#77 B Corp Basics with Tim Jones of Grow Good

Sam.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to yet another episode of Health and Safety Unplugged, brought to you by Advanced Safety. And in today's episode, I am joined by my old mate, Tim Jones. Tim, welcome.

How's it going? Shamay bo da.

Oh, thank you very much. How you doing?

Good. We actually, we went to the same university, but we didn't know it.

That's. Yeah, bizarrely, yes. I think it was around about the.

Same time and about the same year. 96, 99.

Yeah.

We probably haven't met in some bar in Cardiff. Probably.

Yeah, probably like hustling for the bar made to service our pint. Yeah, yeah, it's a good old Cardiff. Yeah. So, Tim, welcome, mate. For those of you who may not have heard of Tim before, would you like to just introduce yourself and let us know a little bit more about Tim Jones?

So. So I'm Tim, I run a company called Growgood. We've been. I started the company late 2015, had a good early midlife crisis. Kind of realized I was unemployable in the real world. Had what I call an early. Well, a hard Brexit from the corporate world. Thought, I know, I'll go and start my own business.

Yeah.

So, yeah, at Grow Good, we are all about helping companies navigate their way through B Corp certification, which, if you don't know what that is, that's a third party independent certificate certification that independently verifies your transparency and accountability around your social and environmental footprint. So, yeah, that's pretty much what we get up to.

Yeah. Cool. And this, hopefully this is becoming clearer as to why we're catching up because ultimately this whole esg, environmental, social governance has really started to make itself felt, I know, on a global scale. ESG has been around for many years and I think it's really starting to permeate here in New Zealand. Yeah, you're probably seeing it too, right?

100%. And I think it's, as we were saying just before, ESG is now becoming the health and safety, whereas before it was. Well, you know. Yeah, it's nice to have. Is there maybe someone who could look after this, you know, as a third of their role or maybe even less than a tenth of their role every now and then. Can you just make sure we're not being sued at any point? That's. Yeah, sustainability has just kind of just come through that journey and now it's, I guess, driven mainly at the big end of town. The really big companies are coming into mandatory disclosures around environmental impact and reporting and what have You. But what that now means is if you are a medium sized company that's supplying into a big company, well, they want to know what you're doing even down to, you know, if you're Matt's Health and Safety and it's just you and you have supplied one piece of work to this big company, well, they will now want to start knowing a lot about what you're doing socially and environmentally. So yeah, it's becoming increasingly carrot and stick, but increasingly, yeah, it's ESG is becoming part of strategy now, not a fluffy edge. Or maybe one day we'll think about it.

Yeah, thanks for raising the regulatory piece because is it the top 100 businesses?

So basically at the beginning of this year, I think it was there was some legislative change where the top 100 businesses here in New Zealand have to disclose their environmental, social governance to strategy and also their records, their reports of how they're actually performing in order to comply with law. So yeah, inevitably there is this trickle down.

Eventuality and the businesses throughout the supply chain now have to come on board. And yes, you're absolutely right. This kind of reminds me of the early days of the Health and Safety at Work act. You know, 1st of April 2016, suddenly health and safety was the key thing and everyone was talking about it and it feels like you're experiencing that now 100%.

And I think there's also an element of increasing people increasingly people wanting to do the right thing anyway, regardless of. Because that is carrot stick. I think the, the carrot was, was also partially induced by Covid, where a lot of people had some time to think about, well, okay, why, why is our business not essential if our business wasn't essential to humanity? Yeah, well, what are we doing? I think we all had a. As I frequently say, you know, we collectively walked our dogs within an inch of their lives during lockdown. We had some time just to reflect and think about, well, okay, am I doing the right thing? Oh, it is quite clean and there's less pollution and I can hear the birds and you know, I can get into the outdoors. So I think there's a lot of push and pull factors that are leading us to it. But yeah, we're here.

That's. Yeah, that's really, yeah, very insightful. Particularly the, the, the COVID lockdown. We certainly did it. There was a lot of introspection around HD Purpose value. We advanced safety. We managed to be registered as an essential service. Thank goodness, where many of us didn't. And they were kind of stuck in no man's land. So, yeah, definitely relate to that. So, okay, so.

You.

You'Ve got the opportunity or you're going through these initial assessments and these processes with the companies that you're dealing with. What are some of the common initial findings that you're discovering?

It's quite often a bit of a split, probably an 80, 20 split, let's say. Most of the companies we're working with on their B corp journey are already acting like a B corp and thinking like a B corp, but they just haven't captured maybe the documentation or the data to prove that they're doing what they're doing and. Or they just haven't formalized the policy to say, like, actually that's what we do. Like a classic example was Genora, who are a skincare, health and beauty brand just around the corner, and Monique, who was the CEO and founder, and Colleen, who is the chief operating officer. In their heads, they both knew that everyone was entitled to as much annual leave as they wanted, but it just wasn't written down. And so no one else in the company knew. And so that's quite often there's just. I'm as guilty as that as I'm trying to scale my company. It's like in my head I know how this company runs and I know everything, but it's actually getting it down on paper. So that's the main group. We're doing it, but we just can't right now. Today we wouldn't be able to prove it, but now we know that we need to. And then the other group would be the. Okay, look, we've maybe had more of an epiphany and perhaps we've not been behaving like a B corp historically, but we realize that we want to be. And those are the more challenging ones because it's almost from a standing start that you got to go. Okay. Right. There's a bit more consideration you have to put around why you are not doing stuff at the minute, but yeah.

Okay. And so the framework that you use to do the benchmark assessments and to get them over the thresholds, are they aligned to any particular standards?

Yeah, there's. So there's the B Corp assessment looks at a business across five areas. So governance, workers, community impact, environmental impact, and then the customer model or. Yeah. What do you make or sell and how do you treat your customers while you're doing it? And to get certified, you have to score a minimum of 80 out of 200 points across all five sections.

And yeah, within that there's. Yeah, certainly different companies performing in different ways. You know, some are, historically we've just always treated our staff really well in general. In New Zealand, companies like, we get a lot of benefits because we have state mandated leave, entitlement stat days, parental leave, kiwi saver, da da da da. So yeah, so across the five areas and again it's, it's quite different. Companies struggle in different areas. Overarching area where everyone struggles is supply chain. Even companies who are buying stuff, it's like, well, we buy our stuff off a guy called Dave in Auckland and he's a really nice guy, but I don't really know where Dave's buying his stuff from.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's always a bit of a mixed bag as to where people are doing well. And yeah, really what we're trying to do is just help them work out how they can capture good that they are doing where they maybe haven't recognized that. And also then say, well, okay, look, for you to actually get recognition for this, all you need to be doing is doing this. Do you think you could do that? And they go, yeah, actually we can, we can easily do that.

Okay, alrighty. So, yeah, so that kind of takes us quite neatly into your specific role in this process. Right, so you're doing the initial assessments, you're illuminating and providing insight into current strengths and opportunities for your clients. Then what's the next step? Then what do you do for them? Yep.

So the way I sort of typically describe what we do is you want to go and take this exam to go and pass it, to get the accreditation, get the certification, get the logo and all the benefits. We're kind of the after school tutor that you come to. It's an open book exam with the open, we're the after school tutor that you can come to. We've got all the answers written down and we just kind of go, yeah, just put A down for that one and I'd put B down for that one. Advise you. So we just, that's our main thing is just helping people navigate and understand this exam that you, you know, it's the first time you've done it, you don't really know what they're asking you. And so yeah, once you've gone, once you've gone through that process, there's a bunch of other support we've got around. Like we've got a digital community of all our clients where we get everyone to come and you play around in there and connect with each other and get to meet other people going through a similar journey. From different industries and backgrounds. Yeah, a bunch of support around documentation, you know, there's no point reinventing the wheel, you know, if you want an ethical marketing policy, well, here's one already written because all you're going to do is go Google it anyway.

Yeah.

So, you know, but understand it, educate the team, tell you people why you've got it, understand why you want it, etc. So, yeah, pretty much once we've gone through that process, the clients then disappear down a bit of a vortex for a little bit. They do some homework.

And they sit in a queue to then go and be independently audited by B Lab. So my company is a B corp. If you want to go and get certified, you would become a B corp. But yeah, you get independently verified and audited by a company called B Lab, which is a global non profit movement. So our regional one is B Lab, Australia, New Zealand, B labs all over the world. But yeah, they ultimately have the audit teams around the world. So, yeah, we're basically the tutor, helps you do your homework. We then present it to the teacher. Our job is to make sure that we've helped you answer the questions properly so that when the teacher gets it, it's just a case of tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, away you go.

And so B Lab's assessment process is that, is it done remotely or.

Mainly remotely for the really big companies like the multinationals, then there might be physical site visits and audits.

We've worked with a few clients where typically we don't sit on the audit call with them, but we're happy to with a couple of clients. You know, we've actually gone. Hang on a minute, let me just jump on the phone, on the zoom call and I'll go and take you to the factory. And I'll go, here's Tony doing his thing. Tony, can you explain the process? So, yeah, it's possible to do that, but in general it's a digital paper trail. Audit proof. Yeah, you know, proof through invoices, documentation, policies, explanations, you know, demonstrating that you've got it. Like for example, a health and safety program. Well, can we see it written down, please? Can we. What is the process? Can you explain a time or can you give an example of when the health and safety process was integrated and what was the outcome? Yeah, so yeah, I mean, Jamie Oliver, the UK chef, his, his restaurant group, I think it is a B corp. He described it as, as, as rigorous. Well, no, he said, was it. It was, said it was like having the taxman rifle through your Your underpant drawer. So that's, you know, they get pretty into the weeds. I like to describe it as rigorous but achievable. You know, if you're willing to do the, do the work to get to the level, you, you should pass.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's really, really good. I really like your approach too, around the collaboration between each of your. Your different.

Clients. Customers. Yep. It's actually quite refreshing. I'm just thinking within the health and safety.

Consultancy space very much still today, it's very much cloak and dagger. It's like this is our methodology and you don't get to see it. And it's like, well actually if we just collaborate a wee bit more and also accept the fact that most businesses could easily just go to ChatGPT or Google these days and produce policy statements that potentially could get it over the line, you're probably better off actually doing it in a more collective, transparent way.

It's very smart and raising the bar.

And also it's establishing your authority as well. Right. Yep. Yeah. So some of the key common findings that you discover during your assessments, what are some of the, maybe the top two or three things that you routinely find?

Most medium sized companies don't have a code of ethics and a whistleblower policy.

Yeah, yeah.

Whether they. I think, I think again, the classic medium sized company, you know, we've just grown. Grown a lot over the last few years. Yeah, it's just, you know, we've just been holding on for dear life and we just haven't had time to just. Yeah. You know, tighten up all the nuts and bolts and just actually document stuff. So. Yeah, that, that would be. Yeah. Under the governance thing, that would be the main one. Like I say, work is pretty consistent. Community supply chain is the big area that most people just haven't got visibility. But the really exciting thing is everyone who. And that's one of the beauties. You use the word illuminate. You know, that's something that the B corp assessment is really good for. It just shines a light across your business, across all the. And you, and you go, well, I didn't even know that was a thing. Okay, now I know that's a thing. I kind of can't unsee that right now. Let's go make that a thing. Let's go and you know, interrogate that or investigate that and look to be better. Yeah, I'd say, yeah, again, sort of quality assurance, you know, would be another area that a lot of people just haven't invested in. So that's under the customer section. So, yeah, it's probably just that overall, it's the rigor of process and documentation to prove that you're doing something, you know, so have you got. Yeah. A quality assurance program. Have you done Six Sigma, whatever it's called? Yeah. Have you got. Yeah. Policies around. Yeah. Codes of ethics and stuff like that?

Yes.

Which I think. Yeah. Most Kiwis are pretty relaxed and laid back and, you know, she'll be right. There's no corruption going on here. Are you sure about that? You know, is your storm and being paid off by. By someone you just don't know about it or, you know, whatever.

Yes.

Not picking on the storm and all Women.

No, no. Yeah, yeah, I totally. Yeah. Yeah. And your description of the rapidly growing businesses, that's very much what we see on a regular as well. Companies that are doing really well expanded, you know, exponentially in a really short space of time. And what worked even a few months ago is now is just.

It's redundant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. And also the point around not knowing what you don't know, what you don't know until someone tells you. Right. Yep. Yeah. So good. So in terms of. Okay, so you've. You've done the assessment, you have illuminated and, you know, given the leadership the. The insights that they need in order to get to where they want to be. Yep. What kind of time frame are we looking at?

Yeah, so, I mean, that's a big part of our offer. We've had a few clients who have been spending, you know, years in some cases. One company had two senior executives who both spent 20 hours each hacking the way through the assessment, and they still hadn't met the 80 out of 200 threshold.

Yeah.

Within five hours, we got them to like, 110 points out of 200. Crazy. So, yeah, a big part of our offer is we can just make this thing, you know, we can lock you in a room and get you to do it because that's, you know, mission drift is a big. And I guess it'd be the same with health and safety.

Always.

Yeah. Which is, you know, the value for you. It's like, well, yeah, you could do it yourself, but it drops off your to do list. You get to Friday afternoon and you go, yeah, I could either go to the pub or I could write health and safety document. Yeah, we're going to the pub. Although you probably go, no, I want to write.

So, yeah, so just locking people in the room, getting them. Getting them to do it. That's A big part of our office. So yeah, within a day for the sort of ideal client, medium sized, privately owned. Within a day we'll know where you're sitting on the points will then, you know, you'll have line of sight to say if you're not at 80, here's the five to 10 things that you now need to kind of have a think about whether you really want to implement them. Because there's, you know, we don't want people just chasing the points to get B corp for the sake of B corp. But if you're committed to wanting to be a B corp, well then you're going to have to possibly make some changes. So it kind of, you know, goes hand in hand. So yeah, after a day we can pretty much get you to a point where you know where you're going to stand. Once you're ready, you click submit. The queue is rapidly contracting at its worst. About a year ago you were up to 12 to 18 months to get hold of an auditor and that was just due to demand in the system. There was. So they had such an explosion of interest post Covid again, I think it's just this indication that Covid just led to some thought for people to go, actually, you know what, we need to be better. That's coming down now to possibly for a smaller business, maybe like two to three months, maybe four months. So pretty, pretty reasonable. Yeah. So you sit in the queue, you get picked up by the auditor and then you. Yeah, you may be looking at a month or two months to just go through the audit process. There's a bit of backwards and forwards. You have to do some more homework, you come back, report back, there's a couple of calls you'll jump on. But yeah. So within, easily within six months. Yeah, you can go from not being a B corp to being a B.

Corp. Yeah, amazing, amazing. I'm just thinking about my own processes, I'm just being a bit selfish here and going, what does advanced safety do? It's not too dissimilar in a way. We do the initial assessments, we identify the gaps, we identify the opportunities, piece together an implementation roadmap of how to get there time wise. Yeah, I mean, if I was honest, like if we could literally physically lock people in a room for a day, probably smash out an awful lot for us. Generally we can, we've got some guarantees like we'll get, you know, demonstrable legal compliance within six months or less. Yep. But ultimately, if we were to boil down the time that we were in front of People, Yeah. Probably be looking around about a similar kind of time. It's so interesting to hear that. Yeah, we're definitely doing similar things in similar spaces.

So. Because for me, I'm kind of looking at environmental, social, governance. I keep seeing this ESG and I keep hearing about it and I, I can tell that, you know, it's not just this fad anymore. You know, it's really here, it's here to stay. In terms of those who perhaps haven't necessarily are not necessarily familiar with it, could. Could you perhaps just give us a bit of a summary as to what it is and what its intention is.

What it's all about? You know, so I think for me, the reason I kind of got into this whole world is I used to work in the medical device world. So I used to sell hips and knees and then spinal instruments and implants to orthopedic and neurosurgeons. I don't know if you've been watching the painkiller program on Netflix. It's all about the OxyContin, the Sackler family, and how they basically pivoted the drug that they had that was looking like to be a bit of a dead duck and they converted it to sell more of it and then they convinced doctors that they should sell more of it and then it led to the, you know, opioid crisis that's in the States. It's a pretty solid summary of the malfeance of the medical device industry at scale. Well documented companies that I used to work for. Well documented.

I can say hand on heart, I never took part in any of the dodgy stuff, but at a global level. So the medical device industry, which really, if there's one industry in the world, possibly with health and safety a close second, but if there's one industry in the world that should be full of ethics and not about chasing money, it should be the medical world.

Yeah.

But sadly, it's actually quite corrupt. And the system, and I say corrupt as in morally corrupt, but also financially corrupt, you know, globally, the stakeholders will prioritize money overarchingly rather than patient outcome. And that will lead to people dying on the operating table in a surgery because the surgeon is a shareholder of the company and he's pushing the boundaries of the products for financial gain. Yeah, not. Hang on a minute. Actually, let's just back up the truck here and. Yeah, yeah, go back to the drawing board.

Yeah. What we actually had.

So I came out of that world and for me it was the earthquakes here that led to that metaphysical Spiritual shakeup. And it's well documented that, which is why I think Covid has had such a big role. If you have a near death experience, the death of someone close to you, the birth of a child, or any other significant traumatic event. And I think collectively the, the air was that this is a near death experience. Like, we could walk, you know, I think the levels of, you know, fear were at some points, I could walk out of the house, get this thing and kill over. And so I think we all had that moment. And so for me, that just led me down a bit of a rabbit hole of, okay, well, what are we doing for the planet and people? And, you know, in 2012, my wife and I had our daughter and that was another moment of what am I doing to actually make a world that's good for her to inherit in 20 years or so? And so that led me down this bit of a rabbit hole and I ended up discovering B Corp. I thought, wow, there's this, at the time about, I don't know, under 2000, maybe about 1500 businesses globally who realized that actually having a purpose and trying to solve a problem is the core of the business rather than just prioritizing money. So that's how I kind of connected to the B Corp movement. And that for me is still the primary driver is the realization that if you're just chasing financial outcomes, it actually doesn't work for you. There's reams and reams of evidence from psychology, psychological literature that actually chasing money is not, is not what we need. And so that's, that's always been my driver. And some of the, you know, I don't, I don't always agree with all of the ESG stuff. There's some parts of it that kind of go. Look, I just think, I think it's poorly thought out and I don't really think it's going to solve a problem. But in general, the ESG frameworks are just getting businesses to stop and think about. Yeah, look, we're not saying don't make money, but while you're making your money, you know, the classic example would be, you know, as a CEO of a company, right. Money's looking a bit tight next month. Well, we could sack half the staff. We could do that, but what's the impact on them? But then what's the impact on their families? What's the impact on their community? Okay, well, factoring that in. Yeah, well, actually, can we hold on for another couple of months and not do that? So it's just getting people to think at that level rather than. But historic. You know, I'd say historically, for the last only, you know, probably 100 years, we've been taught that you just think about financial as a business. And so really that for me is the ethos behind it is just think more broadly about the outcomes of your business, how you're doing what you do and, you know, the long term reputation, the long term, and to. To a point, even the legacy of the business. And I think it's interesting on my podcast, we interviewed the New Zealand managing director of Unilever recently. So Unilever Australia, New Zealand is a B corp. Well, it's interesting when you look back, you know, the Lever Brothers, when they started their business, it was about sanitation, soap. They created worker homes around the manufacturing. You know, it's very paternalistic style of operating business. And so in many ways it's. I kind of actually feel like it's a return to the origins of some business where it was actually about, you know, we've. Because if you think about business ultimately, again, on my podcast this morning, talking to Guy Ian Cooper, and I said, we know Cooper, you're a barrel maker. You know, we. Other than the Welsh who named ourselves after AP John. Yeah, we would be. We typically, it's not uncommon that we named ourselves after the role that we provided to the village.

Yeah.

So Cooper, the barrel maker, Fletcher, you made the arrows. Shoemaker, whatever. And so we have this innate desire to contribute, which is what purpose is.

The whole legacy thing.

Yeah. And so me contributing to the best that I can to my community, my society. Well, that's what, that's what we've always been about. And it's just this last sort of since the Industrial Revolution, we've got hoodwinked into. No, no, no. Just chase as much. All the money, money, money, money, money. And. But we know that it doesn't work for us. So, yeah, I think all of this is a return to first principles for me.

So. Interesting. Yeah, like, I'm sure you're the same. I spend little free time that I do have.

Developing my own self, so doing a lot of business, mentoring and, you know, free videos wherever I can find them. And the common, the common theme, the common story I see from a lot of the business leader figures that I follow and try and emulate is that most of them have gone through this experience where initially it was all about the money, and then they've gone, I've got more money than I want to do with and I'm miserable.

Yep.

Something's Missing here. And it comes right back to the whole purpose piece.

Right.

And so it's that legacy. It's like, what story are you actually telling? What are you contributing? So I guess on the personal level, it's inevitable. Then that then translates into business level 100. Yeah. And it's so interesting you're talking about, like, how Covid's had an impact here locally. Yeah. The Canterbury earthquakes. Same for me. It was a career move for me, too. I'd already been dabbling in health and safety leading up to that, but during that period, it was a breaking point for me. I realized I was miserable in my previous industry, previous life that I was living. I moved into health and safety. So, yeah, it all adds up. Yeah.

So I think Spike Milligan said, money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a better class of misery.

As usual, he sums it up pretty well.

Yeah, he does.

And that purpose thing, you know, businesses are nothing but collections of individuals. And so the. And particularly for a business owner, you know, your purpose is intrinsically linked to the organization and typically the reason why the business, like if you were the founder or if you've taken over the business, that there was something visceral that, yeah, either led you to start the business, like yourself or me, or I want to be part of this business. So, yeah, it's. But I think again, over the last we. While we've disconnected ourselves from, like, there's the work me and then there's the other me. And I think there's a lot of people who live in that tension badly, you know, which is. I love etymology, you know, dis. Ease. If you're not at ease, you will be diseased, you know, and this tension, I call it the authenticity gap of, you know, am I being me at work? Yeah. But a different me at home. And when I'm out with my mates and the more disparate all those versions of you are, you're essentially being schizophrenic.

Yeah.

And I think that's a large amount of people in the modern world. And then they wonder why there's a mental health crisis.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Such a great conversation. Right. Because this. This is often what kind of comes about in these conversations that I've been recording is we start off on one topic, but end up actually going off on all these interesting tangents because they're all intertwined, interlinked. Right. Like ult, what we're talking about is human enterprise. So whether it's individual or business, we're all fallible. We all make the same mistakes. We've all got the same pain points. The idea of us wearing multiple hats is so such an interesting thing. And yeah, I totally get it. I totally agree with that. And then also the fact that you're in the ESG space. How does this relate to health and safety? Well, I'd like to think it's the social side of things. You know, an easy win would be the health and safety piece of the puzzle. And so that's, that's kind of my line of inquiry, knowing full well that the other pieces of the puzzle, it's all intertwined. Right. You can't have one, but the other really. Okay, so just trying to think so.

In terms. Okay, so let's, let's put it right back to the health and safety space then. So in terms of some of the common findings, you.

And surfacing within the health and safety space, is there any common themes on that?

Yeah, I mean, and I was reflecting on this, so it's worth noting that There is no one B Corp assessment. There's about 70 different ones. And that the one you end up on will be dictated by your geographic location. So are you a developed country or an emerging nation? So Brazil versus New Zealand. Then there's your industry sector. So you can either be in agriculture, manufacturing, service with minor environmental impact, service with major environmental impact, or wholesale retail. And then the next thing that really changes things is the number of employees you've got. So if you are a thousand plus manufacturing company, you will have way more questions around health and safety than if you're like me, a historically solo or small team consulting business with no machines that go bleep and opportunities to, you know, trap your fingers or fall from a height. So yeah, it's. And that's the same with all the questions. The smart people behind the scenes have kind of worked out. Okay, well, if you are this type of company, what is the, what are the material risks that are apparent in your type of business? And that gets back. I've just rumored. I didn't really answer your question about standards.

The assessment has been built since 2006 and I think we're on version six of the assessment, so it gets updated. There's a group of very smart people who are the standards team who work out. Okay, well, what is an acceptable benchmark for this? Some of it is just purely, well, do you have a health and safety committee? Do you have health and safety audits? Do you have a person responsible for health and safety? So not really, I guess an international standard, but Then there are other questions where it will say, okay, well can you prove that you have that? And then it might say, well, ISO would qualify, yeah, to, to as an international standard. Or it might be, you know, under pay conditions, you know, are you child labor certified or are you living wage certified? So there's other independent frameworks and yeah, certifications that kind of feed into it.

Okay, cool.

But yeah, yeah, like so in terms of health and safety specifically, it's, it's, it's pretty, I'd say it's pretty well indexed to legal requirements for the level of company that you are. Without knowing that much about the legal requirements of health and safety.

Attention, project.

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Yeah. 100.

Is that something?

And so this, this is a really, really, really interesting area and I'm, I'm conspiring with a lady Sandra Smithall in Auckland on this. So there's. Now for you to become a B corp in pretty much most countries, you have to be willing and able to update your company constitution to include a purpose clause and a stakeholder Clause. So purpose clause states whilst aiming to make a profit, this company does however, have a higher purpose. And then secondarily to that you have a stakeholder clause which basically summarizing it states the owners, directors, officers and shareholders of this company will at all times consider the impact of the operations on.

All stakeholders, including customers, workers, community, the environment, other people and basically consider the reputation, the long term reputation of the company as well as making a profit. Yeah, and this is the really interesting thing and I have a real love hate relationship with governance in New Zealand. I was a member of the IOD briefly when I was working for. Actually I used to work for a property consultancy firm.

We sold, you know, surveying and engineering into clients and I joined the IOD because I thought, yeah, be great networking, you know, all the types of people that own buildings will be and all the lawyers and accountants that you're going to go meet. And yeah, I was just massively underwhelmed in terms of the diversity of thought within that group of people. But also you look at some of the, you know, was it Fletcher Building a few years ago where their board was basically held up as being utterly, you know, failing in their duties to prevent. I can't remember what it was it. Was it health and safety based or was it financial based? I can't remember. There was a. I remember there being a bit of a hoo ha about it.

Yeah, it's in the health and safety space. Yeah, yeah.

And then you look at what's happening with, you know, Mainzil with, you know, directors now actually. Oh, hang on. No, you are actually.

Oh, we're accountable.

Yeah, you're actually accountable. Yeah. So yeah, I just think it's this really murky world where I think there's probably a handful of really good directors who actually get this stuff. And like I'm wanting to step up and we're about to try and launch a bit of an offer around a board advisory role around Purpose and B Corp. Let's hold you accountable to stuff. But I don't want to become a director because I don't want to be. I know that I don't know what I should know around health and safety and I don't want to be standing in court. And I just think, yeah, there's something. And it's the same with the whole ESG stuff. Like I said, if you're on the board of A B corp now you have to not just be thinking about the for profit solution here. Yeah. Well, have you had. And this is where Sandra and I've had the conversation. There's no training program around what is stakeholder governance around what is. How do you not think about just maximizing profit? Because that's pretty much what you're taught yet everywhere else.

Thank you so much for sharing that because that's, that's been a bit of a revelation for me. Probably in the last 12 months or so I've been really thinking hard and long about what has been my experience in front of boards and what are some of the key takeaways from those times that I've been in front of boards. And it really ultimately boils down to the level of maturity that I've seen. And I think it's really low.

Massively.

Yeah. Like I'm just thinking from a health and safety perspective and the understanding and appreciation of duty holder responsibility. You throw in environmental and the governments into the mix as well.

Far out.

We've got a long way to go.

100%.

Yes. So interesting. Yeah. I mean I'd love to pick your brains about what your thoughts are for the future. Obviously. You kind of probably.

Well, I know we're trying. So Sandra and I are trying to get a group of people in a room and go, right, what would a program look like that would educate people so that they can have. Because yeah, I've, in different parts of my career I've reported into boards. I'm often bought into a board meeting as part of the B Corp journey to give an update or just answer some tricky questions around. Well, hang on a minute. What's this up to the constitution we have to do. Does this mean we can't make money? It's like, no, you can still make money, but you just got to be thinking about how you do it. And my experience of boards is you walk into the board meeting and they're just reading through the board papers as they sat down. And in one organization, I used to see the CEO spend an entire day pulling that board report together and then you just see them flicking through it casually. And then typically you find the same two people asking the same shit question every time. Yep. And it's like, yeah, and the price of cheese and Azerbaijan is $4.50. It's yes, completely irrelevant question. But you've, you've made it look like you've been listening and you've asked a really cool question. Yeah, that's, that's my experience of boards and yeah.

And generally the questions are all focused in on the, the balance sheets.

Yeah. Or something really tactical.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, Numbers. Let's talk about that. Yeah, but you've just missed the entire point.

Yeah, no, I agree.

So. Interesting. Okay, cool.

Yeah, we'll add you to the coalition of willing on that little project. Yeah, yeah. I think Health and Safety, in my mind, I kind of was hoping maybe that Health and Safety was nailed at that level, but no, no. So what are all the directors doing it?

I don't know. I don't know.

Taking the money.

I don't know. Yeah. And like, just as a bit of a disclaimer, I will say that the customers and the clients that I routinely work with, they are not part of the same canon as what I'm describing. I wouldn't be working with them if that was the case. But it's something that was raised recently at some training that I attended where currently and traditionally it's always been the case that the Health and Safety manager, either in house or the consultant external, is just hovering around at the door of the senior executive meeting rooms, hoping that they might get called in. Yeah. And when they do, it's generally to explain why that accident happened and why it's not our fault. And then they're kicked out quickly.

Yeah. Are we going to be sued? Yeah, we all good. Which I suppose in New Zealand it's pretty hard to be sued probably anyway, because of acc.

Yeah. And the whole point and purpose is missed. And this is actually something I'm challenging our broader health and safety community to get their heads around. Is that actually our role, particularly senior health and safety people's roles, is not to spend days and weeks creating board reports that, as you say, just kind of get scanned if we're lucky. And it's not to be doing the doing on the ground, it's actually to be able to carve out a safe environment, to have root really challenging conversations with the CE and the executive and the board, if you're lucky. Yep. To be able to actually push them to ask the questions that need to be asked.

Totally.

And to become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I guess preempt and prevent rather than react and let's not have it happen again. Oh, you know, we've only lost a couple. I'll be all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, even having those kind of crazy conversations is like, well, okay, what is it acceptable here? What's an acceptable loss? Is it two fatalities? Is it five fatalities?

Yep.

It's really pushing them to really confirm exactly what are the thresholds.

Yeah. And interesting that. So on the B Corp assessment, at the end of the assessment the sixth group of questions is the disclosure questions. So it's kind of where they just make sure that you've not been involved in any existentially risky activities. But one of the questions is have you had an on site fatality in the last five years? And you know, so if that got flagged then you get an extra. That's like a CME from the teacher. Right. Please explain. And you'd be probably unlucky to have one disclosure question there. Stop you from certifying. But if you said, yeah, well hang on a minute, yeah, we have had that and we have had questions about our tax payments and we have had, you know, then it would possibly be a barrier to you actually getting through. Yeah, which is good.

Rightly so. Yeah, yeah. And you, you also, you got me thinking around. So you're finding that one of the common things that you're identifying is, and it's the same for us too is that companies haven't stopped to think about who are the key stakeholders organization. So for us this has been driven by, we've got the ISO 45001 health and safety management framework. And so section four talks about.

That as well as what are your.

Regulatory and legal requirements. So you've got to have a list that says just beyond getting beyond just health and Safety, the Health and Safety Work act, what other pieces of legislation have to do you have to take into account. So even now like we present these findings to businesses and often they comment back is why, why do we need to have a key stakeholder register? And for me it's just like it's a no brainer. This is all your risk.

I mean that would be another area that typically most companies we're working with, they haven't done, they haven't done stakeholder mapping and they haven't done stakeholder engagement. And we often suggest that as part of their B corp journey they go and do that because you just understand who you're working with. And it's interesting, you know, from a B Corp perspective when you look at say Patagonia, who've now gifted their company to the planet. You know, a stakeholder is pretty much the planet and everyone or everything on it could be a stake. So depending what you choose to, to have as a stakeholder. But yeah, that's definitely an area of weakness for most companies is, you know, we're all just so busy in our little bubble just doing what we do. Yeah, not even, but yeah, as part of the B Corp journey we would often suggest, well look, at least Go and map it for now and you get some points recognition for that. But then as part of your improvement cycle, because you recertify every three years, go back out to your stakeholders and say, hey, look, this is where we didn't score so well. This is where we did score really well.

Yeah.

What's important to you? Like, do you want us to be better here or do you not care? Because, you know, it's clearly not been that important for us so far. Not saying that, you know, you should only implement changes if people say you should, but it just, you know, you can't do everything. And so you've got to do what you can do with what you got. And so it makes sense to prioritize it by going, well, okay, that will make our customers really happy and that will make our staff more engaged and. Or it's going to keep the bank happy. Or it's going to, you know, our big supplier would really. Okay, cool. Well, that's going to help us prioritize what we do. And I think you've possibly got a bunch of people in your ecosystem who are possibly, you know, carrot or stick into this ESG world, and that's why the B Corp framework is so good. Because it's a framework. You just got to answer the questions. And once you've answered them, you know where you're at.

Yeah.

And then you go, okay, well, what do we now need to do? If we want to go and get certified, we know we need to get 80. So here's the 10 points we need to have a think about. Can we go and do that? Does it need time? Does it need money? Does it need human capital resource internally?

Yeah.

Great. Well, now we've got a plan. Now we know where we can be.

Yeah.

And I think that's, that's why we're getting a lot of people who are, okay, look, we need to go and do something.

It's been mapped out. Whereas otherwise, you know, where do you. I wouldn't know where to start if I wasn't. If we weren't making use of the B Corp framework.

Yeah.

So I don't know where you start.

Well, no, that's right. Yeah. Because, I mean, when you actually package the ESG together, I mean, I was kind of doing a bit of a sleuth to see if there was a specific ISO standard for ESG combined. Not that I'm aware of.

There's an environmental ISO, which I think is at 14,001.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's. Yeah. And that's the. You Know, that's sometimes people say, oh, you know, well, should we do B Corp? Should we do ISO? It depends what, what you want to get out of it. Yes.

Yeah.

The ISO, clearly it's a very, you know, rigorous, well recognized standard, but it's just environmental, just environmental impact. Whereas B Corp is the full. Yeah, the full gamut. And so for a lot of companies it might be both and. Yeah. But in general it just seems, I mean, a classic example, l', Occitane, Big Health and beauty or Big Beauty brand they certified as a big op today.

Okay.

If you look on LinkedIn, all their employees, big. Oh, we're so happy with Sopra. Show me a post about someone getting ISO.

You're probably like, yeah, I'm going to show you. I'm going to do a post every day about ISO. But you know, most people who've gone through ISO, they kind of go, yeah, yeah, we did it. But there seems to be something about B Corp which it captures the hearts and minds and people are like, wow, we're just so proud. We want to tell everyone that we've done it. And everyone kind of, I call it like the self sourcing chocolate cake of goodness. It's like this chocolate souffle that's just more and more chocolate just keeps coming out. We can all just get a spoon and we can all have more of it and there's more coming. It's just amazing.

Yeah. It's so funny as you're talking, I'm just checking my body language. I'm just like.

Side eye. You're absolutely right. And it's. I mean, and I know you're the same. I travel an awful lot and I can't help but notice the amount of signage at the airports over the billboards outside, or the flashy screens on the inside. And every other poster these days is a company announcing their B Corp status.

It feels like that. Yeah. And some days it kind of feels like, oh, my job's done. And then you realize we're still only 115 in New Zealand out of about half a million.

Is that all there is? Yeah, yeah.

So it's about 0.9, not 1% of businesses globally and in New Zealand. So it's just over 7,000 globally and just, just 115 just gone in New Zealand. But you know, we certified as B number six back in 2016, so I think 100. Wow. Like, we kind of have cracked it. Yeah, there's a ton coming through. So that is just, you know, it is exponentially growing and in certain sectors. Yeah. I mean if you're in health and beauty, food and beverage and not a B corp, in the pretty near future, people will be looking at you going, really? But what, what I find is really interesting. We worked with a company a couple of weeks ago in Auckland. They're in Penrose, on one of those streets in Penrose that's full of those types of like commercial places where they make widgets and do stuff. And they rang me and said, hey, we want to do B corp. And I literally said to the guy, the top 10,000 companies that I thought would ring me, I don't think you'd have even made 50,000. Yeah, but we're starting to. And so they, they sell supplies into the construction sector and they.

Yeah, and they're smart.

A couple. Yeah, a couple of drivers. They do a lot of work with some big regional agency type. Well, they are in the supply chain. They said, I think it was Watercare was one of their big customers. And they said now their sort of weekly stand up meeting with them, the first 20 minutes is ESG, then it's how's the project go? Like, are you delivering stuff on time?

Yeah. And this is where the trickle down theory actually does work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unlike the economy.

Yeah.

That's a whole other podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's 100. Like they are smart, they're onto it. Yeah. Again, looking at some of their product mix, they've already, they had some sealant type product where the industry standard was really highly toxic. They got a water based 10 toxins. It's like, well, why wouldn't you do that?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, just on so many levels.

Yes.

You know, not just looking after humans, but looking after the planet. So. Yeah, I think the forward thinking smart people will just see that. You know a question I like asking when I in one of the talks I give is, you know, if chasing the money was so important. Right. Who is the richest person in North America in 1969?

There'll be names like Rockefeller. Well, I couldn't actually find a definitive answer, but the name that came up more than once was Robert Wood Johnson. One of the founding brothers of Johnson Johnson.

Yeah.

Right. Okay, so let's make it easier. Who is the richest person in the world ever when you account for currency, you know, inflation, blah, blah, blah, individual Buffett. Nope.

No.

Who? So the guy's name was Mansa Musa and he was the Emperor mali in about 1280-1320.

Okay.

So you know, if we care so much about money but we don't actually know. You can't name the richest people, you know. And, you know, if you're, if you're not Even on the NZX, what are you? You might be the 4000th and 58th richest company in New Zealand. No one cares, you know. But if I ask you who wrote and delivered a speech in North America in 1969 about having a dream for a group of people, who was that person?

Yeah. It's instant Martin Luther King. Yeah.

And so people don't remember what you had, they remember what you did and how you did it.

Yes.

And I think that's, again, this is the thing that we're seeing is like I say this company. Yes. Possibly cheaper for them to import the really toxic one. But the guys feel better knowing.

Yep.

Let's, you know, we're making it one, you know, with one small product.

Yeah.

We're actually making it. And you see them when they talked about it, the pride that they had. Wow. Yeah. Like we had. We've sourced this. We really went out of our way to do this. And it just feels good to know we've done that. You cannot put a price on that.

Yeah.

And that's.

No, it's a brilliant story. I mean, there's a little health and safety mat in the background going, yay. Because, like, that's the hierarchy.

Digital one to pop out.

Yeah, yeah, cool.

Shake on it.

They've substituted a nasty chemical for a nice one. It's like, yay, health and Safety 101. Yeah. But it's a win for everybody. And it goes right back to your point around this whole introspection period, like, the whole planet came to a standstill. And during that time, I think you're right. I think everyone, including business leaders, have just gone, what the heck am I doing? Yeah. What is this all about? Yeah.

And I think that it then drives industry standards because they'll. For them right now, that's going to be a competitive advantage. We're the only ones with this.

Yes.

Then all of a sudden you're watercasing. Well, hang on a minute. On all our projects. Right. Well, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but, you know, you could see how they would go, okay, well, that's now going to be our standard. So that will then normalize across the others. And so that's now the new normal. And I kind of think that's, you know, a big part of what Health and Safety has been doing the last few years is like. Actually, you know what? No, there is now a Benchmark, like if you want to play, you've got to be doing this.

Yeah. Actually, thank you. That's a really, really important point is because it was legislated that the top 100 businesses had to have this strategy in place and they had to report back on their esg. It's had a massive impact.

Yep.

I'm just thinking from the health and safety point of view, particularly in the higher risk industries, something in like construction, civil engineering, we don't have anything like it. And it's really sad because there's a couple of. There's two or three really good standards I feel, or pre qualification schemes. Tortica being probably the pinnacle of that. It's got all the potential but because it doesn't have the regulatory stick. No. And unfortunately what it leads to is internal politics. I'm not going to name names but I get the impression that got three or four parties all kind of squabbling over who's got the best approach or product and as a result it's just a whole massive confusion. Yeah. And frustration. So. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's why I'm really happy with what's happened in the sustainability world because about would have been, I don't know, probably 10 years ago I sat down with a mate and we, when I was in the property consultancy and we wrote down a list of all the sustainable entities in the broader business world with a bit of a focus on building. So there's you know, New Zealand Green Building Council, Sustainable Business Network Business Council. There's like literally we wrote on a, on a full sheet of paper, line by line. We wrote the full page down.

Yeah, right.

And then we said, right, what is the, what's the common goal that they've all got? Yeah, there isn't one. Yeah, we want this, we want that. You know, it's almost like you know, Monty Python, you know, people.

Yeah.

You know, and so I think that that is a problem and luckily for some reason and you know, I have no idea or real say how this has happened but B Corp just seems to risen to the top and it just makes it easy now. It's like if you want to. But again, I think, you know, talking to. So it was in May 2021, ANZ bank issued 100 million Australian dollar loan to Kathmandu. An ESG backed loan based on reducing their carbon emissions, getting better transparency conditions in their supply chain. But the main thing it was indexed on them maintaining and increasing their B Corp score. And the team at Anz who I spoke to about it, they said, look, Basically, we did a desktop review of all the global certification frameworks and B Corp was the only one we felt comfortable as a benchmark to lend against. And so that seems. And I just saw. Yes, I think the NASDAQ has now included B Corp. As you know, in terms of ESG reporting at NASDAQ level, B Corp is acceptable. And for whatever reason, it's. It's come up to the top and it's now and we don't have this. Ah, but there's also C Corp or Z Corp or D Corp or whatever.

Yeah.

And I think. Yeah, that's if you can crack that here.

Yeah.

And, you know, again, it just feels like this is the lack of purpose in business. If all those entities actually all genuinely cared about better outcomes. You come together and go, well, what have you got? What have we got? Which is actually the best across all of them.

Yeah.

And let's harmonize and put them into one and then go to the government and say, actually, you need to regulate this.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought we were going to get to, but it seems to have its egos, man.

That's what they get in the way.

Yeah. What do I know? I'm disagreeing, but disclaimer. I don't know. Yeah, but it's frustrating because I see it at the coal face.

Yeah.

It's like businesses just going, just tell us what is good and we'll do it. Yeah. It's like.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. It's like when you're in the supermarket and you just want British baked beans, not with Spam in it or with burgers or. I just want. But there's 50 different tins and you end up getting spaghetti because it's just easier.

Yeah.

And this, I mean, in some ways it's a bit the same with carbon reporting and emissions. There's all these different frameworks, there's all these different ways. You know, we've connected with a great guy, Greg Hart, who's based in Napier. He's really interesting character when it comes to regenerative agriculture processes. You look at his land post Gabriel, very little damage. Generative farming, lots of trees compared to most of his neighbors.

Interesting.

Utterly destroyed.

Yeah.

He's got a bunch of planting that he's all about trying to regenerate with as much native trees as he can. So we've been talking to him about, oh, you know, could grow good. Could we get a collection of our clients? Could we buy a plot of land?

Yeah.

And could we be the ones who put the trees on it? And I talked to him, I said, well, hang on a minute. From a B corp perspective, we want to capture some points. We need to be paying a charity, ideally, because then we'd get points for a charitable donation. But you're a limited company. But then also, could we. Could you claim this as carbon offset? And then he goes, well, I don't know. I don't know. And then you start researching. Well, how do you. If I go plant 10 trees in my garden, can I. Well, no, you can't. It has to be part of the emissions trading scheme. But then you go, okay, well, are all of those, like. There's so much, you know, smoke and mirrors and people just. If it's. Yeah. If it's hard or there's multiple options and it's not clear. Yeah, that's the real risk. Because people won't do anything. Yeah. Because it's just. It's too.

Yeah.

It's too unclear.

Yeah. I mean, and it's the same in the health and safety world as well. I mean, ultimately, it's just keeping things simple.

Yeah.

Just had a similar conversation with Jen Drensfield around what it would be like to get all the multiple parties into one room and just to actually talk it through.

Yep.

So insightful. And also we might actually get somewhere. Yeah. So I just saying. Oh, you got me thinking now.

Well, maybe this could be your. Your. Your cross to carry.

Yeah. Yeah.

Get them all in. In the room and try and.

Yeah, maybe, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's all on camera now, so I can't.

Cat's out the bag now. Sorry. Get Caution to delete it.

Yeah, no, I think I'm too much of a disruptor. I think I'm considered the splitter of all splitters.

But it needs people like you to do that. You know, I feel like maybe it's a Jones thing. Yeah, maybe. You know, I've always thought about creating a club called the Ostrich Head Pullers and Elephant Spotters. It's like, you know, hello. Like, why can no one else see? Like it's just standing here? Look, here it is. Big elephant.

You know, I mean, that was part of the problem I had when in the medical world, because we'd see stuff going and go, hang on a minute. That doesn't align with our corporate values. And he did, like.

He said, the values. Yeah. It doesn't make us money, though, does it? All right, okay, well, just tell me that, you know, don't be.

Yeah.

If you're going to do it. You know, I think there's a great comment. The guy's name, he was head of alumni affairs at Notre Dame University. And he's got a great quote. He said, don't tell me your values. Show me where you spend your money. It's like, it's so true, you know. Yeah. Your actions don't match what you're telling me.

Yes.

And, yeah, I think people need to be held accountable for that, particularly, you know, health and safety. It's. It's serious, you know, it's like people either going home alive or dying in a job that they shouldn't be dying in. You know, we're not in Victorian mills where, you know, we can lose a few, but it's okay. We're going to round up some kids tomorrow.

Yeah, you know, it's like still a little bit out there like that. Yeah, it's very common, actually. You ask a business, okay, that's a nice purpose statement there. Or mission statement. Yeah. Who wrote that? Oh, that was. That was Bob or Sally back in the office.

Yeah. Or some marketing agency. Even worse. Some marketing agency.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, okay, well, how does that work?

So, you know, a little bit of offense to marketing agencies because go back to your coloring in. Get a step out of the purpose world.

Yeah, but, yeah, more often than not, it doesn't. It has no bearing on operational activity over here or how they reflect themselves in the broader, wider community.

Right, Totally. What's the point? And most purpose statements I come across, you take out the company's name at the front and it could be any company in the world.

Yep.

It's like, Right, so it's pretty generic, isn't it? Yeah, right.

Sure is. So, Tim, in terms of businesses who have been, well, business leaders who have been watching this, or health and safety practitioners, professionals out there that have been watching this going, right, I need to get on to starting this journey.

Yep.

What do they do? How. Does. How does it work?

So you can completely go and have a go at the B Corp assessment by yourself. If you just Google B Corp impact assessment, it will pop up. It's completely free to create an account. Look at the questions that you'd be, you know, as you set up an account, it asks you how big your business, you know, what sector you're in, blah, blah, blah. So all that's done, that's completely free. It's always been free. And I would hazard to guess it will always be free. And so many, many thousands of companies have taken that Assessment and not progressed any further. So that would be a great starting point. Just go and have a look at some questions, illuminate yourself. Wow. Didn't know that was a thing. Okay, let's. If it resonates or if you've been thinking about implementing something, this might just help you work out. Okay, well. Okay, well that makes sense. At least look like this. Great. Done. If you're really serious and you want to go in and do it, there's nothing stopping people from doing it by themselves. If you want some help, we'd love to help. And that's what we, that's what gets us out of bed in the morning and we're pretty good at doing it.

Nice, nice.

And then.

So you're kind of running a fairly lean team at the moment.

Yep.

Yeah.

So you and myself and three part time contractors. Yeah. So one admin assistant, Jelly, based in the Philippines and then Tam based here in Christchurch and Jess, who's currently in Mexico, who's. Yeah, she's had a bit of time away but she's just come back. She's helping us on a, a bit of a sales and marketing project as well as hopefully getting back on doing some consulting. Yeah, so they're pretty lean and yeah, we've got over the last probably two or three years really, really refined the process there and it's just, it, it works, you know, pretty much guaranteed results, subject to people doing the work. Yeah, usual story.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, so it's. We're in a really good spot actually at the minute.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. I'm just thinking this is kind of like a nice timestamp for you guys in your journey because I suspect based on what you're saying and the inevitable increasing demand that's going to come in a wave is, you know, great, hopefully. Yeah.

And grow good. That's the way, you know, when the busier we get, the better the world's getting. You know, that's a real, that's. That underpins everything that we do. You know, we just. And so the program that we run people through, the B Corp, we call it, be better. It's like use B Corp to be a better, better human, better business. You know, just do more good in the world.

So good. It's so good. And you've just. Oh my gosh, look, lots of ideas running in my head what you're saying, but that's something that I think in the health and safety space we've been struggling with for a very long time is the PR issue.

Yep.

It's like, and I'm sure many people have experienced this on the weekends is where, you know, you're at a barbecue, a neighbor's house or whatever and say, oh, hey Matt, nice to meet you. So what do you do? Oh, I'm a health safety consultants.

Next.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of I'm a B corp, I'm making businesses better, making communities better. That sounds more interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's something in that.

Yeah, I hear you.

Yeah, it's, it's tough when an industry's got a reputation or. Yeah, it's got a thought behind it, but yeah, I don't know, I'll see if I can think of. Give me some.

Well, for me, what I like is that you're combining various pieces of the puzzle. Actually, just for me personally, I see what you guys are doing is complementary to what we're trying to do.

Yep.

And it's inevitable. I suspect as time goes on that the health and safety manager, coordinator, advisor or the health and safety consultant will be spending more and more time with the environmental consultant or manager or the quality manager. We should be already, but ye.

And that's a big part of what we're about when we go through the B corp journey with people. The worst thing you can do if you're doing it by yourself is to have one person do it in isolation and then in a few months pop up and go, hey, we're a B corp. And the whole company goes, what's a B corp? No idea. Doesn't mean anything. It's about embedding that into the culture, into the DNA. And I always say to our clients, if your lowest paid part time worker is engaged by this B corp journey, then you've nailed it. And if they can go out and be having even a bad conversation about what's going on in the company, but at least they can have, they feel that they're confident to have a rough conversation around. Well, we're doing this thing. It's looking about how we perform socially and environmentally. That's all I know. But like if they understand that, then we've done our job of getting that. Because that's a big part of our initial piece with a client is we do a, we call it the kickoff session. We're very adamant about you need to get the whole company to come to this workshop and get everyone clued in with what is B corp, why are you doing it and what do we hope to get out of it so that you get that engagement? And maybe I don't know, maybe that's something to think about for Health and Safety, because it does affect everyone. You know, it's like, well, how do you get everyone? And, yeah, I guess for me, it's all about bringing it back to the put. Like, why should this thing matter to me? Well, health and safety is like, well, I want to go home tonight to my wife and kids or my husband and kids or whatever. You know, it's like, well, it should kind of matter to everyone, but I think sometimes the things that do matter the most to everyone can almost become run of the mill or, well, that. That should just be happening. So I don't want to have to. I don't know, there's almost something in that. It's like, it's so obvious that I don't want to be a part of it.

Yeah.

And. Or, I mean, I was. I was on the Health and Safety committee at. When I was at this company, Hampton Jones. It's like, it wasn't that much fun. It's just lots of data and, you know, it's like, yeah, how do we bring this? I guess, how can you bring more of the humanity, you know, make it get this where the marketing people need to come be involved.

Yeah.

Make Health and Safety sexy.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been having similar convers. It's. It's around going. Going back to the basics, which is we, as we as a species are. We're storytellers. Yeah. And I think for many of us, I think we've lost that skill.

Yep.

And I think we need to rekindle it ultimately. Hence why things like podcasts. What you've described is exactly the same approach as what we Advanced Safety do, is we bring the key stakeholders together and work through it. So it's not just, we're going to talk to Health and Safety Bob, and we're going to change some wording and a policy and expect that to change the culture.

Yeah.

It's so much more than that. Yeah. So good. Awesome, mate. So for those out there who want to get in touch and to find out more, how do they do that?

If you go to Growgood Co, if you look for Tim Jones, that B Corp bloke, on the Internet, if you don't find me, I'm having a chat with my wife because she's running my SEO for me at the minute.

Oh, she's doing a very good job then. If that's the case. Yeah, you're everywhere. Yeah.

But, yeah, I'm trying to. Yeah, I'm just trying to LinkedIn if you can't. Yeah, find me on in Tim Jones that be Cor bloke. But yeah, more than happy to have a chat and see if we can help.

Yeah, awesome mate. Well, look, thank you for. For today's conversation. No worries, man.

Thanks for having me in.

It's great to catch up with. Yeah, I suspect there's going to be a few more conversations on the horizon.

Yeah, we should do some scheming on this governance thing for sure.

Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Thanks man. Cool. Thank you.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp, how to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos, they're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.