“Authenticity in branding isn’t just about what you say; it’s about what you do. It’s the bridge between your promises and your actions, where true connection is built and trust is earned.”
— Jon Duschinsky
Key Insight 
: Doing good and making money can not only be highly compatible, they are becoming more and more congruent every day.
Food for Thought 
Remember “greenwashing”?
It’s a term used to describe marketing campaigns that are designed to give the impression that a company’s products are environmentally responsible, when in reality they are not. Or not really.
It has a lesser known equivalent in the purpose-driven economy.
Purpose Washing is a term that has emerged as a contemporary analog to greenwashing. It refers to the practice of businesses claiming to have a significant social purpose but failing to back up these claims with action.
So, here we go again, right? Are we back in the same place of corporations trying to put a halo on their products without doing the work to earn it?
Well, as the purpose economy movement gains steam, corporations are increasingly seeking to associate themselves with social issues in order to improve their brand image and appeal to consumers, particularly younger demographics that place a higher priority on corporate responsibility.
Which is why it is so important to start to put some structure and frameworks about what we are talking about when we use the words “purpose, driven and economy”.
Enter the Canadian Purpose-Driven Economy Project (CPEP), a relatively recent initiative borne out of work led by Coro Strandberg and United Way in Vancouver, Canada.
CPEP’s purpose is to encourage the transformation of the Canadian economy into one that is based around social impact. It is providing a space for this nascent industry to work together to set parameters, best practices and figure out how to prevent companies taking advantage of the moniker of purpose to just bolster their bottom line.
And from its work to date comes a three-point framework which involves purpose integration as well as transparency and accountability.
- Social Purpose Business Adoption: By 2030, CPEP wants to have at least 25% of Canadian companies adopt, reveal, and really integrate a social purpose. This entails incorporating social goals into their fundamental interactions and operations in order to promote a culture of accountability and influence among the corporate community.
- Collaboration and Ecosystem Building: CPEP is all about bringing together different stakeholders, such as corporations, the government, and civil society, to figure out the pathway to a purpose economy in partnership. And it also recognizes the importance of building capacity and an ecosystem in which purpose becomes the norm, not the exception.
- Metrics and Accountability: The Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz famously said “You strive for what you can measure”. CPEP embodies this notion, helping define the metrics used to measure purpose and creating instruments and procedures that assist companies in quantifying their contributions to societal well-being
The work of CPEP in Canada offers a north star (no pun intended!) for what a purpose-driven economy can look like. And this collaborative model is starting to get traction in other markets as part of a global movement to set standards and frameworks that help reduce purpose-washing.
This work is both important and urgent. 56% of global opinion now believes that capitalism is causing more harm than good.
I’m now off for a few days to pick my kids up from camp up in unspoilt northern Ontario — a land of lakes and forests. And I can promise you one thing: when my girls reach my age, there will only be one type of business — purpose-driven business. The idea that making money and making a difference to society could be two different things will be as much anathema to them as driving without a seat belt is to us today.
So history has already been written.
The question is, which side of it do you want to be on?
