Read: Firms must deliver on their social contract
While we see daily reports of the challenges that many people are continuing to face as they struggle with the cost of living, a slew of headlines is fast approaching on the huge profits that many of the UK’s biggest businesses are set about to announce.
As government and industry regulators express concerns that some businesses are profiting at the expense of consumers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, has now weighed in to urge them to do more to ensure that profitability goes hand in hand with support for customers who are experiencing cost-of-living pressures. While welcoming the fact that healthy profits mean growing businesses, extra money for public services, bigger pension pots and more jobs, he also acknowledged that businesses need to be able to show how they are helping their customers directly. Referring to them as the engine of the British economy, he called on them to deliver on their social contract to ensure that they are treated fairly.
That premise has been at the heart of the Purpose Business Coalition’s collaboration with leading businesses from a wide range of sectors across the country to drive positive social impact for their customers, colleagues and communities. It can mean different things in different sectors but the crucial element is that big business can lean into the communities they serve and work with local partners and stakeholders to best understand where that support is most needed and then targeting it effectively.
Many are already making a difference. In the banking sector, Virgin Money’s basic M account offers all the tools of a more sophisticated account alongside an ambition to eradicate the poverty premium that means too many disadvantaged customers end up paying more for essential goods and services. Aldermore Bank provides access to savings and finance that many people find difficult to get from more traditional banking sources. Food services company, Sodexo’s Stop Hunger initiative partners with FareShare and the Trussell Trust to provide food banks up and down the country. Centrica wants to encourage people to seek help and to talk to someone if they’re in financial difficulties and launched the Stop the Silence campaign to tackle the shame that’s attached to debt as well as ensuring that 10% of the profits from British Gas Energy will provide on-going support for the duration of the energy crisis. Many companies play a much wider role in their communities, like bp who are engaged in extensive outreach work in schools that encourages young people to think about STEM as a career and then provides sustainable livelihoods in areas of disadvantage.
As well as engines of the British economy, these businesses are engines of social mobility. In difficult times, it is more important than ever that people have access to opportunities that have the potential to change their lives. Chair of the Purpose Business Coalition and cross-party peer, Lord Walney, set up a Cost-of-Living Taskforce earlier this year to showcase best practice examples of some Coalition partners in a White Paper and to shape a continuing response to the crisis. The report the Taskforce produced included recommendations such as a rainy-day savings scheme to increase financial resilience, reforms to childcare to make it more affordable, a centralised website on the Government’s Help for Households to provide a one-stop shop for people looking for help and a review into households’ energy resilience.
The best companies are leading by example, with purpose-led approaches that put their customers front and centre of their efforts to make a positive social impact. Many have embedded this culture in their companies over years, developing authentic responses as a result, and are helping now to develop solutions that will make a difference.
