To watch this event, you can rent or buy the video here.
Thursday 14th May saw The Future Economy Network run another exciting interactive webinar applicable to anyone interested in sustainable business: Behaviour Change Within Your Business. The event was attended by over 40 delegates, from a diverse range of industries from travel to marketing, with a range of decision making abilities within their business. The event was kindly sponsored by Network members Double Retail, a responsible retail design company based in Bristol.
The team introduced everyone to the virtual events space and gave quick training on how to make the most out of the interactive webinar and networking opportunities. Once everyone was used to the space and had networked a little, the seminars began. Katherine Piper, Director of The Future Economy Network, welcomed attendees, highlighting the benefits of joining the Network and also sharing updates about The Future Economy Network’s Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap. Katherine also briefly ran through the plans for The Festival of Sustainable Business, where you can check out the video here.
First up, we welcomed Yolanda Berry from UK Behavioural Economics. Introducing the event topic, Yolanda set the ground work by explaining the limits to decision making. With every decision we make impacting our cognitive load (our “brain battery”), we often stick to the same decisions to keep the cognitive load freer. This can be likened to school uniforms and children’s ability to keep attention. These same decisions, our bounded choices, are made by our experiences – which could be bias, but nevertheless are easier than making new choices. Yolanda explained how sleep is the key to recharging our “brain battery” (cognitive load), emphasising the importance of health and wellbeing on decision making. She went on to explain the Behavioural Insights team’s “EAST” acronym (easy, attractive, social, timely) – how using this framework allows a company to create an effective advert that supports your behaviour. She then looked at how employers can assist their employee’s behaviour change to reduce the company’s carbon footprint. With a huge risk of overwhelm, it is important to find out what employees are most passionate about (the low hanging fruit) and encourage this. Yolanda finished her presentation by suggesting examples of work based behaviour change that reduces the risk of “business as usual” post-COVID; for example, if an employee is going on holiday to Ibiza, an employer can pay them to work on the train en-route instead of flying to their destination. For more information regarding sustainability insights in relation to COVID-19, check out our upcoming event Business re-imagined: sustainability insights from COVID-19.
Next up, we welcomed Nick Thirsk from TBT Marketing, who spoke about “influencing change from within”. Nick gave a summary of TBT, then introduced their new approach to marketing, named “Future Focused”, which is now the core of their customer’s marketing strategy. Nick highlighted the linear business model of advertising à consumption à production à waste à emissions, and the need for marketers to move into the circular business model. At a previous event run by The Future Economy Network, Nick learned that despite e-waste being 2% of UK’s landfill, it accounted for 70% of the overall toxic waste – and these are the types of companies TBT help with their marketing. Since then, the company made a business decision in March 2020 to launch “Future Focused”, putting climate at the heart of their work. Last year, TBT did a carbon audit and committed to being net zero by 2025. He emphasised how these changes only work if you get the team behind them – which led to their newly formed group, “mission zero”. Empowering staff to make these changes is a huge key to behaviour change. Nick suggested that habit breaking can be done by offering alternatives and education – they introduced the carbon calculator for their video production arm and a Green Levy if clients decided not to take on board TBT’s carbon reduction suggestions. This meant TBT would impose a mandatory fee to their clients to offset their carbon. Nick finished his talk by highlighting the importance of learning from a support network such as The Future Economy Network. In summary, Nick suggested everyone gets their directors on board, creates a sustainability team, and join a sustainable support network.
Next up, we welcomed Polly Grinnell from event sponsors Double Retail to discuss collective leadership and thinking like an owner. This presentation was about employees taking ownership – and their experience of doing so. Double Retail started to look at the behaviour of their business by looking at the behaviour of their employees as individuals. They used the Strength Deployment Inventory tool to find out each employee’s motivation, or “why”. Becoming aware of what drives your team will help a company understand what strengths can strengthen your team, and what weaknesses you need to be aware of. Since they used this tool in 2014, they use the terminology and structure in all of their work and highly recommend it. Polly is now a certified SDI facilitator. Polly then highlighted how Double Retail opted for a Dynamic Structure. Each team has decision making power – this led to some initial challenges around decision making authority, leading them to create structured rules and processes to enable better team decision making. They now use the RACI matrix at the beginning of every project. She then moved on to talk about role development – how to give a greater sense of ownership to employees. This mainly looked at the breadth and depth of roles. Next, Polly spoke about the importance of feedback, no matter how hard it may seem to give. Feedback is essential for this structure to work – everyone needs to learn all the time. She highlighted how conversations would often come back to money, and the limits around financial decision making. She also brought up the difficulty of letting go of preconceived structures and languages – and the importance of finding out what works for your team. She concluded her presentation by explaining how the whole team have a monthly board meeting, and all decisions are made by consensus – framing their future together.
Finally, Bethan Jones from Resource Futures spoke, emphasising how sustainability needs to be “baked in” for true sustainability, and not just an “add on”. She introduced Resource Futures and explained their history; they are employee owned, non-profit distributing, and B Corp certified. For more information regarding B Corp accreditation, check out our upcoming event Unpacking B Corp . She explained how they had their aim, “to create a more sustainable world”, written into their Article of Association. She continued by saying that real impact needs to be communicated in small chunks, which led to their Impact Report (which is coming out in a few weeks). Resource Futures are committed to continuous improvement – if you have a certification, this does not mean you have completed your journey. Bethan explained other principles the company have in place, such as living wages, generous pensions, and gender balance – habits that are taken forward to the home or other work places. She spoke of collaboration, and how it is at the heart of business behaviour change. She explained that Resource Futures are ethical and independent, which from the beginning made it much easier to implement sustainable behaviour change. Bethan finished her presentation by emphasising that external behaviour change can only happen if we work on our internal behaviour change. Resource Futures do this by being a great place to work – they hold a safe place to voice issues, they encourage openness and honesty, and they keep each other informed and inspired.
There was engaging and inspiring questions and conversations throughout the event, and with every speaker having a mini Q&A after their presentation it led to thought provoking topics personal to each speaker. Greener Energy Futures, Travel West, Going for Gold, Digital Detox and itech4good all gave a 60 second pitch - a popular opportunity at these events. Finally, everyone was able to network in different groups using two different facilitated break out rooms, before the event finished.
A huge thank you to our sponsors Double Retail, and to the speakers and attendees of this event, without this support we would not be able to do these wonderful inspiring events.