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Yiuwin Tsang
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast.
Yiuwin Tsang
My name is Yiuwin Tsang and I'm part of the Beautiful Business team. And this week, I was joined by Nicole Green. Nicole is a co founder of Catch a communications agency for impact driven brands and leaders of high growth businesses. Nicole is a firm believer that businesses have the power to do good. It is on this belief that she founded Catch, a certified B Corp, where an international team of communications consultants working on campaigns spanning food and drink health, sustainability and finance to shape conversations and drive meaningful change from campaigning on inclusivity in the period industry, to unpicking greenwashing and promoting transparency in supply chains. Her background and journalism inspired her career in PR. And as seen her develop award winning media campaigns, strategies, and offer counsel to global business leaders. She is passionate about inclusivity in workplaces, and gender equality in business, and as a commitment to building a flexible, diverse and progressive working environment. I hope you enjoy the discussions. What does it mean to communicate with integrity to you? What does that mean?
Nicole Green
I mean, I think this comes back to the point of intentionality, and authenticity. And I think what's really important for me with this conversation around, you know, mission and purpose is not to scare people off from trying to do it, because they're not doing it perfectly. But as long as you're doing it in a way, which has its very foundations in the day to day activity of your business, I would say that is with integrity. So what we don't want to see is brands putting a shiny wrapper around what they're doing, which tells a story which you unravel, and it becomes, you know, a horrible mess inside. My metaphor lost its way a little bit there. But it's this idea of, of essentially baking everything into the DNA of your business, like some businesses, the very reason for their existence is social impact. So you would hope that that has as much integrity as you possibly could have other businesses are operating in the world, and then want to do as good a job as possible on environmental social purpose. And for those businesses, it's a question of, okay, when I talk about these things to the world, is that based in reality, and for me, that's where the integrity comes from, like, are you standing up to everything that you're putting out into the world? And for me, I think that can be also as much aligned to transparency, and how honest Are you being about where you're going wrong, where you're going, right, the changes that you want to make, which is why, you know, stuff like B Corp, I think is really helpful because it enables people to be open about the goals that they want to set and hold themselves accountable. So it's not one thing, but what would you deem to be a person with integrity, its honesty, its reliability, you know, and it's acting with authenticity again, right?
Yiuwin Tsang
I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners, Krystal hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services are super fast and super reliable, and they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners at Beautiful Business, and we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them.
Yiuwin Tsang
Back to the podcast. And I feel like that's almost up to what you're saying, Nicole about, you know, is it coming from a place of authenticity? Is it genuine? Is it real, you know, deep inside that organisation? Because you're right, the next part of this question was about the dangers of rainbow greenwashing. And why that is so dangerous, but as you say, unravels very, very quickly, if it is coming from a place of inauthenticity, if it is a cynical piece of PR or comms to try and ride on a bandwagon or to try and take advantage of something for typically commercial game.
Nicole Green
Yeah, I mean, I think people are now by people. I mean, consumers citizens are increasingly sceptical of brands making claims about environmental or even health, social purpose. And the damage that can be caused when that unravels to your point is that you can take a brand down, so it's a real commercial risk. That said, that should not be the reason why you do these things. So from my perspective, other people would say, it doesn't matter why someone does it as long as they're doing the right thing. But to link back to integrity, I think if you're only doing something because you don't want to get caught out, that doesn't have much integrity. So, the dangers of rainbow washing at certain Charge up, like, brand damage, you know, people are going to essentially, you know, tear you down on social media call you out. People vote with their wallets. We've heard it all before. But the reality is that to do those things properly, like we've said before, is really, really hard work. And you have to hold yourself accountable. And it's a constant everyday challenge for brands to make sure that they're living up to those claims. So I guess my kind of point would be, start with the basis of the day to day action you want to take as a business, and then see where that leads you in terms of communication, rather than saying, we want to do something around Pride Month, like, what can we do? Right, so we actually wrote a blog article on Rainbow washing. And the number one thing we said was, first of all, this is a 365, day, year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, campaign, not just a one month campaign, but then also, you know, make sure that you're doing things every day, like paying the people that you work with equally, you're including the voices of those people from those communities and those groups that you're supposedly representing and campaigning for in every single decision that you're making in the business, that you're hiring people from those groups, that you're showing your work transparently in terms of the progress or otherwise that you're making. And that will start you on a journey so that you're avoiding rainbow washing and green washing. And it comes back to this point of like putting a pretty bow on top of something, it's that you just you can't get away with it as much anymore. That said, to counter that view, I thought the BrewDog campaign around the World Cup was really interesting, because they put out a poster, which was essentially their anti World Cup poster, saying that they were going to make charitable donations from sales of one of their beers, they were taking active stance that from the World Cup being hosted in Qatar, yet at the same time, supplying Qatari hotels with BrewDog, showing all the games in the BrewDog bars. And obviously, they as a brand have quite a complicated history in terms of their own operations and the actions of their leadership. And a lot of people said, Look, people were to my BrewDog, it was a successful campaign, they were still donating some money to charity, so it's okay. Whereas for me, like that has no integrity. And I don't think that they are a company that is social purpose at their heart. But I'm within a bubble in this world, and many people in the street are going out and drinking and brooder bars and don't really care. So, you know, I think I have a view on the world, which says the you know, that we're gonna hold all these brands accountable, whether that is yet to be the case completely? I don't know, I think it's a really interesting debate.
Yiuwin Tsang
I think it is, I genuinely do. And I'm wondering whether or not you know, society as a whole is seeing this shift, you know, where people, as you say, are voting with their feet, they're voting with the money, they're making consumer decisions based on whether or not the brand values align with their own values, we've been talking in our house about eventually getting an electric car at some stage. And we're toying with that No, one that's big enough for us to do that. And we basically got down to, you know, it could be a Tesla, or it could be a Skoda or something like this. And Musk basically made my mind up, it's not a Tesla, because of the way that he is handling his takeover of Twitter at the minute and his kind of the way that he sees, what did he say, longer hours at higher intensity, you know, Twitter 2.0, you're in or you're out. And this whole kind of like, you know, the sort of approach just does not align with where I'm kind of coming from in terms of the working ethos. But I do think that as you said, the Buddha was a really good example, I think it was really good case of where there's this kind of you put a very diplomatically is quite complex. I think it is hypocritical in many ways. You know, when you see some of the behaviours that the founders did in terms of kind of renaming pubs and things like this, which went against their kind of punks ethos, and things like this. And I think it comes back to inauthenticity, you know, they're saying one thing that behaving in a different way. And that is going to put people off, it has to put people off. Yeah,
Nicole Green
I think we have to be really aware here as well of like, this was my point about the bubble is the place of privilege in which we're coming from to make these decisions. Because now more than ever, there are people going into food banks or a supermarket. And they don't have the privilege of being able to choose which meat supplier they pick from because they have more ethical standards. So I think we're a very small section of society, not only who can afford to care about these things, but actually do but I think over time that will grow. And I think it will force business in the right direction. But yeah, I mean, for every business doing good, there's a business that doesn't care seemingly and is making lots of money. So I can't say that the profit and purpose job is done yet. And I think it definitely is still. It's like the wellness industry, right. It's the worried well, the people who are really privileged you can make these decisions. You carry the most, but hopefully at some point that you know, that will slowly become more mainstream.
Yiuwin Tsang
Yeah, no indeed and absolutely and a fair point to make, you know, indeed of, you know, of our kind of position of privilege. You're absolutely right. By the way, I cannot afford a Tesla, I'm just saying, those were the cars that we would go for if we were able to cause our crew criminally expensive. And I keep telling myself that the car batteries are awful for the environment on are made by child slaves. So as far as I understand it, the carbon footprint of cars is almost like a third in terms of production, a third Jr, to use and and a third Genesis disposal. So if you are driving an old car, you are better off keeping it on the road for as long as you can, because it's going to cost a lot of carbon to get rid of it. So that's my kind of justification for driving around in a bank. But I did want to ask you a bit, I mean, we've kind of diverted quite a bit away. And we've talked quite a lot around authenticity and around kind of avoiding kind of rainbow and greenwashing. But I just want to pull it back to what can we focus on as business owners, and what can business owners kind of focus on in order to, I suppose, ensure that when they communicate, they do communicate with integrity. And the other part of that is what can you do to hold yourself accountable, if you are going to when you do communicate with integrity,
Nicole Green
I think this goes back to everything that I've said in that, like, before you communicate anything, especially if you're specifically keen to talk about inclusivity or purpose that you do a full and proper audit and understand where you're measuring up as a business. So, you know, often that requires getting somebody externally in and you know, if you're developing an EDI policy, have you got people of colour Have you got people you know, who have a disability contributing and feeding into that policy, you know, if you're looking at sustainability, like have you got somebody externally to come in and audit for you. And it's boring, and it's hard, like it took us a year to go through our B Corp application. But the things that we learnt there gave us a really solid grounding, in order to set more evidence based goals and made me then as a result more confident in talking about where we wanted to be as a business and where we stand on these policies. Because before you start talking about your mission, as a business, you need to understand how that lives in reality, you know, is it just the shiny wrapper, and the vision? Or is it something that you're doing every day, and I think it's very easy to think that you, as a leader, you need to be communicating all the time and putting your thoughts out into the world, you know, even now, more than ever, I think. But if you're going to be talking about anything within the realm of, you know, impact, I think you need that evidence base to be able to do that. So that would be my first sort of point is just look internally and do the work internally to see, you know, how that measures up to what you want to be as a business, and be really honest about the progress that you need to make. Don't be scared of doing things wrong, because nobody is doing this right? You know, very few people have it all locked down. If any, you know, take Patagonia's recent, you know, signing over the company to charity had as many haters as it did lovers. So, you know, I think he is the god of purpose. So yeah, I think be willing to take some flak as well, right? If you're going to be bold, and you're going to put a VR into the world that is radically inclusive, or you know, particularly brave to drive change, then you're going to have to accept that some people aren't going to like it. And it is really difficult people in the business might not like it, because this goes back to the point of inclusivity, in today's world probably means taking something away from someone else. Because the system's rigged towards certain types of people. So you're going to have to make uncomfortable decisions, and you're going to have to upset a few people potentially do it in a gracious way. But there's not necessarily a super smooth process to be able to do that.
Yiuwin Tsang
That's one of those, all that does anything, anything worth doing. Not always easy, and you're right, but going into with your eyes wide open is so important, right, and knowing that there's going to be a challenge. And also, I guess, to the point is that we can't stop talking about how important diversity is how important inclusivity is. So as he said, having the facts having you know, the audits, having the stats, and that kind of insight, and that information to hand helps you remain accountable.
Nicole Green
Honestly, I think the leaders that I respect the most are the ones that say, we're doing this really well here, this is where we need to get better, and being really transparent about it. And I don't think enough leaders do that. I heard the founder of a sustainable brand called seat on radio for the other day, talking about biodegradable plastics in the kitchen. And then she followed that up with a LinkedIn post which was really well thought out, linking back to research that showed the products that they're making aren't where they would want them to be yet, but they're still better than the alternatives and they're still working on it. And this is the journey that they're on. And I was really taken with that, because I was like, you know, she's gone through this really interrogative interview with Evan Davies on radio four, she could have just been really defensive, or aggressive and saying, you know, we're trying to do a good thing. This is why we're so amazing. But actually taking that stance of saying no, actually, you know, we're all learning. And this is where the progress comes. And taking a really transparent kind of pragmatic approach was super powerful and authentic. And I was really impressed with that. And I think more leaders could probably do a bit of that. It doesn't necessarily come to all entrepreneurs, but like humble approach to progress, which is something that I tried to do a lot in our agency is just constantly learn, and accept that it's okay to change perspective and grow and evolve over time.
Yiuwin Tsang
And you're right, we can't approach things in such a binary, you either do or you don't kind of way in many senses, it comes back to that piece about intention and deliberate in terms of being deliberate intent of your approach. And as you say, accepting that it is progression, and it steps to in the right direction. Sometimes we have to move a little bit faster. Definitely. But that's not to say that, you know, the folks that are making progress where they can, should be discounted.
Yiuwin Tsang
Yeah, exactly. And we're very quick to tear people down. And I always like to see the good intention and people. So somebody did an interview the other day to call a friend of mine, he said that always assume best intentions, which I thought was a lovely turn of phrase, you know, and there's really nice way of kind of looking at it, maybe sometimes you might be misplaced, but there's a lovely outlook on life, and was a phrase that somebody gave to me when we had a newborn of my husband. Okay, and I must say, it didn't always remember it, but it was helpful.
Yiuwin Tsang
Great stuff. I've got a question here about the more diverse voices partnership, Nicole, tell us a bit more about it. Why is cash involved? And what's the purpose of it?
Nicole Green
Yeah, so more diverse voices is a communications company set up by a god called Emily. And she works specifically with organisations on helping them develop inclusive communication. So that might be working with them on their own EDI policies, it might be working with them to ensure that they are being inclusive of all voices as they're developing communications campaigns. So really, we partner with her as a kind of an expert to help really embed that inclusive thinking into campaigns and campaign thinking, something that we all always have done as an agency. But were kind of we're looking at that kind of creative campaign external element. She's often looking at the real granular detail in terms of what's the right language to use in this situation, how do we make sure that we're representing the voices of these communities in a really respectful way? And building in that kind of robustness to the inclusivity aspect of the work that we do?
Yiuwin Tsang
Fantastic. It must be really rewarding partnership to be involved in it must be some really interesting people to get to work with.
Nicole Green
Yeah, I mean, it's just to be honest, it's kind of mostly working with Emily and she's brilliant. She's you follow her on LinkedIn. She's fantastic LinkedIn creator and gives a lot of advice in terms of how to bake inclusivity into your communication strategies. And yeah, I would definitely look her up.
Yiuwin Tsang
Big thank you to Nicole Green from Catch for joining us on this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk