I have a slight problem with bamboo pens.
Not the pens themselves. They’re perfectly innocent.
My problem is what they sometimes represent.
Over the years, I’ve attended countless business events, conferences and meetings where sustainability has been reduced to a collection of very visible gestures.
A bamboo pen.
A reusable water bottle.
A recycling bin.
A tote bag made from something recycled.
A little green leaf printed on the event programme.
And then everyone goes home feeling as though sustainability has been dealt with.
It hasn’t.
Those things aren’t necessarily bad. In many cases, they’re absolutely sensible choices.
But if we’re serious about building more sustainable and responsible businesses, we have to be prepared to look much deeper.
Because sustainability isn’t really about the things we buy.
It’s about the decisions we make.
We Need to Stop Confusing Sustainable Products With Sustainable Business
It’s very easy to buy something that looks sustainable.
It’s considerably harder to build a business that behaves sustainably.
The second one requires us to ask uncomfortable questions.
How do we treat our people?
Who are we buying from?
What happens in our supply chain?
How much waste are we creating?
What impact are we having on our local community?
What happens environmentally because our business exists?
Are the values on our website actually visible in the decisions we make?
And perhaps the biggest question of all:
What is our business actually contributing to the world?
These aren’t questions that can be answered by changing the stationery order.
They require leadership.
Sustainability Is a Leadership Issue
I’ve spent years thinking about purpose, sustainability and what it means to run a business consciously.
And I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest mistakes we make is treating sustainability as a separate project.
We appoint somebody responsible for ESG.
We create a sustainability policy.
We measure carbon.
We produce reports.
All of those things can be important.
But sustainability can’t sit in one department while the rest of the organisation carries on as normal.
It has to influence the decisions being made around the boardroom table.
That’s why I see sustainability as a leadership issue.
Leaders determine what gets prioritised.
Leaders decide where money gets spent.
Leaders shape culture.
Leaders choose which behaviours are rewarded.
Leaders decide which suppliers are acceptable.
And leaders ultimately decide whether purpose survives when it becomes inconvenient.
That’s where the real work begins.
What Do Your Business Decisions Say About You?
There’s a question I think every leadership team should ask occasionally:
If somebody ignored everything we said about our values and only looked at the decisions we made, what would they think we stood for?
That’s quite a confronting question.
Because it’s easy to say people matter.
It’s harder when supporting people costs money.
It’s easy to say sustainability matters.
It’s harder when the sustainable option requires more effort.
It’s easy to talk about community.
It’s harder to make decisions that genuinely benefit it.
It’s easy to publish a purpose statement.
It’s much harder to use that purpose when making difficult commercial decisions.
But that’s precisely when values matter.
A value that only applies when it’s convenient isn’t really a value.
Your Suppliers Are Part of Your Values Too
One of the areas businesses sometimes overlook is procurement.
We can spend months developing an ESG strategy and then continue choosing suppliers almost entirely on price.
But every time a business spends money, it supports another business.
That gives procurement enormous power.
Who are you choosing to work with?
How do those businesses operate?
How do they treat their people?
What impact do they have?
Do their values align with yours?
I’m not suggesting every supplier needs to be perfect.
There is no such thing as a perfect business.
But I do think we should become much more conscious about where our money goes.
Because responsible business isn’t simply about what happens inside our own four walls.
Our decisions ripple outwards.
The Event That Made Me Think About This
Events are a particularly interesting example.
Through The Wellbeing Farm, I’ve spent years watching organisations bring their teams together for meetings, away days, conferences and celebrations.
And something became very clear to me.
A venue is never just a building.
For that day, it becomes part of the organisation hosting the event.
Imagine a business has spent years talking about employee wellbeing, responsible procurement, sustainability and purpose.
Then it holds its annual company event somewhere that demonstrates none of those things.
There’s a disconnect.
The same applies to food, suppliers, gifts, travel and everything else surrounding the event.
These decisions communicate something.
Sometimes more loudly than the presentation about company values being shown on the screen.
This Is Why I Talk About Conscious Hospitality
At The Wellbeing Farm, we’ve developed an idea we call Conscious Hospitality.
For me, it’s about considering people, planet, purpose and profit together.
Not one instead of the others.
And that final word – profit – matters.
Because I don’t believe responsible business means pretending commercial reality doesn’t exist.
Businesses need to make money.
They need to employ people.
They need to invest.
They need to survive.
The interesting challenge is:
How do we build successful businesses while creating a positive impact at the same time?
That’s a much more exciting conversation than asking whether we’ve ordered enough bamboo pens.
B Corp Taught Me to Look at the Whole Business
The Wellbeing Farm’s B Corp Certification has also challenged me to think much more broadly about what responsible business actually means.
One misconception about B Corp is that it’s simply an environmental certification.
It isn’t.
The standards encourage businesses to look much more widely at their impact and the way they operate.
That’s important because sustainability isn’t just about carbon.
It’s about people.
Communities.
Governance.
Fairness.
The environment.
Business decisions.
Impact.
It’s about looking at the organisation as a whole rather than isolating one small part of it and labelling that “sustainability”.
And I think that’s something every business can learn from, whether or not it ever pursues certification.
Small Actions Still Matter
Now, before every bamboo pen manufacturer in Britain comes after me, I should probably clarify something.
Small actions matter.
Of course they do.
Reducing waste matters.
Removing unnecessary single-use plastics matters.
Buying locally matters.
Thinking about energy matters.
Changing purchasing habits matters.
The danger comes when those small actions become a substitute for bigger change.
It’s much easier to change a product than a culture.
It’s easier to change packaging than a supply chain.
It’s easier to install recycling bins than question whether the organisation’s entire business model is creating the impact it claims to care about.
So do the small things.
But don’t stop there.
Purpose Has to Survive Contact With Reality
I’ve written before about purpose-led leadership, because I believe purpose can be an incredibly powerful force in business.
But purpose can’t just be inspirational words.
It needs to influence what happens when reality gets messy.
When there’s pressure on margins.
When something goes wrong.
When an employee needs support.
When you’re choosing between suppliers.
When a quicker option conflicts with a more responsible one.
When nobody outside the organisation would ever know which decision you made.
That’s when purpose becomes real.
Leadership isn’t demonstrated by the values written on the wall.
It’s demonstrated by what happens when those values cost something.
What If We Asked Better Questions?
Perhaps one of the simplest things leaders can do is start asking better questions.
Instead of:
“What’s the cheapest option?”
Ask:
“What’s the best long-term decision?”
Instead of:
“Can we say this is sustainable?”
Ask:
“What impact will this actually have?”
Instead of:
“Does this supplier tick the right boxes?”
Ask:
“Is this the kind of business we want to support?”
Instead of:
“How do we make this event look greener?”
Ask:
“Does this event reflect the organisation we’re trying to become?”
And instead of asking:
“What should our purpose statement say?”
Perhaps ask:
“What would we do differently if we genuinely lived it?”
Those questions lead somewhere much more interesting.
Responsible Business Doesn’t Have to Be Miserable
There’s another myth I’d quite like to get rid of.
That sustainability has to mean less.
Less enjoyment.
Less creativity.
Less growth.
Less ambition.
I don’t believe that at all.
Some of the most exciting ideas I’ve encountered in business have come from people asking how things could be done differently.
Constraints can create innovation.
Purpose can create energy.
Responsible choices can create better experiences.
Sustainability can force us to rethink things we’ve been doing automatically for years.
And sometimes that leads to something far better than what existed before.
Business Can Be a Force for Good
Ultimately, this is the idea that keeps bringing me back to purpose-led business.
Businesses have enormous power.
We employ people.
We buy things.
We influence suppliers.
We occupy buildings.
We use resources.
We shape communities.
We create products and experiences.
We influence other people through the choices we make.
Imagine what could happen if more businesses consciously used some of that power to create positive change.
Not through one enormous grand gesture.
But through thousands of everyday decisions.
That’s where I think responsible business becomes genuinely exciting.
Start With One Question
So, if you’re wondering where to begin with sustainability in your own organisation, perhaps don’t begin by buying anything.
Don’t start with the reusable bottles.
Don’t start with the merchandise.
And definitely don’t start with the bamboo pens.
Start by asking:
“Does the way we run this business reflect the kind of world we say we want to create?”
Then look at the answer.
There will almost certainly be things you’re already doing brilliantly.
There will probably be things you could improve.
There may even be things that make you slightly uncomfortable.
Good.
That’s where change starts.
Because sustainability isn’t something we should bolt onto business.
It should influence how we do business.
And once we understand that, the bamboo pen can go back to being exactly what it was supposed to be.
A pen.
