Vote With Your Wallet: Consumer Power as Activism
B Corps Preserve and DoneGood Provide Sustainable Shopping Options
By choosing brands that align with their values, shoppers are voting with their wallets for the kinds of businesses they want in the world — and paving the way toward a more sustainable and just economy. In this Q&A, two Certified B Corporation leaders discuss the immense impact those everyday decisions can have on our future.
Amid the many issues in the world worthy of our time, resources and attention, it can be easy to underestimate one of the most significant ways we impact society: by choosing where we spend our dollars. By choosing brands that align with our values, we vote with our wallets for the kinds of businesses we want in the world — and pave the way toward a more sustainable and just economy.
Two brands helping to lead this movement are DoneGood, an online platform for ethical shopping, and Preserve, which uses recycled plastic and compostable materials to make everyday products that are sustainable and affordable.
In this conversation, Cullen Schwarz, co-founder and CEO of DoneGood, and Deana Becker, director of stakeholder operations at Preserve, discuss how each of us can use consumer activism to shop for environmental and social change.
Do consumers really drive change by putting their money toward more sustainable businesses?
Cullen Schwarz: Oh man, absolutely! Anytime we give a business or organization our money, we’re helping that organization do more of what they’re doing. If they’re profiting from systems that perpetuate poverty, exploit women, contribute to climate change, or any number of other negative things, then we’re helping the organization do more of those things. If instead the organization is helping create new systems that provide pathways to economic empowerment, solutions to climate change, or a more just world, then giving that organization our money means we get more of that.
Deana Becker: Yes. Every business has employees, operates in a community, and impacts the environment. By choosing to support a more sustainable business, consumers can help to support a whole chain of social and environmental effects, ranging from better wages for hourly workers, to more minority-owned businesses in the supply chain, to more environmentally friendly shipping practices. Sustainable businesses (Certified B Corporations are a great example) are looking at this whole chain and seeking to improve their footprint wherever they can.
Schwarz: The thing to keep in mind is, in a supply-and-demand economy, consumers have total power. The more we demand products that support greater social and environmental justice, the more that’s what the market supplies.
There are a lot of ways to impact the world, including volunteering your time, donating to nonprofits, and casting a vote at the ballot box. But whatever issues you care about, how you spend your money is making an incredibly large impact on those issues too.
Becker: The effects of supporting sustainable businesses can be very far-reaching. And with more than 25% of emissions occurring from product consumption here in the United States, it’s a great place for consumers and businesses to focus hard on how commerce can reduce these emissions and impacts.
How is the growing demand for ethically made goods already shaping the market?
Becker: It is more and more common for consumers to ask, “Where did this come from?” “Who made this?” and “Is this better for the Earth?” These questions are pushing more companies — even those that did not start with an environmental or social mission — to realize that being able to confidently and transparently answer these questions for consumers is not only the morally right thing to do, it’s also good for business.
Schwarz: Yes, demand for fair trade and eco-friendly products is exploding. That has led to a rapid increase in the number of social enterprises that exist in the world. But I think the real way you can tell progress is being made is the way major corporations and mainstream institutional investors are taking notice.
In 2011, less than 15% of Fortune 500 companies issued an annual corporate social responsibility report. But that number has flipped, and now over 85% do. And BlackRock, the world’s largest institutional investor, announced it would no longer do business with corporations that couldn’t articulate some kind of social purpose beyond just extracting maximum profit — not out of altruism, but because they see this is where the market is going.
Consumers are driving a sea change in the business world. We’re nearing a tipping point. It’s a really exciting time to be part of the conscious consumer movement.
As a sustainable business, what innovation comes out of your balance between profits and purpose?
Becker: Preserve is always finding new areas to lighten the footprint of consumer products and consumption. We find opportunities in our lives, at work, and from our customers (we like to call them “Preservers”). And as a great friend and former employee always states, “No profit, no purpose.”
The innovation we move forward has to have a clear path to profits, to cover our development expenses, the assets we create and buy to make the products, and the operating expenses to run the show. We also want to move forward with products that will be the most interesting and satisfying for our Preservers, products that help them say, “Ahhh! Preserve did it again.” And importantly, we want our innovation to solve the biggest challenges in our space.
A great example is the Preserve Ocean Plastic Initiative (POPi). It builds on our Shave 5 product while working directly with nonprofit partners that make a big difference in ocean health, such as by working in communities to head off plastic pollution before it reaches our oceans. Incorporated in this great product is the mission to alleviate the harm caused to our oceans by plastic waste. That feels great.
Schwarz: At DoneGood, our social mission is to help consumers divert their dollars away from corporations that exploit people and the planet, and instead to mission-driven brands that make the world better. So there is no difference between the success of our social mission and our financial success.
Like Preserve, our innovations have been borne out of the desire to directly align our profit motive and impact motive. That principle gave rise to the idea for DoneGood and has guided our every business decision. We want to maximize our social impact and know that business success will follow.
We designed our business model so we only make money when we accomplish that social mission. We earn a percentage of each sale we help our partner brands make, so we don’t have to charge any kinds of fees. The amount of money our partners pay us is always commensurate with the value we create for them. That means our partners are always coming out ahead, we’re always helping them be more successful, and working with us is always a win for them.
In what ways can companies empower consumers in the movement for a more conscious economy?
Schwarz: We believe the shift away from the Milton Friedman ideology that a company’s sole purpose should be to maximize profits at all costs, and instead to a paradigm that demands businesses have some kind of social benefit, will be the most important ideological shift of this century. Consumer demand is the №1 force that will drive that transformation.
And the thing that will help accelerate consumer demand for mission-driven businesses is the creation of tools that make it really, really easy for consumers to find and support those brands. That’s what we’re working to do.
Becker: Exactly! It’s about meeting people where they are. That’s what we try to do at Preserve, because we realize our Preservers come to us for many reasons. Some choose us because they want to support a B Corp or a business making products from recycled or plant-based, compostable materials. Others just want a great product and might love the color of our food storage containers.
The next step is providing more information on what we’re doing and why, so even if a customer chose us because they simply wanted a beautiful green colander, we hope they’ll read the story behind what we’re doing and continue to prioritize sustainability in their purchases.
Schwarz: We believe helping people unleash the power of their spending to solve problems like income inequality and climate change will create the greatest positive impact of our time. That’s why we shifted our careers to work on this!
People care about these issues, but most of us are busy and have budgetary constraints when choosing what to buy. If we want someone to take action, their desire to take that action must equal or exceed the effort required to do so. If we want consumers to make more conscientious choices, we can realize that people already care, and it’s our job to make it easier for those people to turn their care into action. I think that’s the №1 thing that will most greatly accelerate the business-as-a-force-for-good movement.
B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
