The Notebook: UK businesses must realign profit with purpose

Where the City’s movers and shakers have their say. Today, Simon Milton, founder of Pulse, takes the notebook pen to talk about the urgent need to rebalance the pursuit of profit with purpose

Time for bigger and bolder ideas

Mid-way through the general election run-in, we continue to hear endlessly about taxes and mass immigration but worryingly little about the decline in public services or climate change, loss of biodiversity or rising inequity.

I sit in the world of business. Cards on the table, I don’t fully understand how a bill works its way through parliament or the inner complexities of the Civil Service. However, what I do know is that businesses have stepped away from having grand visions for how they are going to help us build a new sustainable and fairer world and those bold individuals who do step up often end up losing their jobs. Many commentators will tell you that things like ESG are kicking in and real change is afoot. Yet I’d argue that a rather timid business community is reflected in the lack of bold and ambitious thinking from either of the main political parties.

I have been operating in the purpose space for more than 20 years and in those early days, business talked about putting a price on carbon, for example. Yet from my perspective very little has actually changed in that time. There is no price on carbon – let alone a price on water, air quality, protecting nature etc.

The one thing business is good at is spotting an opportunity in the market. But even as business pioneered offshore wind, nobody in the Treasury had worked out that none of the equipment was made in the UK and how that could be stimulated. And as we talk about creating new low-carbon energy hubs in places like Hull or Teesside, what appears to be lacking is the vision for a much broader sustainable world where all parts of the society can thrive. This so-called massive shortage of green skills should not just be about replacing gas boilers but about reinventing everything we do so our economy can flourish.

We need business leaders with the courage to have one foot in the future (purpose) and one foot in the now (profit). And we need government to be aligned with that and creating the right policy landscape to support it. Currently, the scales are weighted far too heavily towards profit – a realignment is absolutely critical.

Change from the ground up 

Four years ago, I was on a call with a senior executive at the UN talking about the limitations of his own organisation addressing climate change and the wider sustainable development goals. He then went on to talk about the failings of the nation state to catalyse the level of change needed. I don’t wholly agree with that view, but I left the call realising I had missed something. It feels obvious now, but a huge amount of the change required to build a more sustainable and fairer world must take place from the ground up and in the community.

As a result, I co-founded a not-for-profit initiative called Moving Beyond to bring together business, investors, civic society and government to help accelerate the transition to net zero 2035 and more sustainable ways of living. At the heart of Moving Beyond is an experiment. It is ever evolving and learning how it can have the greatest impact. We have an extraordinary group of corporates who help to fund the initiative, but the magic happens when we are together, often in highly challenging parts of the country, deeply listening to each other.

New ways of living

Deep within the woods of the county of Ceredigion, Wales and the banks of Tees, 80-odd people from the local community and our corporate partners came together to share stories and to support each other in accelerating the energy transition and new sustainable ways of living.

Quote of the week

The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.

The late John Schaar Professor Emeritus, University of California. 

A film recommendation

Aged 59 I joined a book club. We were asked to read The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis. I feel like a philistine, but I found the book hard work. And the story just did not hang together for me. However, when we went to see the film – wow. An artistic masterpiece. One of the greatest movies I have ever seen! Even the opening credits make you feel uncomfortable as the screen is held for over two minutes, creating an awkward discomfort. The power of film. The unspoken word. The cleanliness of the commandant’s house next to Auschwitz. The fact you could not see the true horror taking place over the garden wall as the dog ate the picnic. Genius.