Today marks 10 years since I pressed the ‘register a company’ button on the Companies House website – a full decade since I traded an organic turkey for our first logo and ventured out into the world of consulting.
It’s also 10 years since the Paris Agreement, 10 years since the UK agreed to phase out coal and 10 years since B Corp arrived in the UK.
In that time, everything has changed … and nothing. Greenheart’s values and mission are the same, but instead of one rookie independent consultant blagging his way from project to project, we are now a thriving ecosystem of true sustainability and responsible business experts.
B Corp has grown exponentially, while everything it stands for feels under attack. Sustainability professionals are knackered and conflicted, but keep fighting.
As we’ve grown, we’ve had the privilege of learning alongside an extraordinary community of clients, collaborators and friends. And so it felt only right, on this milestone, to reflect not just on where we’ve been, but where we’re going – together.
So, to mark our 10-year anniversary, I invited questions from across the Greenheart ecosystem. Thoughtful, challenging, hopeful ones. Here’s what came up – and how we’re thinking about it all now.
Greenheart’s logo and typeface were designed in exchange for an organic turkey.
Was there a single “aha” moment that sparked Greenheart – or was it more of a slow germination process?
Well, the honest answer is that I needed a limited company as an invoicing vehicle for my early days in independent consulting. But I recently dug out the ‘one-pager’ I wrote to articulate what I wanted my (therefore Greenheart’s) work to be:
“Tom’s mission is to support great organisations to build sustainable value & resilience across the triple bottom line.”
I exchanged an organic turkey for the design of our logo without really thinking it through, and it still serves us well.
So I guess the reflective answer is that Greenheart always knew what it wanted to be, and came into existence in spite of, rather than because of, me.
An early brand image. The name ‘Greenheart’ was pretty spontaneous – it came to me as I was filling in the form at Companies House. Of course, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. There is a tropical hardwood, chlorocardium rhodeii, common name ‘Greenheart’, that has traditionally been used in ship and house building. Fittingly, it’s also explosive when put under pressure.
In 2015, sustainability was still very much a niche function in the corporate world. What’s changed now that it’s everyone’s problem?
In many ways, it feels like a totally different topic now. Even just 10 years ago, there was still a dominant narrative that sustainability was just a cost; a necessary expense line related to compliance and investor relations. Now, the brightest companies are starting to understand that it’s a key driver of enterprise resilience and long-term value.
As a result, the levels of awareness are higher and the engagement of senior leadership teams is much better.
Consumer awareness and understanding is greater, but so is the prevalence of greenwashing.
We still have a way to go before sustainability is really baked into governance and strategy for most companies, and that’s what will be required to create lasting resilience at enterprise and economic levels.
It also means there is also a shift away from reporting for reporting’s sake, towards a more action-focussed approach to the subject.
Finally, I think there is a gradual but healthy folding together of previously distinct niches – like sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR), diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) – into a broader understanding of ‘impact’. That’s important, because they’re all inextricably linked.
You’ve said before that ‘sustainability isn’t enough’. When did that penny drop – and what would you say has replaced it?
Actually, that predates Greenheart. I was having supper with my good friend Jamie Butterworth, founding CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), in 2012.
He taught me that ‘sustainability’ is an inadequate term because:
- It’s not aspirational enough. If I said that my life’s mission was to have a ‘sustainable’ marriage, for example, I would expect a lot of rolling eyes. We should aspire for more: what is the AAA+++, the amazing, version of ‘sustainability’?
- Sustainability really won’t be enough in the long term: if you look at sustainability as ‘breakeven’ in profit and loss terms, it doesn’t give you much wriggle room. And with growing global populations who are going to want more and more ‘stuff’, we’re going to have to either think radically differently about how we produce and consume or find a way of building way more social and natural capital back into the system.
I think this is the logic that underlies the emergence of ‘regenerative business’, which has been one of the most interesting developments of the last decade.
For me, regenerative doesn’t just mean ‘beyond sustainability’ from a materially net positive point of view but – as I’ve written about lots on our blog – it looks for a new leadership paradigm; one that is better suited to the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times we live in.
Call it regenerative, or future-fit, leadership – it doesn’t matter because the language is always evolving. What matters is that we are now starting to understand that we can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.
Jamie also helped me understand the importance of framing – he had no time for anything that described itself as ‘eco’ or ‘green’ because it was so alienating to some audiences. Speaking the language of business and reconciling the profit motive with a responsible approach to business – which is what underpins the whole B Corp ethos – has really shifted the dial over the last 10 years. Jamie was way ahead of his time on this, but as Trump shows we still have a way to go before we have fully ‘crossed the aisle’.
Greenheart has worked with everyone from mochi makers to multinational cosmetics brands. Which sector has surprised you most – for better or worse?
I love that we work with companies in a huge variety of sectors. One of the privileges of consulting is the ability to take learnings from one into another, and to see and work with diverse people and roles.
Some sectors surprise me by how slowly they’re moving; others by how fast, but broadly their challenges and responses are the same. I think there is a universal reluctance to accept that true change requires fundamentally revisiting whole business models rather than just ‘doing less bad’, and a lot of bandwidth is taking up with tinkering at surface level.
There are also sectors where the established infrastructure is so hard to change that true innovation struggles to take hold. Look at plastic packaging, for example. Bio-based solutions exist but we’re trying to retrofit them into systems built for single-use.
The companies I admire most – regardless of sector – are those who genuinely can, and do, take a long-term approach to their decision making. There is some really exciting stuff going on in privately held businesses, with either intergenerational family dynamics or founders who have decided not to accept investors who are only looking for a quick return.
Do you think all the frameworks and acronyms – B Corp, CSRD, etc. – are helping progress or just giving everyone better spreadsheets?
Do you know, I think we’re getting there. I remember reading a report on the state of sustainability reporting in Greenheart’s fairly early days and it was such a mess. Companies were being asked by different stakeholders to report to different – and often conflicting – frameworks. These data-churning exercises were absorbing most of the time of brilliant people who should have been working to affect meaningful, strategic change. It has led to so much frustration, wasted time and, ultimately, lack of progress.
It still happens but:
- There is better harmonisation in the landscape, so sustainability frameworks are becoming more streamlined, better aligned and truly interoperable – a shift many of us have been waiting for. The latest B Corp standards are a good example of this; they are designed to be interoperable with a number of other standards like ESRS, CSDD, GRI, CDP and more.
- Regulation like we’re seeing in Europe is beginning to replace voluntary reporting, or at least raise the bar.
- Some frameworks have genuinely changed things for the better. B Corp for example, which unlike any of the others comes with both brand cachet and a global community, has got companies involved in sustainability who never would have considered it previously.
What’s one belief about business and impact you held 10 years ago that you’ve since composted?
That it would be an easy sell.
The logic for me is so clear: ‘You can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet, so better rethink how you do business or you’ll end up extinct.’ I struggle to understand why R&D budgets aren’t all being invested in resilience and that companies still have gaping holes in their risk governance when it comes to impact.
I also underestimated how resilient the take-make-dispose economy is. Its model is baked into every part of our lives and there are powerful interests working hard to maintain it.
I’m not a socialist and I do believe that the (right form of) capitalism can co-exist with a healthy planet and fair societies.
But we need to radically rethink our relationship with growth and profit, and have an economy that rewards wellbeing, not endless production and consumption.
Greenheart’s always mixed science with soul, building sustainability strategies that leaders can actually put into practice. What’s the biggest misconception people still have about what ‘good sustainability strategy’ really means?
That it should be separate from the broader business strategy.
In my view, no company should have a sustainability strategy.
But every company should have a business strategy that is built on a solid understanding (including comprehensive views of its stakeholders) of its material social and environmental issues. Only then can the full operating context be understood and resilient business planning take place.
You talk often about courage in leadership – what does that look like when the CFO’s giving you side-eye over budget?
Ah yes, the good old CFO side-eye. Well, I think true courage in leadership is the willingness to challenge the normalised assumptions of sustainability:
- ‘It’s just a cost – it’ll never pay back’
- ‘It’s a blocker’
- ‘It’s the woke brigade getting on my case again’
The CFO, and all their C-suite colleagues, needs to understand that sustainability is the biggest opportunity since the industrial revolution. Getting senior buy-in isn’t about pitching sustainability as a moral extra; it’s about reframing it as core to long-term business value – the strategy for future-proofing everything you care about.
Sustainability is:
- Security
- Resilience
- Prosperity
for you, your business and your children’s future.
But that’s not the truth we’ve all been educated to believe – every message, policy and incentive rewards short-term success. From primary school we are taught to become little engines of GDP and that’s the only measure of success any government (apart from Bhutan, and possibly Scotland) ever talks about. It ignores what really matters to people; health, wellbeing and happiness for which endless consumption has become such an effective (and profitable) proxy.
If you could hijack every CEO’s LinkedIn feed for one post, what message would you beam straight into their consciousness?
That success comes in many forms other than just profit.
Health, wellbeing, opportunity for your children, personal development, community, love. These are the things that really matter.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs could do with a darn good dust off and to be on the syllabus of every school.
Ten years in – what still gets you out of bed in the morning: optimism, outrage or really good coffee?
Mostly coffee…but also my kids, who don’t yet appreciate how hard people are fighting for them to inherit a fair, just and resilient future.
And, of course, the amazing Greenheart team – brilliant, brilliant, committed people who bring their whole selves to our work and keep pushing through frustration, uncertainty and challenge.
And finally; as you look ahead, what does your crystal ball tell you the next 10 years hold?
What, like the USA rejoining the Paris Agreement and leading the fastest and deepest decarbonisation programme ever seen?
Why are you laughing?
OK, well I think and hope that we’ve seen the worst of the regressive ‘drill, baby, drill’ leadership disaster and that the world will slowly come back to its senses and drive policy and regulation in the right direction.
I think businesses will continue to feel the effects of climate change and social inequity, particularly through supply chain disruption, and start to take evasive action. I think this will go beyond net zero targets now and start to look much more like adaptation rather than mitigation. So, perhaps more onshoring of operations and production, more investment in physical risk mitigation.
I also think capital will continue flooding into green tech, particularly renewables; that train has already left the station and countries like China are sensibly following the money.
What I really hope for, of course, is that political and business leaders really rise to the challenge, question the status quo more deeply and take radical action to transform the game.
A fair, just and regenerative economy is possible; the B Corp community has shown that. We now need those courageous leaders to step up to the plate and normalise a better way of doing business.
Celebrating 10 years of Greenheart – and a decade of B Corp in the UK too! In 2017, we became B Corp #125 in the UK and the first in our home county of Devon. I also completed the second cohort of B Leader training, joining one of the original groups of consultants trained by B Lab to guide companies through certification. Proud to have been part of the early movement shaping how businesses embed sustainability for real impact..
Greenheart’s early messaging
