Baking in Purpose to New Companies: What’s the Recipe?

Silicon Valley Community Foundation's Starting With Purpose Guide

A dash of this. A dash of that. Like the best dishes, each company’s social responsibility recipe will be slightly different and evolve over time. Creating a recipe from scratch is both daunting and exciting.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) recently published a helpful guide, Starting With Purpose, about why and how startups should bake in sustainability and other corporate responsibility as an integral part of creating a new business.

Investors, customers, and employees are increasingly seeking out companies that integrate environmental, social, and governance practices into their business strategy and purpose. The nimbleness and innate creativity of new companies provides an optimal atmosphere in which to embed social responsibility practices into the corporate strategy and culture. 

Doing so early can help the business thrive with a triple bottom line: prosperity, people, and the planet. This is especially true for businesses that are built around products or services designed to create positive environmental or social impact such as clean tech, clean and/or renewable energy, and energy management and efficiency companies.
 
Here are six ingredients recommended in the SVCF guide:

• Cultivate a Culture Committed to Social Change
• Connect with Local Communities
• Donate or Discount Products or Services to Drive Social Change
• Lay the Groundwork for a Sustainable Supply Chain
• Translate Diversity Values into Practice
• Make a Public and Formal Commitment to Social Responsibility

 
Does your startup seek to impart social change in addition to generating bottom line profit? We’d love to help you create your secret sauce. For more information on how we can help your company, please contact us at info@corporatesustainabilityadvisors.com. Let’s cook-up something great together.