding what you're uniquely built to contribute here at the Goodness Exchange. I mean, that's the, that's, that's our role as humans. And I think it's part of this great resignation, the great reset that you hear in the news.

So I just wanted to. That's quite an extraordinary journey. And almost every thought leader I talk to has some version of a wild roller coaster ride like you just described.

It's. It's the Joseph Campbell, you know, the man of a Thousand faces hero's journey. You know, you have to go, and this is just like getting, I guess, getting distracted or sidetracked. The purpose stuff. This, this is the thing that's the most important part of the B Corp journey. It's, you know, when. If you. If you try and define purpose on the individual level, it's. It took me six years to try and work out. Like, if you try and nail purpose to the wall, it's really hard. I've often described it as trying to describe the taste and smell of the number three. It's like.

If you ask. If you ask accountants, they say strawberry because they know they love numbers. But it's really hard to try and put it down. But if you go back to first principles and just look in the dictionary. Dictionary describes purpose as something's reason for being and something's use or usefulness. And this is the key for humanity and the humans. And this is why we're having this great resignation and people going on this journey is because most people have been set on a life path that is not their choosing. It's the choosing of their parents, their peers, their society. You know, one of the phrases I love asking people is, you know, what is it that someone like you should be doing? Based on your socioeconomic status, your schooling, you know, the state that you're from, the country that you're from, there are predetermined paths that you get sent on. And a lot of people have this midlife crisis where they have that existential hit. Either a loved one, you know, a parent passes away. I mean, you've just been through this experience and, you know, there's some kind of external event that stops you and makes you go, hang on a minute, what am I actually doing? And I think we're seeing that. I think Covid has been that. That sort of. That event. That is. A lot of people have been sat at home going, actually, I feel better that I'm not in the office. And it turns out I didn't really like my job or my colleagues or the product. Anyway, now what?

Oh, and it's the now what that we're finding where we're able to talk about almost every week on the Conspiracy of Goodness podcast. So now what in this interview is. We had to define. Just let's tell people. Can we define B Corp? For gosh sakes? We've been talking for 30 minutes and.

We haven't got to B Corp yet. How cool is this? So B Corporation.

It'S a certification tool, a certification framework. And for your, the certification is basically third party independent verification of your transparency and accountability around your social and environmental footprint. That's, that's the, the best way to describe it. It's basically you being able to be independently proven that you are a really good business that has got people and planet at the heart of its operation as well as balancing that against making some money. So to be a B corp you have to be currently you have to be a for profit business. So it's, it's all about helping for profit businesses better understand the contribution that they're making operationally so through their day to day activities.

All right, so and that, that is empowering to me because I think for gosh, how many years we thought like so many problems in this world, we think it's either black or white. You're either making money or you're just finding a way to get grants, pay for everything you do and you're trying to make the world a better place.

Yep, exactly that.

We are not a dot org. The Goodness Exchange is not a dot org. Because I started this thing and continue to support it largely on my own so I don't end up with any agenda or somebody else's advertising agenda or all the things. And I literally couldn't afford to be a dot org because you have to have all these army of people running around chasing grants just to survive. Yeah, that would have taken away from anything that I might have done to physically point to this wave of goodness and progress. So this is why I'm excited about B Corps and why I really think it's something that your average consumer needs to know about and so celebrate and look for when they're doing business because are you telling me that you can actually worry about putting bread on the table for your employees and still make the world a better place?

What a crazy idea. It might just catch on, but yes you can. And this is the thing like this is almost like the great irony is businesses that have been doing that do really well, you know, the whole conscious capitalism movement is it Raj Custodia, you know, his book, you know, there's overwhelming evidence that the businesses that are clearly able to demonstrate the positive contribution that they're making to society and or planet outperform. This is why for me the B corp argument is a slam dunk argument. If you just care about making more money, you should be a B corp. Because there's evidence here that shows that if you, if you do the big if you get the B Corp certification and you thoroughly explain and authentically explain how you've done it and what you've done and some of the good things that you're doing, if you authentically market that to the right stakeholders, that is Customers, employees, you know, maybe investors and your supply chain, you will see more money in your business, you know, if you nail it. Some of the stats on that the so the B Corp movement, as in the numbers of certified companies, grew by 25% last year. So in a global pandemic, the movement has grown by 25%. Some of the businesses within that this is so this has come from the B. So just to clear something up, there is an organization called B Lab. B Lab is actually, ironically, a nonprofit business that runs the certification program. So there's B Lab North America, there's B Lab Sustainability Bay in South America, B Lab Europe, within B Lab Europe, There's B Lab UK, B Lab France, etc. This region of the world, we have B Lab Australia, New Zealand, based in Melbourne in Australia. So they collect data from all of the B Corps globally and put it into their own impact report to see what's going on from 2020. 52% of B corporations hired more employees in 2020, and 47% of them experienced employee growth of more than 15%. And 2/3 of all B Corps increased revenue in 2020 in a global pandemic. So if you just care about business resilience and here's some more stats for you on the revenue side. So that the best evidence we've got to date was from the University of Ghent in Belgium. They did a data set study of certified B Corps in Europe between 2012 and 2018. And they basically have empirically demonstrated that B Corp certification positively impacts turnover growth rates one year post versus one year pre one year post certification. All the companies that they, that they had looked at, this is all the European B Corps had all seen a positive growth rate. If you just care about making money, you should be a B Corp. If you care about anything else in the world, you should be a B Corp. I rest my case.

And this is why I wanted this podcast episode to happen. Not sure our producer was right with me. Every step of the way that I want to talk about B Corpse. I want to talk about B Corpse. But I then thanks for. Thanks for letting me run on. Brittany.

Please have a chat. Brittany.

She supports me right right along. And I know that this is part of this global awakening that we're seeing that I'm calling the gratitude economy that you walking out the door the other day and I needed a piece of plywood and I said I'm going to so and so a big box store. I'm going to get a piece of plywood. And all my kids shout at the same time. And I've got all these millennial kids that were home from college and they all go, where are you going? And that was so weird. Why did my kids care why I was going? And.

I said where I was going. And all the voices in the house yelled no, that's same time.

Wow.

I doubled back like why can't I go there for a piece of plywood? And then they all gave me a nice stiff lecture about how that particular big box company is doing some really terrible things in the world. And this other one right across the road has the, the CEO is the, it has some very wonderful thing that he's doing in the world. And they wanted me to spend my $42 at the plate. They didn't care how much plywood cost. Of course they were, there was, there was no mention of the cost of the ply. But it's just that if you're going to spend your $42, spend it over here.

Yeah.

And that seems to be the way they make all their decisions.

Totally. And increasingly more and more people are making the decision in that way. It used to be called lohas. Lifestyle of Health and sustainability is like a consumer sector that people, researchers would refer to. But this is the thing.

If you put links to notes and stuff in the show, notes, there was a report from McKinsey and Company, you know, that really well known, left leaning, tree hugging group of greenies, they wrote a report, it came out a few months ago. But basically Covid has accelerated the growth of conscious consumerism. So they think potentially it's because people have been sat at home and they're looking in their cupboard and going, hang on a minute. Actually there is quite a lot of chemicals in all the stuff that I have been buying or okay, actually I do have a little bit more disposable cash because we're not going to go on holiday this year or we're not going to do this stuff. So maybe we will invest in the slightly more environmentally or socially friendly option because we've got a bit of cash. So where a lot of people thought Covid was going to maybe crash this do good economy, actually the opposite seems to be happening more and more people. And I think, you know, when people are thinking of that great resignation or they're not happy or content with what they're doing. You know, an easy first step is to buy better. You know, it's like, okay, well, I'm not happy where I'm at, but maybe I can do some good by supporting something that's, you know, it's got a fair trade element to its supply chain or, or what have you. So, yes, it's definitely here, you know, and this is the thing, like, once there's a really great cartoon picture I've got, I'll see if I can find it and send it to you. But it's these two Buddhist monks, you know, like deep in meditation, and one's kind of opened his eye and out of the corner of his mouth he's saying, hey, have you ever thought about quitting this for a life of mindless consumerism? And you know, this is the thing, once you, once you start going on the purpose journey, it's one way you don't suddenly regress and go, you know, actually this doing good and contributing and trying to make the world a better place. Actually this is really boring. I just feel like, you know, burning some plastic for, for the fun of it. Like once you go down this path, it's, it's one way street and people are. Covid has led everyone from business leaders to employees to customers, investors, supply chain, they're all suddenly going, hang on a minute. How can we be slightly better?

What you just said is huge. It's absolutely the essence of where we're at. I think a lot of people are both in. You know, you pick up a product, you read the label, you say, I can do better. You think about your job, you get yelled at by some middle manager, you go, I can do better.

You're sitting around with your friends and they're all saying sort of evil things that you would never want set around your own kitchen table. And you go, I can do better. I think the pandemic has allowed us all to pause long enough to say, I can do better.

And it's maybe like perfect timing, you know, is it, are we going to solve these problems quickly enough that that's typically my. I go back to orthopedics. The guy who invented the hip replacement, the modern hip replacement, was a guy called Sir John Charlie. And when I was selling my hips and knees in the uk, the one of the hospitals I was looking after as a sales rep was Writington Hospital, which is where he invented this hip. And he always used to say the orthopedics is a race between the patient and the implant as to which one's going to die first. And he said, you know, my job as an orthopedic surgeon is to keep designing a better implant that will outlive the patient. And that's kind of where I feel we're at with the social and environmental stuff. It's like, there's a lot of crises that need fixing. It's just, what's the timeline look like? Have we got. Have we got enough Runway to fix these challenges? And I'm emboldened and inspired that more and more people are pausing. And I think this is going to be the big blessing of COVID I totally get that. The social impact, the mental health impact of people being in lockdown and not being able to go and see loved ones and connect. I get all that. I get the. I mean, my uncle theoretically died of COVID in the uk. He had many comorbidities, but, you know, he contracted Covid and that clearly accelerated the end of his life. So I get all that. But I think that the positive we have to take out of it, and I'm a positive kind of guy, and I always look for the positive side of things. The positive thing is people had time to pause, and that's what we've always lacked. We're all on the hamster wheel. We're on the treadmill. We're on the, you know, the hedonic treadmill, which is, you know, just consume, consume. Buy happiness. Buy happiness. And that has always been the thing that's been hardest for people to do, is actually just to stop and reflect and go, am I on the right path? Am I enjoying this? Do I really care about getting that bigger car and the bigger house? Actually, no, I don't. I actually quite like my house that I've got to sit in now for six months, you know, so it's a massive blessing, I think, ultimately. But the key is coming out of it with this really embedding and baking in this new way of thinking and being. And we don't just all go back to the old way.

Yeah, I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure there's some of this goodness and progress and kindness that.

We can't unsee it exactly that 100%.

Once you've got it, you're like, yeah, I think that.

And I like it.

Yeah. That's what we're seeing at the goodness exchange is that we've created this landscape where people. People can not only see absolutely hard evidence of.

Examples of the millions of people in this world that are doing the most extraordinary things to change our future that we're just not hearing about on the news, most of it newsworthy that we're writing about. So we got to first understand that what we're seeing on the news and the Internet and social media is only tiny slice of reality. And there's this huge other reality that's going on that's people like you and me and millions and millions and millions of other people who found what they're uniquely built to contribute. And they're doing it. They're doing it in just, you know, in just small things and big things. It's just so rampant. And so I wanted. There's a bunch of things I want to refer to so people can tap into this. How do we discover B Corp? What's the best way to. How do you shop? And all this sort of stuff. Let's take a break. And we come back. Let's go into some practical tips so we can help elevate this part of what I'm pretty sure is the gratitude economy of the future. All right, let's take a break.

Hello, I'm Dr. Linda Ulrich, founder of Ever Widening Circles and the podcast you're listening to now, the Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast, and I have a question and an answer for you. Have you been hoping the world is actually a lot better than what you see on the news and social media? Well, it is. In fact, it's radically better. There is an enormous wave of goodness and progress well underway in the world that almost no one knows about yet. But on December 1, 2021, all that changes with the launch of the Goodness Exchange, a digital landscape where you will see that the world is full of goodness and progress. And we will introduce you to the people making it that way. Bottom line, someone is solving every vexing problem in the world, large and small. And the Goodness Exchange is where people are coming together to amplify a future that includes all that no one with good intention and good ideas need feel alone again. Here's what you'll find at the Goodness Exchange. There will be articles about the most amazing things going on in the world that are going uncelebrated. There'll be interviews and events that will send your mind and heart soaring again. And a social media platform dedicated to a culture of kindness, insight, and celebration. A way of amplifying a brighter future for us all. And that social media platform is a place where organizations doing good in the world will not have to hold their nose anymore. It can be a trustworthy, respectable place for Organizations to host their groups and gatherings and connect with each other. A network of positive networks, if you will. The Goodness Exchange will be a place to find mini courses and masterclasses for personal and professional development. And eventually there'll be a jobs board. And we have a children's website already all teed up. The thread running through it all is that goodness and progress is everywhere. And we will help people cultivate what they are uniquely built to contribute to this future for us all. Now imagine a website with no ads, no games, and no agenda. Just a simple and powerful vision of combining our collective strengths to create a future we can all celebrate. The Goodness Exchange will open a new era for us all as individuals, because you're going to find stuff that make your life better instantaneously. And as a collective, because we all want a better future for our children. Who knows what's possible if there is a place on the Internet that brought out our best impulses and our collective genius. Join us after December 1st at the Goodness Exchange and start living with less fear, more joy as an individual and as a collective future for humanity.

Thanks.

Now we're back to the interview.

Okay, we're back.

Tim, you're deep in this. I'm barely toe in the water. And a lot of people who are listening to this podcast have never heard very much or ever heard the word VCorp. Now give us some parameters. You've given us the formal definition, but give us some parameters or maybe even some examples of the fundamentals of being in this new class of business that can change our future totally.

So I guess so the B Corp framework looks at your business across five main areas. So it looks at your governance structure, it looks at your workers or your employment, I guess structural or. What's the word I'm looking for policies. It looks at your community impact, it looks at your environmental impact, and then it looks at your customer model or business model. So some examples of what you are assessed against. So under governance, it's all about ethics and transparency. So do you have a code of ethics? Do you have a whistleblower policy? Is it really easy to work out who owns your business? Or do you have 50 shell companies that end up with some company in the British Virgin Isles that has no office and you know that some guy is managing for you?

Your workers looks at compensation and professional development opportunities above and beyond what are legally mandated. Your community section is about job creation, it's about diversity, it's about opportunities. So you will score really highly under community if you're providing high Quality options for employment, which kind of comes under workers and community, but also in your supply chain. So if you're utilizing small independent suppliers that are owned by minority groups, which. And the minority groups are fairly large in terms of what would be applicable. So it comes through, you know, anyone that you can prove that within the jurisdiction that you're sort of utilizing or working with that supplier, you know, it could be female owned, it could be minority owned, it could be veteran owned, it could be LGBTQ owned. Like there's, there's various things around that. Your environment, you're assessed really against your inputs and outputs. So how much water and energy are we using, what are our carbon emissions and so on and so forth. And then the customer model looks at your essentially like what guarantees and warranties and data privacy do you have in place around how you interact with your customers and how easy is it to get. Is it for. Is it for a customer to get hold of you to make a complaint and stuff like that? There's actually two parts to the assessment. So all of the stuff I've just talked about is the basic assessment, which essentially is a measure of your operational goodness. So whilst we're making a widget or we are service company selling, whatever the service is that we sell, how much good are we creating operationally? So it's very much like nuts and bolts. So under the governance thing, it might be. Well, yeah, do we have a code of ethics? Like if we have, if we have a written policy for that, you're going to get some points awarded. And so I should just say the assessment is basically a point system. So you undertake an initial self assessment and you can go to bimpactassessment.net it is completely free to take the assessment and you can change your answers, you can muck around with it, you can do whatever you want to do completely free. And basically the questions are either a straight kind of yes, no answer, it's a pick one of the below or it's a multi pick option where you might pick five or ten options to say we're doing all of this. And depending on how you answer it, you're attributed some points and you need to score 80 out of 200 points to meet the minimum level or threshold for you to apply for certification. Which then means you go through an audit process with someone from B lab, they go through audit, verify your answers and that's how you get the independent verification of your score. So the basic assessment is a measure of your operational goodness. However, there is a next level and I have been referred to as the Pokemon Hunter or the, or the B Corp. Whisperer. Because above and beyond the operational there is a thing called an IBM or an impact business model. And this is essentially where you can prove that you have gone out of your way to create a product or a service or do something within your product or service that is creating more positive contribution than you are legally required to do. So one of the great examples is a Kiwi company based just down the road from me called Etique. So they sell solid bar beauty products, health and beauty products. So the legal requirement to make and sell a shampoo product is you get some chemicals that might have some toxic element to them, but legally you're allowed to mix them together. You put that in a plastic bottle, you top it up with water and you ship it around the world. Well, Brianne thought actually that's not such a great way. I think there's a better way. So her products are all toxic free. They are non animal tested products. She utilizes some companies or small independent suppliers within the South Pacific here to get hold of like her coconut products. So ethical supply chain, non toxic product. The product is shipped in a cardboard box which is 100% recyclable. So she unlocks what's called an impact business model under the environment section because she has gone out of her way to create a product that is going to have a more positive impact on the planet. And that's where the really high scoring B Corps comes. So in the US possibly the most well known, two of the most well known B Corps would be Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia. Patagonia is probably one of the longest serving B Corps and certainly historic, well, certainly continually one of the highest scoring. And you know, their whole, a lot of their impact business models will be around the environment. So they're using, you know, better source materials, non toxic materials, having resource conservation, so recycling, the ability to, to send old kit back and have it repaired and what have you. So when I work with companies it's partly trying to help them understand if they potentially have an impact business model because it's not always obvious that you actually have one. And if they don't have one helping them work out, I call it truffle hunting. Like look, there's a, there's a little glimmer here of you're kind of almost at an impact business model. If you just actually make this a bit more formal or you just do this the next time you certify, you will definitely have an impact business model. And again, it's like this contagion of purpose, like once people start seeing how much good we're doing, like we want to keep doing more of it. And I just finished working with a company here in New Zealand called Genera and they sell collagen based health and beauty products. And we had the whole team working with me to go through the assessment and as literally we just go through question by question and I guide people through and help them understand how they could better answer each question. And the engagement and the buy in and the just level of almost awe that the employees now had for the company as they realized actually how great they were and how much good they were doing that they just hadn't recognized. And just on that really quickly you were talking about how the media doesn't pick on stuff. Part of the problem with people doing good is that generally they are very humble people and they don't actually like to talk about the good that they're doing because for them it's just, well, that's just what we should all be doing. So what I'm doing actually I don't think is that special. So if you're doing good, please tell more people about it because we need more good news stories. And the other part to that, there's a guy called Rutger Bregman who has written a book called Humankind. I think it's his latest book, but he's got another book. And the other thing to bear in mind is when you're listening to the media, someone was murdered today. He's like, that's cool. But what you got to remember is that means that in the US maybe 349 million other people weren't murdered. So it's like actually when you flip the context, it's not as bad as it's being made out to be.

Well, this is the essence of my message about to people, about tuning out the news. People think that that's when they say, oh, I've completely turned off the news. They assume that because we are pointing to all the good things happening in the world that I'm going to think that's a good strategy. And I actually don't because I think ignorance is never a good strategy.

You know, you can't guide your teenagers right if you don't know a darn thing about the world. You can't do anything, you can't make business decisions. So what I tell people about the news is essentially just a slightly different version of what you do. I just say it really simply. It's News because it is so rare.

For somebody all the time. They wouldn't record it.

The definition of news.

Yeah, love it.

It's very, very rare. So it is new. But the problem that happens since we're on that, that I always like to remind people is about there's a part of our brain that really does one giant leap to keep us safe. And that was good 40,000 years ago when there were tigers. But our brain makes this leap that the more we hear about something, the more we think it's right outside that door right there. So the 24 hour news cycle or social media talks all day long about this one crazy person who did something insane somewhere and then, and then we start to think that person is right outside that door.

Exactly that. Yeah, it's gonna happen to me, right?

So I just, I just cancel people if we're on that, that topic for a second to just remember that it's the news. Because it never happens. It rarely ever happens. And then we can like simmer down, go up to the higher critical thinking part of our brain and say, oh, and they're just trying to get me to buy beer and soap.

And probably.

Not a B Corp beer or soap either.

They're probably not, they're not advertising a B Corp yet, right?

Yes, exactly.

It's about to come, you and I, to get the word about B Corpse. Okay, so let's get practical right there. And I agree about the humble thing I'm always telling thought leaders to when they come on this, this, on this podcast to don't hesitate to tell us about all the goodness that you're doing in the world. Because you know those other guys creating so much chaos. They're sure shouting as loud as.

Exactly that. Right, exactly that.

Okay, so let's tease apart two things that I think are really important that I didn't understand nearly enough and I'm not sure most people do. I've got two kids in my family now that are engineers. And so I suddenly learned about the world of supply chain. I think it's a word. I had heard those two words put together, but I never really thought about it until we wrote an article about this wonderful school in Haiti called. It's called the Haitian Project. And the founder of this project has this amazing educational model that could be transported all over the world. Haiti has a problem that only 12% of their population has an education above high school. And then all the people that go further, they go to the United States or somewhere and never come back. He tells this great thing about the Supply chain. He tells about how this, this really well meaning nonprofit came to Haiti, looked at all the bare hillsides, you know, how they're famous for their deforestation and all the mudslides, and they immediately, with good intention, planted a million trees. And they never stopped to ask why people were cutting down the trees in the first place.

You told me why is because 92% of the women in that culture are still cooking over charcoal to boil the water so their kids can have safe drinking water. 90%. And they literally make charcoal in the streets in every neighborhood. They're burning anything as big as your wrist and making it into charcoal. So as soon as those million trees got to be the size of your wrist, they were going to get gone.

Yep.

And so he made the point that even in problem solving, if we look further, far enough back in the supply chain that supplied that problem, the deforestation, we will find the place to apply the pressure.

100%. 100%.

His rationale was, hey, if we educated a whole bunch more people than 92% of women wouldn't be cooking with charcoal.

Yep. Get a better.

Tell me about how supply chain works in the B Corp world.

So supply chain, I guess. Yeah, there's a couple of, couple of parts to it. So supply chain in that sense of like, where's the problem occurring from? Is one part of it, but there's also actually just your physical supply chain, you know, so if you're a manufacturer or a retailer, you know, you are buying stuff from people and having that line of sight as to, well, where's that ultimately coming from and how ethical. Well, she's. Two parts of it. There's that part of it. Like looking at my own supply chain actually how ethical and transparent and environmentally impactful is it? That's increasingly becoming a thing. But you're also getting supply chains. Like, I've just started working with a company here in New Zealand. They got connected in with me. Their biggest customer had sent an email to all their suppliers saying, hey, we're working hard to understand our own social and environmental impact. And as part of that, we want to have some idea of what's happening in our supply chain. So could you please report back to us what you're doing? And there are relatively, I guess, medium sized family owned business here in New Zealand. And they're like, where do we start? And I said, well, have you heard of B Corp? They're like, nope. And I said, well, have a quick look at it, let me know. And they came back and said, yep, we want it like, cool. It's like this will be on a silver platter. You'll be able to hand it back to your customer and go, there you go. Like, this is all we're doing. So that pressure is definitely happening. So one of the biggest B corporations in this region is a company called Synlay based here in Christchurch. They sell or manufacture, sell, export, basically breast milk substitute is their main product. So milk powder made into baby formula. And the main reason that they got put onto B Corp was because Danone, one of the world's largest businesses, was going through and certifying each of its global business units. So they were at a Danone conference and they had the big, you know, unveiling, hey, Danone is committed to becoming a B corp across all its global business units. And one of the team from Sinlay was there and they were like, cool, so this B Corp stuff, should we be looking at that? And they were like, yeah, it'd probably be a smart move if you want to stay in our supply chain that you'd get onto that. So the main driver for them came from a customer saying, we're going on this journey. So you're definitely seeing that happening more and more and more. And it's when B corps start going through the process, it's like, you know, they then start being asked questions about their supply chain so you can become the tail wagging the dog potentially of your own supply chain. So yeah, this is why I'm just super confident we're at this point now. A couple of people here have called it the B Corp moment, or one guy in particular, he's an economist, Bernard Hickey. I did an interview with him and he said it's kind of like the B Corp moment. It's like it's time has come and it's about to. It's a new virus, hopefully that's going to take over a new pandemic, but a purpose pandemic that's just going to spread as this starts happening. But on the other thing you're talking about, like with the in Haiti, it's so true. And this is where this is for me is this juxtaposition between profit driven business and charitable enterprises. It's like, are you actually solving the problem as a charity or are you just a band aid on a broken leg here? And having I say this, I've spent time working in the not for profit sector. I've spent two or three years working directly and then working as an advisor and consultant to not for Profits. There is a massive codependency issue with a lot of not for profits, where they need the person to still be sick forever so that they can feel good that I'm here patting you on the back and making you feel better. But actually I don't want you to get fully better because otherwise I won't have anything to do. And that for me is the exciting part about B corporation. Like, for me, in five years time, if I'm still doing podcast interviews and having to talk to people about what B Corp is and helping them certify, I failed. Like, in five years time, I don't want to be helping companies become a B corp because I want it to be legally mandated that if you're a business, you just have to be a B corp. And it's, it's easily done. I think this is a really interesting thing. Yeah, it's like understanding the problems that you're trying to solve, but making sure you're solving the right problem, because otherwise you're going in reverse in sixth gear. And it's in the B Corp world or in the impact measurement world, it's called unintended consequences. You know, one of the great examples is if I said to you, Linda, hey, look, here's $10 million, I want you to go and fix the education crisis in sub Saharan Africa, where would you logically spend the money? Like, what would be the first thing you'd put the money in?

Well, you want to, as that Haitian guy said, your impulse is to fix those hills that are denudative trees.

So it's like, let's build some schools or let's get some buses and let's make some roads. But actually the thing that stops most kids getting to school is intestinal worms. So actually where you want to spend your money is intestinal worm pills. So the risk is you go in there, you build these schools, you build the roads, you maybe give them laptops and computers and you educate more teachers. So your, your environmental impact is massive. You've got carbon footprints gone massively up. You maybe build all these schools and buses and roads that people aren't using because they're still stuck at home sick. And so that's a really, really key part of it. And sometimes the obvious solution is not actually the right solution to fixing the problem. So, but it can, it's also, it's a bit of a journey and sometimes just getting into the mindset of let's try and fix this, sometimes you're going to make mistakes, but you know, hey, at least now we know. But yes, certainly Try and research the problem that you think. And this comes back to the purpose piece. You know, ultimately, this is what we're seeing, is this increasing rise of business owners recognizing that. You know, one of my favorite completely banal products is. It's a. It's called. I can't remember the name of it, but it's a dog phone selfie attachment. So it's a piece of plastic that you can stick on top of your phone. It holds a tennis ball. So that makes it easier for you to take a selfie with your dog. I mean, peak humanity. Take me now. The world is complete. I don't need anything else. It's like, you know, someone designed it, someone marketed it, someone's made, like, really, did none of you at any point just go, actually, does the world need this?

And I think this is where business owners and leaders and employees, everyone's getting to this point to go, actually, do you know what? We could reroll what we do here and we could actually maybe try and solve that problem. And what a crazy idea. We'd all feel better for it.

Yes. I just. So that is. That is at the sort of the quintessential beginning of how I understand this kind of business evolves is that you recognize that there's a problem that no.

One is solving, which is what business has always done. You know, the reason for business existing in the first place is, hey, there's an opportunity here to fix a problem or to help people get something better or more quickly than they're currently getting. And this is why I don't think government clearly doesn't solve that many problems. You know, they pander to. Particularly in the US There was a really disturbing. I think it was in the Washington Post. Is that the title? The Washington Post?

A guy did a review of political, I guess, you know, political initiatives that have been undertaken by the various governing parties versus business interests. And basically he proved that your vote does not count. What counts is how much money is coming from business. And that's what dictates policy. But equally, this is the really exciting thing because if we get business to step up and be better, they will demand better politicians, which will lead to better policy, which lead to better outcomes. So it's like this circle, I guess, like this positive feedback loop that if we get better business, it's going to. That's being driven by customers and employees demanding business does better, which means business have to be better, which means government has to be better, which means people will then vote in better politicians, which means we get it's like it's all mixed in.

Well, you know, doesn't it come down to what we're optimizing for? Basically, bottom line, when you invent the business, you say, I'm starting out, I'm going to do business. And then you optimize for profit, or you optimize for a profit within a certain level of impact that you're having. Positive impact.

Totally. And this is the big mindset shift that needs to occur in business is. And again, I think Covid has really driven this, particularly some countries like New Zealand, the UK and maybe like Australia, some of the countries where we're maybe a bit more socially democratic. So here, when the first lockdown, we went into lockdown whenever it was 2020, essentially, the government said, you as a business, you can only operate if you are basically declared an essential business. Okay, this is, this is interesting. So the banks piped up and said, well, we're essential business. And the government said, no, you're not. And one of our big box retailers said, well, we're an essential business. No, you're not. Okay, well, this is interesting. So if you're not essential to humanity, why are you here? And I think that is the question as a business owner. You need to ask yourself, how do we support humanity being better and the planet being better? Because if you're selling dog phone selfie attachments, I can tell you you're not really making a dent in the universe. You know, the creative genius that you've got there to invent this product. Like, what if you could do that to solve that crisis in Haiti? Like, pick something that is worth getting out of bed for. And that's inspiring. And that's one of the big things is your metric has to not be money anymore. This is a question I love asking CEOs. You have the Dow Jones, isn't it? Is your index cool? Can you name the company that was number three on the Dow Jones in or. No. What's the. What's your other. You have the Fortune 500, isn't it?

Yes.

Fortune 100. So sorry. Yes. So Fortune 100. What company was ranked number three in March 2013 on the Fortune 100? No one knows and no one cares. Yet. The metric we're all chasing as business owners is the number. It's like no one other than you and your shareholders actually care about it. And increasingly your shareholders don't care about it either because they want to see you doing more good. But it's ironic because when you get back to if you think about so My degree is in medieval history. Go figure. When you look back at the beginnings of society and you look at some people's names, you know, like Shoemaker or Schumacher, Cooper, Fletcher, you know, we have people's names that are designated from the thing that they did to help the community survive. And that is the origins of business is, okay, well, someone needs to make the barrels that can store the produce so that we survive. That's an essential business. Someone needs to make the shoes so that we can walk around and not have frostbite and have, you know, thorns and stones in our feet. Someone needs to make the arrow so that we can go hunting and go and get some food. The essence of trade at the very beginning was us all trading for our shared survival and benefit. But we've had this explosion of just essentially bullshit business that is marketing and money driven. It's like, yeah, go have at it. But you're not. If you're not essential to human humanity, humanity's long term existence, you got to start asking yourself, well, how long have we got it?

Isn't that the ethos that I. Maybe you can freefall disagree with me, but I think there's an ethos in consumerism that's definitely changing. I'll give you an example. Like all my years growing up, if somebody said.

It was such a good deal, when somebody talked about a good deal, they meant that you got more for less. Essentially, that's it. If you said that Friday night special at the restaurant was such a good deal, that means you got a pile of mountain of food this big for 7.99. Whatever it is, you've got more of something for less money. But what I see with the generation of millennials and gen zers is that a good deal to them is completely different from that.

To my kids. A good deal is I'm going to have to spend $400 on eyeglasses. I might as well find a company where I'm going to spend that $400 and they're going to give. A good deal is giving a pair of to a person in need with my $400.

100%. And also maybe that pair of glasses will last me 20 years and I won't and I won't need to buy a new pair next year. And I think also the whole kind of fashion side of things, you know, fast fashion, all that, increasingly people are kind of going, actually, so what? Like, I don't really need to have a slightly different taper on my trouser leg this year. I can probably just Keep the same ones. So we definitely, and this is the thing, there's all these little bits of that are coming together that the general trend is, you know, I think you're right. It used to be try and get, try and do try and get more from less but now it's actually just get less from less. And when you look at, you know, Earth overshoot and how much we we consume, we have to get to a point of actually having less with less. And the irony is we'll be better off for it mentally and societally. There's a really cool guy, Dr. Tim Casser. He's a, I think he's a psychologist. He's basically done all the research on this and he's basically demonstrated that chasing materiality, material wealth is guaranteed to make you more unhappy. But the modern business.

Consumer capitalist system that we're in is the complete opposite. It's like no, you will only be happy if you consume and buy the new thing. But I think again, when you look at Apple have just announced that they're making their products that can be repaired now. So, you know, if the camera bit breaks, we'll just replace it. Okay, well that's interesting. You know, we're at a tipping point.

All right, so let's turn the remainder of our conversation to how we all fit into this new ethos about business because I think it's already happening. I'm interviewing a wonderful thought leader soon, Ryan Hafey, who has one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. He's 35 year old and.

He talked to me all about his quandary with hiring because he wants to hire people who already share the values of his company. He's putting company's values right out there for everyone to see and he doesn't want to do this trial and error dance with people where he gets a bunch of uncommitted people who looked good on their resume but really they're just going to come and go or they don't have the company to ethos. So I really think there's this. You've already mentioned it several minutes ago in this interview. Talk to me about how the B Corp ethos fits this new worker that wants to have meaningful work that takes their what they're uniquely built to contribute and helps them feel like they live it every day.

Totally. I mean there is some, some actual evidence. This is from a journal in the UK called the Grocer and this was in 2018. So they surveyed the 150 UK B corporations in the UK at the time and the main thing. Again, back to the growth argument. So the average growth rate for those b corps was 14% compared to 0.5% GDP. But a third of them had also said that they'd attracted new customers specifically because they were a B Corp. But almost half of them said that new employees had been attracted to them specifically because they were a B Corp. It is a lightning rod. It is the Batman symbol, like being lit up into the New York skyline, you know, it is, it is a beacon for people that share your values to know. Look, I know that you are, you must be doing some good because you're a B Corp. I've had multiple instances of B Corps that I know here in New Zealand where people have, I mean, including myself, I've got two part time contractors working for me. They both reached out to me and said, I just love what you do, I want to do what you do. One day, could I have a conversation with you? And ended up, I was getting really busy and I said, look, actually why don't you, you just come and do some work for me. So. And they are, you know, they bleed the same values and thoughts that I have and you know, you wouldn't get, you don't get that level of commitment. You know, again, if you, if you're just looking at it from the roi, you know, the commitment and level of.

You know, passion that a purpose driven, values connected worker will bring you is over above and beyond what just, you know, hiring and firing in the normal way will give you. So it is absolutely a beacon, a lightning rod for finding the right people that want to share your vision and values.

Well, I'll tell you, I thank you so much today for getting us fired up about all that's possible. You know, where can people connect with you more if they're more curious for their own businesses or for their employers or what have you. Tell us how we can best connect with you.

Totally. So my website is growgood co. So growgood co. I'm always open to a connection on LinkedIn. I'm happy to share. I've got like an ebook that I'm happy to get out to your listeners called it's called To Be or Not to Be. The what, why and how of B Corp certification. And it's basically, it covers off a lot of what we talked about today, but it's got some of those data points, it's got some clues and ideas. You know, I think my biggest take home message would be just go and have a look at the assessment. It's free to do that and you will. You will learn something. You will find something about your business that you could make some small changes in straight away. Even if it means that you can't quite become a B corp on day one because you're not maybe ready for it. But just start having a look and have a go at it. Like, I don't know if you're a Warren Miller fan. You know the Warren Miller movies. What was his great expression? If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do. It's like if you don't become a B corp this year, you know your 10 competitors will be by the time you do.

That is such a great point to land on. We will all get there. So thank you so much Tim Jones, for talking to us about this important subject. In just a short while we're all going to know more and more about it, but anybody who heard it here is going to have a lot more self awareness about what they're contributing to in the world. Everything that Tim mentioned is going to be in the show notes, so don't worry about that. We're going to make sure this is loud and clear sort of stuff. Thank you so much and I hope you will join us again for another conversation in this and we can talk about all the progress.

And thank you for the opportunity to come Talk B Corp. Love it. I love what you're doing too.

Hopefully Brittany's convinced now.

Absolutely.

That'll be the acid test.

Okay, well have a great day. We thank you for joining the Conspiracy of Goodness podcast and we hope you take everything that Tim and I talked about today and start finding that same kind of joy and wonder out in the world all around you. Have a great day.

And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you found it interesting, informative and inspirational, educational. I'd love to know where you are on your BCOP journey and if you have any specific questions or people that you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube for other content that you might like also. And finally, if you think that we might be able to do some epic work together, you can check out how that could happen through my website, www.grogu.

Until next time, be better.