B the Change with Andrew Davies [Podcast]

Andrew Davies: There is need for business to do things differently. , whether you are particularly motivated by a climate emergency that’s unfolding rapidly or, or other aspects of the sort of negative externalities that business creates that’s a hugely motivating factor, but there’s also, I think, a massive opportunity. I mean we are at a time where businesses can scale and cross borders and solve problems faster and at a greater scale than many governments, which is both simple, potentially terrifying in some respects, but also a huge opportunity.

Kerry Boys: Welcome to the leaders for good podcast, where we celebrate and learn from the leaders, making positive change for people, the planet and their organisation. We also talk to world-class experts who share their insights, knowledge, and tools to help you make it happen at leaders for good. We believe all organisations can profitably integrate doing good into their business.

Phil Cross: Hi everyone, we are super excited to be sharing this inaugural episode of the Leaders for Good podcast with you all. And equally excited to be kicking things off in style with our first guest.

We are joined by Andrew Davies for this conversation. Andrew is CEO of B Corp Australia, a role in which he found himself after a career spanning many years in commercial law and executive management. And as you’ll come to learn in this conversation, Andrew is deeply passionate about the role business can and indeed should have in improving the world and contributing positively to change.

In this conversation. We look through the lens of B Corp and the B Corp Certification to explore the many ways in which businesses can think about doing more good in the world. From planning to leadership, to the power of community for driving positive change. And how businesses can avoid pitfalls on this path and the path to certification. If that’s something you are looking at doing. We also find out what’s next for B Corp and how they’re thinking about evolving, growing, and driving a more positive impact as an organisation. A really rich conversation and one Kerry and I thoroughly enjoyed. And we you will too.

So without further ado, we bring you this conversation with Andrew Davies.
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the leaders for a good podcast. Very excited you have Kerry Boys. Hello studio with me. And we are in an actual studio as well, cuz we’re we’re professionals. , I’m Phil cross and we are very fortunate today to be joined by Andrew Davies. Andrew is the CEO of B Corp Australia. One of the organisations, we have a great deal of admiration and respect and, and affinity for. So we count ourselves very, very lucky that Andrew was gracious enough to give us some of his time today.

Andrew, how are you going? How does today find you?

Andrew Davies: Very good, thank you. We’re hopefully at the tail end of a long period of lockdown in Melbourne and looking forward to getting a little bit more human interaction in the near future, but I’m very well and great to be here.

Phil Cross: Fantastic. And yes, we’re all, we’re all hoping, we’re all hoping Victoria gets rest by sooner rather than later. Andrew, we’ve got a laundry list of questions. , some of which we may not get to today, cuz Carrie and I had a bit of a brainstorm beforehand and were super, super curious about a lot of things to do with B Corp.

But I guess as a lead in a little bit about you, how, how do you find yourself doing the work you do? What’s the what’s the story?

Andrew Davies: Yeah, look, I think lots of different elements, good fortune good dose of privilege and right pace right place at the right time. I think if I’m giving myself some credit it’s, it’s, you know, I’ve had a willingness to embrace change at different times in my career. I’ve gone through everything from being starting off as a corporate lawyer, moving into roles in a listed company, different management roles. I’ve run a family business and a family office, and I’ve started my own business. But I reached a point in 2018 where I sort of sold out of a couple of businesses and was really looking for another big change in direction.
And I found myself talking to a lot of particularly private equity, investment funds and, and exploring different management roles and finding myself increasingly drawn to, to the, the space of impact investment looking at different businesses that were really involved in, not just sort of making profit but solving problems.
And I found that a fascinating sector and to, to cut along boring story short, sort of one conversation led to another and this role came up and I was fortunate enough to grab it. And for us, it’s, it’s a lot about both growing a movement and community businesses, but also making our own organisation sustainable and successful and capable of growth.

So as a not-for-profit we face many of the same challenges as any organisation does, and hopefully bringing some of that diverse experience to bear and creating a model that we can grow and scale here.

Phil Cross:Beautiful. Awesome.

Kerry Boys: Great. And we, as Phil mentioned, we love B Corp. We really see that B Corp is the absolute pinnacle of organisations that are doing good for the world. Although we have a lot of love for B Corp. I think there’s probably some leaders out there that may not have yet heard of B Corp. Would you be able to give us a quick overview of why you guys exist?

Andrew Davies: Yeah, sure. Look. I mean, and I should just say as well, I’m in awe of B Corps as businesses and I’m still just, over a year into the role still have days where I feel very much like the imposter because the reality is people that run and own B Corp are business people with a real difference. I mean, a B Corp is a business that’s been certified to meet the highest standards of social, and environmental performance. They’re businesses that measure and, and manage their impact. So that’s impact on the environment community, their workers and suppliers and they adopt governance models that are designed, to effectively voluntarily hold themselves to account. That’s what B Corps are. What it’s really all about is the idea of using businesses a force for good. So we’re, we’re pretty well familiar. I think a lot of people with the, the poor practices of businesses and we, we routinely see on the news that businesses are named and shamed for getting things wrong.

And that’s a really important dialog. Equally important is to really understand how can businesses have a positive impact. How can they change what they do and how they do it? And what really is so interesting about the concept is that it can unleash an enormous amount of change, an enormous amount of power in really focusing on designing businesses to have a positive impact, not a negative.
So, so when you see a big corporation you know, that that business is, is designed to be different. And the fact that it’s a certification means that we, as a third party, have run the certification process to actually verify that that business is different. And I think that part of it is, is just as important.

We’re in a world where. Lots of businesses, claim lots of things. And we have to navigate a, a busy world of marketing and advertising and messaging, and we’ve gotta find the businesses that actually stack up. So that’s where certification comes into it as well.

Kerry Boys: Yeah. Great. Love it. And are there any great Aussie brands that people might not have heard of that are BCOs any surprise B Corps?

Andrew Davies: Any surprise B Corps? Well, I suppose that’s very much in the eye of the beholder. Look, there’s some great Australian brands brands like Intrepid group, Intrepid Travel, Keep Cup would be very familiar to people. Keep Cup’s one of those great businesses that has become a I forget the word for it, but that, that virtually any non-disposable or reusable coffee cup these days is called a Keep Cup.

Kerry Boys: Yep.

Andrew Davies: Because Keep Cup really blazed that trail. Similarly Australian Ethical Investment, one of the first retail ethical super superannuation funds, more recently businesses like Envato great software startup that’s really achieved great success. Just become a B Corp. And Bank Australia as well has just become a B Corp.

In New Zealand we’ve got Kathmandu. I was gonna mention that because they’re technically now based in New Zealand, but a brand that really started off in Australia.

And recently in New Zealand, we’ve just certified Synlait, which is a very large dairy business or a milk nutrition company that develops dairy and milk products all around the world. So really huge business and very well known in New Zealand.

Kerry Boys: Amazing. And how many B Corps are there in Australia?

Andrew Davies: So in Australia and New Zealand. So we look after the Australia and New Zealand region there’s just over 300 split, roughly 90% Australia and 10% New Zealand. Although the New Zealand region is growing at currently at a sort of faster relative rate than Australia. Globally, there’s just passed 3,600. So we’ve got about just under 10% of the world’s B Corps in our region. And growing rapidly all around the world.

Phil Cross: Cool. And I was wondering, Andrew, could you talk a little more to the certification aspect because there are lots of approaches that businesses take to to, to doing good in the world. You know, there’s ESGs and CSRs and conscious capitalism and a triple bottom line and you know, long, long laundry list of of things.

Why, why does B Corp lean heavily and, and, and, you know, center around a certification?

Andrew Davies: Yeah. And look, those organisations that you’ve listed are all really important parts of a, of a comprehensive framework and of many different approaches that businesses can take. What, what sets us a little bit apart or what our focus is is, is a couple of things.

One is it’s. It’s the rigor. We present a very challenging process for a business to go through, to get certified. It’s challenging because it’s very wide-ranging. So it’s also holistic. We look at all aspects of the business as operations and a good example, to illustrate that point is that you might have a product that’s Fair Trade Certified and Fair Trade Certification is, is a really important organisation that does great work all around the.

But just to illustrate the difference, Fair Trade focuses more on a product or a raw ingredient, like coffee or chocolate so that you can call your product Fair Trade Certified. If you are sourcing those ingredients, meaning certain requirements, which is fantastic. The difference with a B Corp is that we look at all aspects of a business’s operation.

So we look at its business model. We look at its governance structure. We look at different aspects of its supply chain going beyond just its own operations into its suppliers as well. We look at its impact on the local communities in which it operates. And it sets a level of standards that is both wide in terms of covering all aspects, but also very high in terms of being a very challenging, very high bar to achieve.

So it’s, that rigorous and holistic nature that really sets it. The idea of certification is really about creating a trust mark too, to enable businesses, to brand themselves differently, to really show anyone who’s interested. And that includes internal stakeholders like employees. To show that this business is different and it’s a verified point of difference that it’s gone through that third party element of verification, which as I said earlier, I think is only growing in importance as more and more businesses, cotton on to the need to talk about why they exist their purpose.

We also need to be able to navigate which ones are just talking about it and which ones are actually living at.

Phil Cross: And that whole system approach is, is so important and so aligned to, to our thinking and really. You know that no stone unturned in, in terms of the areas and the ways businesses can look to have more of an impact, do more good mitigate the harm they’re doing in, in kind of all aspects of their business model, I think is so important.

What’s the, what’s the top line process? You mentioned a lot of rigor there and a lot of you know, a high bar for businesses to, to reach, to achieve the certification. What does a, what does a typical certification process look like for an organisation.

Andrew Davies: Sure. So it starts off for us with our B impact assessment.
And there are a lot of bees in our world for obvious reasons. But the B impact assessment is a free, publicly available tool that any business can, can sign up to start using. And as the name suggests it’s an assessment. You’re essentially asking an online questionnaire that dives into lots of detail and lots of different evidence points to understand how your business is structured.

So there’s over 200 different questions. And as you answer those questions that potentially opens up more questions. So there are lots of different pathways. So that in theory, a manufacturing business based in China is, is gonna be answering different questions to an architectural practice based in Melbourne, for instance.
So that online assessment is really the starting point. And that’s about developing a, I guess, a, an initial understanding of how your business is is performing according to our standards. I say our standards because they are an objective set of standards. We have a new set of standards released every three years. We have an independent standards advisory council that helps set them, but they are standards. So in a sense, one of the challenges is you’re assessing your business against an objective set of standards and you earn points for the more you align with them.

So. That process starts off with undertaking an assessment. It, needs to be undertaken by someone with a really good level of understanding about your business so that they can answer them accurately. And then to simplify what most businesses have to go through is a process of improvement of, identifying, and using the tool. Where are the areas of, of our business that we can most easily improve? It might be developing some HR policies or changing some suppliers or reconsidering energy usage. So the idea is you realign your business, you redesign it to, to have a more positive impact in its design.

Then once you’ve achieved a minimum of 80 points out of a couple hundred on offer, you are then able to submit for certification. At that point, you go through a verification process, which is a bit like an online audit. So a sample set of questions is tested. You need to provide documentary evidence or in some cases for larger businesses, submit to onsite inspections in order to verify that your score is in effect legitimate. And that verification process itself can take months. It can be very complicated. , and the bigger the business, the more complex that process is, so that ultimately when you achieve certification, it’s got that, that trust mark behind it. It’s got that verification process. Hmm.

But we really encourage all businesses to simply start using the assessment. It’s a perfectly valid pathway to use the assessment to try and improve the design, and the impact of your business, even if ultimately pursuing certification is not your end game. Where we really encourage all businesses to simply get a sense of how we performing and this benchmarking data you can access as well as you go through that.

Phil Cross: Brilliant. And. Where do you see businesses typically coming a bit unstuck or, or kind of falling off on the certification process? You know, obviously the rigor and the standards that businesses have to have to meet a, a are quite high, where are the typical points where businesses yeah, struggle and, and your steer to a business, who are looking to go through certification that maybe they, they avoid those pitfalls on the path.

Andrew Davies: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think that the answer of course, is it varies, but one of the most common experiences is that a, a business typically outperforms in, in one aspect, and this is probably true of any business.

If you were to take an assessment of its social environmental performance. It’ll be performing really well in some areas and poorly in others, even businesses that have been designed from the ground up to solve a particular social problem to, have a really positive impact will find that there’s aspects of their business, that they simply haven’t thought too deeply about that maybe have they haven’t been that relevant to their operations.

And this is very much the case for startups. And it’s those areas that, that businesses have to sort of not quite go back to the drawing board, but, but get down to basics and say, well, how can we improve in, in that area that we might not have put a lot of attention to in the past. And that is as anyone who’s gone through change processes know that’s hard work. That’s quite gritty down in the weeds, changing processes, and that’s often where businesses get unstuck is that they find that if they’re willing to put the resources into, to changing areas that their business, that they hadn’t previously thought about, that’s the important and hard work.

One example is a, there’s a great small winery and distillery business in South Australia called Unico Zello, who are a B Corp, they’ve also got Applewood distillery. If you’re a gin fan, highly recommend it. They found that as a small business, they had to go and talk to the farmers who they sourced a lot of their fruit from in order to make wine. And they needed to help farmers. Document processes and procedures so they could in turn undertake their own B Corp Certification. And, you know, that’s an arduous process when you’re talking to primary producers who aren’t normally in the business, in the case of small farmers of, documenting, let alone even asking those farmers to change the way they farmed.

And Unico has had enormous success and built incredibly powerful relationships in their region through exactly that process. But, you know, that was a difficult process for, for them to have to go through as a small business. . So, yeah, I think it really comes down to that. The willingness to see through process change is probably the hardest thing to do.

Phil Cross: Fantastic.

Kerry Boys: And you’ve talked to us before about the community that exists as part of B Corp and how important that is in enabling change and helping people to move through that process. Could you maybe tell us a bit more about how that works and the benefits of it?

Andrew Davies: Sure. It’s it, it really is the kind of, for many B CORs, the unexpected part of achieving certification and at its most basic principle, it goes to the idea that hans are tribal creatures.

We like to find our tribe and we thrive when we’re surrounded by like-minded people who not only share our successes but also help us when we need help and our B Corp community is just that. So at its, at its best, when it’s really thriving you find that B Corp’s turn to each other first for working with each other, doing business with each other, sourcing, supplying from and to each other.

But then you also start to see B Corps collectivizing around issues to seek change. We’ve seen that as a global B Corp climate collective that is now made up of B Corp around the world who were instrumental in making a significant, commitment at COP25 last year for getting a group of it’s now I think over 700 businesses who’ve committed to net zero globally to really shift the dial on what’s possible for the business.

There’s a brilliant group in the US called the Dismantle Collective, which is a group of like-minded businesses, really focusing on ending white supremacy in business culture. So the idea that business leaders and owners can come together and think about using their collective force to drive change is another big driver  of community.

But for us as well, it’s, also recognizing that as an organisation.

So the organisation behind the B Corp movement is B Lab. We’re a, we’re a regional Blab as different Blab around the world. We can’t do everything that we want to achieve. And quite often it’s unleashing the power of businesses through our community that achieves much more change. And telling those stories is just as important as well.

There’s stories when B Lab, sorry, big corporations collaborate and work together. That are great examples of how to change from within businesses too. So yeah, it means a lot of different things. We also just get together and talk the usual stuff. And unfortunately at the moment, we’re not doing enough of that.

Phil Cross: The community aspect of all of this. This space particularly is really heartening. You know, we found that conversations with yourself and, B Corp with the conscious capitalism movement with the people involved with theory, you, everyone has a, such a, such a welcoming demeanor, because I think fundamentally we all know whatever particular methodology we use.

Everyone’s pulling in the same direction and kind of fighting for the same broad cause of, of, you know, purposeful impact in the world and doing more good. So yeah, more, more, more community, more, more interaction. . And, and is there a place people can find out about those specialist or those, those niche kind of those niche aspects of the community that you mention?

Andrew Davies: Yeah, look, I’m gonna sound very boring here, but head to our website is the best place to sort of find which in our is bcorporation.com.au and, and you’ll find probably the entry points there to different aspects, I think as well that there’s certainly a values alignment piece here, I mean, for me, This, this idea is, is really compelling. And when I found the opportunity to come, come closer to, it was really moved by probably equal parts, need and opportunity. I mean, there is a need for a business to do things differently. Whether you are particularly motivated by a climate emergency that’s unfolding rapidly, or other aspects of the sort of negative externalities that business creates That’s a hugely motivating factor, but there’s also, I think a massive opportunity. I mean, we are at a time where businesses can scale and cross borders and solve problems faster and a greater scale than many governments, which is both simple, and potentially terrifying in some respects, but also a huge opportunity. And you know, you’ve got some of the big tech companies in the world now that are arguably providers of public infrastructure. They didn’t seek that out, but that’s what they’ve become. And they’re at the hands of some charismatic founders, and through their own corporate structures effectively really run under the control, of either an individual or groups of individuals.

And if you actually think about that for a moment the power at the hands of some individuals who have no accountability to the general community is pretty extraordinary. And I think that sort of harnessing different ways to doing business is, is a great way to harness that power, to manage it without necessarily rejecting the idea that the for-profit model is bad, is somehow itself the problem.
I mean, I think that capitalism needs to be tamed and managed, not destroyed, I guess, is the simplistic way to put it. But capitalism has lifted, you know, so many people out of poverty in, in the last hundred years particularly. But there are some obvious flaws in the model that can be pretty easily fixed if we, if we have the will.
And to me, that opportunity is very motivating. And I know that that’s a big driver for many in the B Corp community as well.

Phil Cross: I think just reflecting on that, I think certification plays a really interesting role here, as you say. Small groups of very powerful individuals at the Helms of these organisations with, with tremendous influence on, on our quality of life and, and, and tremendous impact on society.

And we might look at say apple at the moment and think, well, you know, Tim Cook seems like a reasonable principled human being. And he seems to be doing a pretty good job stewarding that organisation, but we only have to look at certain, you know certain political powers in the world at the moment to know that a shift in leadership can very much change the tone of things overnight and, and such is true of organisations as well.

And I think to, to kind of play to the certification piece, an organisation that is holding itself to a certain set of standards beyond the, the control and beyond the power of just the leadership structure there, I think is, I think is interesting and a, and a, and a really valid argument for going down that path.

Andrew Davies: Yeah. And look, I think that that’s also a really important point to recognize that personal values and ethics play a massive part in this and that we can’t regulate our way to a, to a secure future. We need to accept responsibilities at an individual level, but we also need to build governance structures that recognize there’s a wider impetus.

So we’re very strongly in support of the idea that a company should embrace a public benefit purpose. A company should be in business to both make a profit and contribute a net positive benefit in so doing it, we also believe that companies should be committing via their company constitutional or whatever governing document that they have, that they will take into account stakeholders and their decisions.

It is increasingly what’s expected of business. and for a large company in particular to say, well, we’re not just going to react to those adverse moments where we might have been caught out. We’re actually gonna make a proactive commitment and build the structures in our business to take into account stakeholders is not only going to, I think clearly lead to a better world to live in, but crucially, for these bigger businesses, it reduces risk. It creates better and more consistent outcomes. We’re starting to see that in recognition of ESG factors in, in big finance deals, and when the banks and finances start to recognize that good external risk management leads to better long-term returns. Then I find that pretty exciting. And I think that that’s the magic here is that whilst I think personal values are really important and do drive this, I think starting to build governance structures that embed certain practices is where things start to really work for us.

And we’re seeing that already. I mean, there’s different approaches that businesses can take in different countries, and we’re certainly pushing very hard the idea that businesses in our region can and should be making clear commitments in their governing documents as to what they’re about and, and the way in which they’re going to conduct their businesses.

Again, it’s more than just advertising slogans. It’s about building actual commitments.

Kerry Boys: Yeah. And I love how you framed that around it being both a need. So I must have, because people are demanding it, both customers and your people internally, but then also this real opportunity and a business opportunity and the stats absolutely bear that out.

So we’d really love to hear what’s next for B Corp. Where are you guys? Are you looking at expanding? What are your, what are your plans?

Andrew Davies: Yeah. So look, we’re certainly experiencing a lot of demand and through 2020 it was a big question, I think, well, for any organisation in 2020 but we’ve found that we’ve seen a big increase in demand for our platform and for companies seeking certification, which gives us confidence that there is growing demand from business.

I think we’ve, we’re, we’re embracing. What has been a trend in the last couple of years. So beyond just this year towards much larger businesses seeking out certification, we’ve had to significantly reorganize ourselves to be able to cater for that. But you’ve got organisations like Danone, that’s made a commitment to get its entire global operations certified by 2025. Currently, it has various subsidiaries certified companies like Unilever also have many subsidiaries certified and we’ve just launched a global b Movement Builders program, which is designed, for large businesses to engage and make commitments towards improving their business, whether or not they eventually get to certification.

It’s about really embracing the idea that both small and large businesses can reorganize themselves to do better and we need to find pathways for all of them. Now that’s not without their challenges. So we have a lot of work to do in front of us to really make it work for lots of different size businesses.

But that’s one that I’m particularly excited to see, because when, when an organisation like Danone makes public commitments, that it’s going to try and do things differently without knowing that it’s gonna get there. That’s what I think is pretty amazing leadership. And that resonates across the world in different markets.

So it’s very not to dismiss the efforts of our smaller businesses, because they’re also doing things differently. It’s undeniable that it will create, I guess, more noise when bigger businesses also get involved. So that’s, that’s a big focus for us. I think you’re also gonna see increasingly organized collective action where B Corps are working to, to achieve change and particularly in the climate space. And that’s a growing part of our community in Australia and New Zealand.

So there are probably two, two quite significant changes that I’ve, or that are being accelerated as, as we speak.

Kerry Boys: Yeah. Amazing, such good news stories.

You talked a bit about businesses needing to make improvements. Of course every business has got room to move. No, one’s perfect. What are the improvements that B Corp are currently looking to make?

Andrew Davies: Do you mean what, what are we looking to make in the standards or ourselves?

Kerry Boys: Yourselves as an organisation.

Andrew Davies: Sure. Well, I’ll speak for our region. I think here rather than speaking for the entire world, but well I, we’ve got some, we’ve got some areas that we really wanna change our impact in our region. One, in particular, is around finding out how we can best support and, and really help drive growth in indigenous own businesses in Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, it’s a very different sector, significantly off the back of signing treaties and, and compensation arrangements that will be put in place that have enabled quite a few, very significant amount of businesses to be seed funded. And they’re now very large organisations.

In Australia we haven’t had that same evolution, but there’s a growing sector of indigenous owned businesses that really start off being founded on very different principles. And it’s a fascinating sector. And our first commitment is we need to learn more. We need to learn, you know, how we can help there or if we can help at all. So we’re going through a process internally of, of doing just that.
We also, as a global organisation, there’s a significant change that’s unfolding, particularly in the US around trying to structure as an anti-racist organisation. The US changed this year for all the reasons that we probably don’t need to go into, have been quite profound and an organisation like B Lab, which is already obviously structured as an, not for profit and looking to improve the world around it. Has really taken a significant pause and a moment to think about how it can restructure as not just an organisation that is itself, not racist, but is an organisation that is anti-racist. That is actually in its own design and operation, Improving the state of the world and in, in terms of race relations and I guess leveling the playing field and providing opportunities for people from BIPOC communities. It’s a massive issue in the US, and it’s really interesting to watch that space unfold as well.

And then there’s all the usual operational challenges that we have, like any organisation does. How can we improve our processes? How can we meet the new demand that’s coming to us and certify businesses faster, more efficiently whilst maintaining the rigor.

And then another one that’s really relevant for us is, is building our profile. We need more people to be aware of, of the B. And that’s, that’s an ongoing challenge and a big part of that is gonna be working with some of our bigger brands to really create consumer facing programs to drive that awareness.

Phil Cross: Fantastic. I think the lesson there and the outtake for me is, and certainly one of the principles we stand by is an organisation with a mission of doing good at its core, like B Corp and like B Lab, still looking for always looking for ways to do better to do more, to move with the evolution of culture, to move with the evolution of technology and to constantly seek those incremental improvements.

And I think. It’s all too easy for organisations and, and us as individuals to, to become complacent with, oh, we’re doing all this stuff, we’ve got this covered, we’re good. And I think that’s a mindset shift that I think if we can instill in businesses in Australia and New Zealand and beyond we will have done our part for kind of shifting the needle forward a little bit.

Andrew Davies: I know that that’s, that’s very close to your hearts in terms of pursuing you know, models to try and really focus on the individual because we also have to recognize that people, people move through life these days increasingly at multiple organisations and the idea that your experiences of one can inform change elsewhere is really, I think, undersold and underappreciated that organisations are made up of individual people and, and they can take a lot of that culture and that experience with them as they go elsewhere.

So, yeah, I think that the idea of empowering people to do things differently is really important. And it’s a part of B Lab that’s really blown me away too. Is the, you know, we’re an organisation that was established by three men in the US, three middle-aged white men. Who’d been successful in business in their own rights. They’re acutely aware of their own backgrounds, their own privilege and power. And they’re trying to structure this organisation to, to really spread that power around a global network. I’ve, I’ve found it personally really enlightening, but challenging coming from more traditional business structures.

It’s a privilege to be sitting in, in conversations with people from every continent and very different backgrounds. And seeing how things are done, where power is spread widely, we’re trying to work to principles based on sociocracy and really you know, collective decision making. It can at times feel slow, but you realize the power and in terms of really bringing different voices to the table in different perspectives.

And I think that people talk about diversity now, and it’s amazing how it’s become both simultaneously mainstream, but also I think runs the risk of becoming cliche conversation when it’s not really considered and thought through, because the power of bringing diversity to decision making is, is just better outcomes.

It’s just, you know, the undeniable that the outcomes you see are, are better when they’re informed by wider perspective. So that’s a big part of what’s really blown me away at this organisation and it’s privileged to be part of it.

Phil Cross: Absolutely.

And Andrew, you brought us neatly around by pivoting the conversation to the individual. And if you game for it, we’ve got a few closing, rapid fire questions in which the the questions are rapid fire, but the answers do not have to be just to let the, the audience into your world a little bit.

When you are not driving change and and, and kind of moving, moving business forward for the better through B Corp, what do you explore or obsess about on evenings and weekends?

Andrew Davies: Increasingly these days just being out would be, would be great, but look, I’ve got a couple of young teenage boys. Their, their sport has been put a lot on hold this year and I’ve decided I need to try and embrace their gaming world. So I’m a, I’m a new gamer trying to get better at much to my son’s amusement.

I’m an aspiring stand up paddleboard surfer and when I do get down to a beach, I’m the guy that’s falling off every two seconds. And I think that I’m desperate to get back to that as much as anything just to be outside and in the water. So but other than that, I live probably a pretty straight and boring.

Phil Cross: That’s beautiful. I love the standup paddle boarding thing. You just reminded me. I saw a photo on Instagram, the other day of a friend of mine who’s just moved back to Holland and people are standup paddle boarding on the, in the canals in Amsterdam. I, I wouldn’t dare. I’ve been there even if, even if COVID 19 has kind of caused them to clean up a little bit. That’s that’s. That’s a, that’s a dangerous move anyway. What causes are you personally passionate about? Do you have any organisations, charities, movements, causes beyond B Corp, obviously that you that you support that you’d like to give a, a shout out and an acknowledgement to?

Andrew Davies: Yeah. Look for me it’s a very general cause and it’s not one I spend nearly enough time personally contributing to, but I just believe very strongly that until Australia truly reconciled with its own history and understands the role that its indigenous culture can and should be playing , we simply, can’t probably, truly mature as, as a nation that speaks to opportunity. I think that there’s any number of terrible outcomes in our current society that, that need attention in that respect. But I really. I have an aspiration and one day I hope to do a lot more in that space, but I think to start off with, for me currently, it’s about education. I simply do not know enough. One book I’m reading at the moment is, is called ‘Sand Talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta. And it has just opened my eyes in so many ways to how little I know, but it’s, it’s provided such an interesting perspective on indigenous culture that, that I have no idea where I’m gonna go next on this, because I know that in my current work there’s, there’s a small contribution I can make through work and that’s great. But yeah, to me, I would really like to see Australia embracing the challenges in its history and embracing a true spirit of reconciliation.

Phil Cross: Wonderful that book has now just bumped its way up my two-read list, your, I think the fourth person to recommend that book to me. I listened to Tyson on another podcast relatively recently, actually, actually, we mentioned it in our, we did in our newsletter that went out today. He is a, he’s a fascinating and just, the way he was kind of articulating the pulling on indigenous wisdom to help think about and solve for some of our current global you know, global conundrums was yeah, it was wonderful. So, yeah, that’s definitely, now made it to the top of my reading list.

What’s one of the biggest changes you’ve made of recent times towards more sustainable living in your own life. And it can be big or it can be, or it can be very small, but just a, tweak you’ve made to your, your personal living.

Andrew Davies: Yeah. Look, I’m a pragmatist. Not a purist. There are heaps more I wish I was doing, probably minor steps. I’ve traded in a motorbike for an electric pushbike which is just, unfortunately, these days, again, not getting ridden, but up until recently I was riding into work every day on that and absolutely loved it.
Solved the sweat problem of not having to bother with showering and changing. And it’s amazing the growth that you are seeing, on the roads. It’s for mental health, riding an electric bike to and from work was just absolutely brilliant. So small change in that respect, but you know, for me, I’ve also, we’ve recently changed our house. Put some solar on the roof and I’m doing probably what every person does that has put solar on the roof. I’m getting quite excited by the data that’s coming off it and learning about power consumption habits. and looking to change quite a bit in that respect as well. It’s absolutely fascinating. The more you learn about your own power consumption that the real changes you can make are just literally things like timing. Changing when you do things can have a massive impact on your electricity bill, which of course is about dollars, but also just about using more renewables. So I think to me that that idea of those really big challenges around things like energy use, connecting it to individual behaviors is just incredibly powerful and solar suddenly gives you access to information you didn’t have necessarily before because you have this real tangible link with the, the power that you are generating. So that one’s been enjoyable for me.

Phil Cross: I should introduce you to my partner, Cat, she’s a, she’s an environmental engineer and she’s well, and truly all over this stuff. And , I think you two would have a fantastic conversation. So anyway, the Andrew. This has been, this has been wonderful and you’ve been very generous with your time. So thank you so much. Any parting thoughts, any asks of the audience and finally, where, where can people find you and, and learn more about B Corp?

Andrew Davies: Yeah, sure. Look, I think, you know, I, I think a great pace for anyone to start is, is the work that you guys are doing really thinking about leadership for good. And, and leadership’s a funny thing. We tend to think of leaders as people with high profiles, but you can exercise leadership in, in your daily life, in your local community on lots of different levels. You don’t need a formal office. And I think really. Once you accept that premise, you then need to think about, well, what does good leadership look like?

So I’d encourage people to talk to you guys and really start to understand that and, and unleash that potential. For B Corp, just head to our website, all our contact details are there, that’s the best place to track us down. And yeah, really encourage people who are in business, if you are, if it’s your business or you’ve got enough sway internally start the assessment. Otherwise, the most important thing to do is build some internal support for the idea of something like a B Corp certification. It’s not an easy ask. You need senior buy in. You need buy in across the business as well. So, you know, I’d encourage people to head to the website. There are lots of resources there we’ve even just developed an online short course that takes about an hour to do. A properly structured short course. We got help from Torrens University also a great B Corp, and you know, it’s a great way to get started before you head into the assessment, do the short course, and learn a bit about the kind of changes that you might need to make in your business.

Phil Cross: Wonderful. And thank you very much for the kind words as well. Kerry, anything else?

Kerry Boys: No, just a huge, thank you. It’s always wonderful talking about anything in this area and you’ve been amazingly articulate and excited to learn more and go and do that short course.

Phil Cross:Yeah, absolutely, good stuff. Well, thank you again, Andrew. Thanks, Kerry, and thank you to the audience for sticking with us and listening, and until next time.

Andrew Davies: Thanks for having me.

Phil Cross:Thank you so much for listening. If you found this episode useful, the best way to support us and spread the message is by telling a friend or a colleague, you can also give us a rating or a comment on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’d like to learn more about Leaders for Good and how you can start making positive change, head on over to leadersforgood.org and join our free community.