Spotlight on the B Lab movement
That was the question posed by Nadia Woodhouse Moonee Valley Council’s Women In Business Lunch on March 18.
Big business has historically been seen as a destructive force in society: exploitative, short-sighted, careless and unsustainable, but this Moonee Valley event threw the spotlight on the B Lab movement, a global initiative that sees participants turn this conventional view of big business on its head, instead using business as a mechanism for positive change and a force for good.
Hosted by Claire Bowditch, musician, actor and founder of Big Hearted Business, the lunch featured presentations by Nadia Woodhouse, a consultant at B Lab Australia who has seen first hand how thousands of businesses in Australia and around the world are proactively creating meaningful, impactful, long-lasting change.
Nadia helps businesses to be better corporate citizens and the concept of business competing to be the best for the world rather than being the best in the world really resonated with the assembled women in business.
Nadia and guest speakers Sophie McQueen and Ashleigh Wall shared some real-life practical ideas for how businesses can implement the simplest changes, such as enforcing a recyclable cup rule to actively reduce the million paper cups that go into landfill every minute, to contribute to a positive effect on the environment.
With 87% of consumers today indicating that they want authentic connections with the brands and products they engage with, the presentations highlighted the power of building a community around an authentic, values-driven brand – and B-Corp certification – in attracting the best candidates and clients.