Diego Isabel La Moneda, Director of the NESI Forum and Sandra Pina, Managing Director at Quiero and Sustainable Brands Madrid, in conversation in the OpenWebinar How to create Brands with Impact? Online Master’s Degree in New Economy by NESI
On September 15th took place the «OpenWebinar» on impact brands in which Sandra Pina, CEO of Quiero and Sustainable Brands Madrid participated together with Diego Isabel la Moneda, Director of the NESI Forum in the context of the presentation of the Master in New Economy FORO- NESI. An inspiring conversation, highly recommended for anyone who is interested in understanding the context in which we live and the need to reformulate the rules of the game. In this talk, among others, the keys and challenges that must be addressed from the business world to move towards a new economy where people and the planet are at the center of the model were unraveled.
Reviewing the current context we are living in, with the help of Diego and Sandra, it is easy to understand that the need to rethink the system is evident. This reality is none other than a period of great instability marked by continuous crises that began after the fall of Lehman Brothers as the trigger for the financial crisis in 2008 until the arrival of the pandemic in our lives. A current context marked by the geopolitical crisis generated by the invasion of Ukraine, which leads us to a time of concern about inflation and potential recession. If we add to this the climate emergency, the loss of biodiversity, inequality as a cancer of our modern societies and the lack of trust of citizens in governments and institutions as pointed out by the results of the Edelman Trust Barometer, we have all the ingredients to realize that it is really necessary and urgent to rethink what the economy is and how it could work differently.
We are therefore facing a systemic change of great complexity of which we are not yet aware on a large scale and in which the corporate world has to assume an important role. And in this sense, there are companies that are already taking steps towards this required change. There are two elements that mark this change of direction in the corporate world. Firstly, the fact that there is a concern about the search for a purpose on the part of many business organizations. Business purpose is shared value with what society and the planet need. However, the challenge lies in activation and how it is put into practice, something that is still being learned, as Sandra Pina notes in this conversation. The other factor that marks this new direction has to do with the positive evolution of impact investing and the extension of ESG criteria in the markets. These two facts are evidence of a trend that is gradually making headway, although in order not to lose our critical spirit, perhaps we are being a little slow given the circumstances and the emergency.
From Quiero, we talk about Impact Brands, and as Sandra explains in this conversation some of the most important characteristics of this type of brands are:
- Having a purpose activated with impact KPIs. That is to say that it is not limited to a nice phrase that replaces the corporate mission but is not reflected in the day to day. The company must be determined to bring this purpose to real life and verify it through measurement and reporting of impact KPIs. When you talk about an activated purpose that is reflected through impact KPI’s, the issue of «green washing» and «social washing» is over.
- A long-term regenerative vision. This vision of saying let’s see if I can do 20% less damage is over. Now it is not about doing less damage, but about generating positive impact.
- Impact at the core. Selling products and services, the more you sell, the more positive impact you have. An example to illustrate this idea is that of the entrepreneur Bas Van Abel with whom we had the good fortune to talk recently at a meeting in Madrid, co-founder of Fairphone, which we have just mentioned. De Clique is an enterprise that collects food waste produced in hotels and restaurants to convert this waste into products that are resold to these same waste suppliers. The business becomes that the more I sell, the more positive impact I generate. It is an interesting model.
- Coherence between being, doing and saying. Consistency in time, resources and what we say.
There are no perfect impact brands, but there are many examples that meet one or more of the above characteristics. This transition that we are evidencing now, from purpose to impact, will be the central axis of the next Sustainable Brands meeting in Madrid on October 23rd and 24th, 2023. Two days in which all these aspects will be discussed in depth by experts who have taken steps in this direction and who can inspire us with their experiences in this open path.
In everything that has to do with the new economy, the changes that are coming are really big, they are exponential and until now we have been good at managing linear changes but the type of changes we are talking about are so drastic that the sooner we prepare ourselves, the better we will be able to assimilate them because they are things we are not comfortable with. Everything that is training, knowledge, self-reflection and awareness helps. And not only on a professional level but also on a personal level. It is not only a change in the economy, it is a change in the way we live and the way we understand our whole existence.
Don’t miss the opportunity to listen first hand to this conversation between Diego Isabel La Moneda and Sandra Pina, in which they give a good overview of the current panorama offering valuable keys related to leadership, the need to train ourselves differently to be able to do things differently from the traditional way, equality, innovation, diversity, ageism and many other issues that arise in this «openwebinar» meeting.
