Another Friday, another reason why every business leader SHOULD be a Feminist!

Yes, it’s that time again. Friday has approached and here at Wellbeing with Cari, we are counting down our top 10 reasons why every business leader SHOULD be a feminist! Onto reason number 5 – every business leader should think sustainably for the future!

Is your business model sustainable for everyone in the organisation?

If you had to stop and think about this – perhaps you need to re-evaluate…

What is Feminism?

  • You do not have to be a woman to be a Feminist
  • Feminism is not about elevating women above men
  • Feminism is a movement that is in favour of equality and inclusiveness
  • If every organisation is run by a Feminist, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to change the current leadership – maybe just their thinking

Feminist Leaders should think sustainably rather than insatiably

If we are going to be true to our feminist principles then we need to extend our view of equality across the globe – it is no good carrying out actions here that impact on people in other parts of the world, or off setting our own carbon emissions by buying the quote of other countries – what a truly pointless thing to do – that idea must have been invented by a bank…

This means putting employee voice, community voice, customer voice at the centre of what we do. It also means thinking more in terms of teams and less in terms of hierarchy.

What is ‘sustainability’ in business?

Sustainability is part of the doughnut economics principles, which very simply demonstrate how we should be existing, every person, organisation and country, within the boundaries between social justice and planetary resources. Every human should have the right to a fair world without fear or oppression, and we need to live within our planetary means, and therefore, stop overshooting our budget in terms of damage to the ecosystem. A bank manager would look at the state of the world, if it were a bank account, and say, you have gone into overdraft, but there is nowhere from which you can borrow, so that’s it! Your line of credit has been cut. Funny how they are not doing that when it comes to our life support system … just saying…

In Mike Berry’s (Head of Sustainable Business at Marks and Spencer) TEDX Talk entitled ‘A Manifesto for a Sustainable Business Revolution’, he speaks about having the conveniences of modern life in our pockets, we take advantage of these things daily, however, what if we were to weigh up the cost of convenience with the cost of environmental impact?

The reality is that modern conveniences use up the Earth’s natural resources, the comforts that we all know and love are because of the availability of water, air and land.

So, how do we drive for meaningful change in businesses?

Businesses simply cannot afford to put off change anymore.

We need a change of thinking within businesses, moving away from the production of products and services purely for economic profit. Organisations must also provide evidence of their social values, in order to continue the use of Earth’s resources, an organisation should demonstrate how they wish to use them and whether they’re doing it for the good of everybody, opposed to filling the pockets of a few.

This means companies wanting to do business will have to accept the old status quo of doing business has changed, and changed for the better!

What’s next – developing a plan of action

Organisations need to throw away the old business plans, instead replacing them with a ‘3-step way of thinking’ – focusing on employee voice, community voice, and customer voice. We all know that profit is a major part of any business, you must gain a profit to be able to continue operating, however, organisations should be incorporating both people and planet into their thought-process to ensure sustainable business practices.

A simple five-step strategy for sustainable business practices or the CAROT approach:

C – Communication
A – Affective leadership/ autonomy
R – Relationships
O – Ownership
T – Trust

Collaboration within the organisation and partnerships with other organisations are key to tackling sustainability challenges, even if companies don’t understand why they should be sustainable, this will differentiate their business by giving them a competitive advantage.

Are you ready to welcome a more sustainable future?

That concludes No.5 of the reasons why every leader SHOULD be a Feminist… our next blog in the series will be published on the 02/04/21!