If not us, who? And if not now, when?
For Gerald Edelman’s head of marketing Lauren Kelly, it was the inspiration of a client who managed to balance purpose and profit to gain B-Corp status that provided a driver for the firm’s impressive – and evolving – work in the social value sphere.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when we formalised our social value strategy. Since I’ve been at Gerald Edelman, we’ve always strived to improve and be better – whether that is the way in which we approach our client relationships, the benefits we provide to our team, the charities we support or the impact we have on our community and environment.
Like many, we instigated positive initiatives: a paperless office, replaced plastic bottles in all meeting rooms with glass, enhanced our employee benefits, launched our charity committee, Gerald Edelman Foundation.
It seemed, unconsciously, we were all striving to improve Gerald Edelman and improve the environment in which we work, but we didn’t have the terminology, the plans or the resource to formalise it.
Everything we did was simply a constant evolution. However, it was only in the last few years that we realised and accepted that social value was bigger than the ‘odd’ initiative, we needed resources – people who were driven and motivated to spearhead our sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and community projects.
At the same time, we were being held accountable by our team and being asked in interviews what our commitments were and what we stood for. A few initiatives didn’t cut it. People wanted to work for a purpose-led business.
It was easy to stand back and let others take the lead, but for me, I was inspired by one of our clients who had a vision for sustainable beauty and was managing to balance purpose and profit to become a B-corporation, as well as having the 17 Sustainability Development Goals at the heart of its philosophy.
This was the trigger that made everything we were doing at Gerald Edelman fall into place. We could do more, and we were in a position to lead.
So, how do you become sustainable and integrate that into your core social value? It seems overwhelming. It is overwhelming. Where do you start?
At Gerald Edelman, we strive to have positive interactions with all our stakeholders and have four key areas in which we focus – sustainability, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI), mental health and community. Each one of these is driven by a team of colleagues all motivated and passionate about the cause, and all with the same aim, to ensure we continue to evolve and have a positive impact in these areas.
In each of these four areas, we accepted and acknowledged that we had to be transparent about where we were starting from and also that we may need outside support, we didn’t know everything.
“It was only in the last few years w we realised and accepted social value was bigger than the ‘odd’ initiative, we needed resources – people who were driven and motivated to spearhead our sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and community projects.”
Our foundation committee was set up to support the local community in which we work. Currently, we support London Youth. A charity chosen because of its alignment with our overall mission…to make a positive impact on children and young people, helping them to reach new heights. We believe that all children and young people should have access to the same opportunities and be given the very best chance to achieve their goals and aspirations. London Youth very much aligns with this mission.
Our mental health committee, which works with WorkLifeWell, focuses on improving the team’s overall wellbeing. Some initiatives include providing monthly webinars on topics, such as managing stress, nutrition, mindfulness, and work life balance, regular team communications to keep mental health at the forefront of everyone’s mind, training and our mental health first aiders: employees the team can turn to if they need extra support.
Our SIA committee promotes DEI. The initiative is gaining momentum, but as this is a sensitive and complex area, we are in the process of engaging a specialist consultant to provide focus and resource, and ensure that we are following absolute best practice in our next steps as we continue to promote DEI within the firm.
Finally, our sustainability committee, which was launched in 2021 with the vision: to lead the way to a more sustainable future, inspiring stakeholders to make changes that have a positive impact on the planet.
Any sustainability program starts at zero and grows based on the interests of the stakeholders - so if we do not approach it in the right way then no sustainability program will get off the ground. Therefore, we began our journey by understanding where we were starting from so that we could implement clear actions. Green Element worked with us to produce a Carbon Footprint Report, allowing us to identify core areas that needed improving.
We have now been approved for the Science-based targets and are making progress towards reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals.
We know that we are at the start of a very long journey, we might not get everything right straight away, but each day, week, month, year we are moving forward, acknowledging and addressing our impact on all of our stakeholders and striving to do better.
In the words of Robert F Kennedy (I think): “If not us, who? And if not now, when?”