5 small steps we took to be a more conscious business

There were some little things we could change straight away, which helped us get certified, but also just made us feel good about the impact our business was having on people and planet. Here are five of ‘em.

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Powershop

Achieving B Corp certification made things official

It inspired us to commit to our values, hold our business accountable and challenged us to find ways to improve.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve taken stock of a whole range of areas in our business and asked ourselves some tough questions about how conscious we really are. It was all part of becoming a certified B Corp, which required us to assess and audit our business and think more holistically about our impact.

We always felt that we were a ‘good’ business, but achieving B Corp certification really made things official in our minds. It inspired us  to commit to our values, hold our business accountable and challenged us to find ways to improve.

Changing how your business operates can seem like a really daunting task, but it’s not always the case. There were some little things we could change straight away, which helped us get certified, but also just made us feel good about the impact our business was having on people and planet.

Here are five of ‘em

1. We Greenified Our Energy

Switching to greener energy was an easy win for us. There’s loads of resources and background info about the best providers.  

Powershop is the company that regularly comes out on top, and who we ended up going with. We also spent a lot of time working with a client of ours on this topic. One Small Step is an app helping people make small behavioural changes to benefit the planet. It’s like a Fitbit for your carbon footprint. We’re super lucky to have them as one of our clients.  

2. Assessed client impact

This one was already in place for us. Assessing clients against our mission and values was a core value of ours when we set up the business. We created a system to evaluate each company we work with, in line with the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs).

It completely changed who we decided to take on. Basically rate each company against the 17 SDGs. If they are destructive in any way, we won't work with them. And if they have any negative qualities, they also need to have several positive ones, or be actively trying to improve.

3. Publicised Our Policies

Trust and transparency with both employees and customers is an integral part of being a conscious business, and something we’ve tried to do from the get go. During the certification process, we decided to make our policies so anyone can see them. Check out our policies on: Code of Ethics, Privacy Policy and Hazardous Waste.

4. Evaluated Our Suppliers

Something we hadn’t ever considered was the impact of our purchases as a business, and where possible buying from suppliers who benefit people and the planet, like the caterer we used for our launch event.

So we exported all our suppliers from Xero, and classified them as either local (near us), owned by discriminated/diverse/female people or standard. Then we actively change some of our higher expenses to be with local/diversely owned suppliers. We also now use this B Corp guide to sourcing good suppliers and updating our preferred supplier list.

5. Surveyed Our Customers

We carry out a bi-annual client survey, asking for feedback on how we’re going, where we could be better - check it out here. We share those results with our clients and on our annual impact report. In our last survey we discovered that 100% of our clients would recommend us to others. They used words like trust, integrity, approachable, friendly and purpose to describe us. And we could improve around taking on too much work, managing/juggling our time effectively and concerns about our ability to scale to support our clients. As a result we reduced the number of clients we took on, built a course to educate clients on digital marketing and focused on the service areas that clients valued the most.

The great thing about small, incremental changes is that they all add up. Plus, you don’t have to do them all at once. We took it one step at a time, which for us, is always the best way. We then built up the courage to tackle 5 big changes, which weren’t easy, but seriously rewarding.

If you want to talk through any of these steps or find out more about how we did them, just drop us a line.


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22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE
No items found.
22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE

No items found.
No items found.
22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE

Targets

Results

Clients | Help conscious business grow

No destructive clients. Revenue breakdown: 15% Good, 60% Great, 25% Amazing (Here’s what the classifications mean)

🟢
  • No destructive clients.
  • Revenue breakdown: 10% Good, 66% Great, 25% Amazing

Client survey metrics

  • 3 /5 value for money
  • 8 / 10 likely to recommend
🟢
  • 3.4 / 5 value for money
  • 8.8 / 10 likely to recommend

Maintain current revenue

🟠
  • Revenue down 16% YoY

Team | Be the best versions of us

  • All staff spend 70%+ of their time on clients
🟢
  • Spent 71% of our time on clients (over by only 76 hours).
  • Regular, honest check-ins about how we feel
🟢
  • Stand ups, development sessions, watercooler chats, impact updates and more.
  • Targeted and clear personal growth, if we are better our clients will be
🟢
  • Lots of on-the-tools growth, structured learning through weekly Lunch ‘n Learns and Intro to Programming at RMIT.
  • Improve and increase capability across team
🟢
  • Elevated our tool nerd level. See here.
  • Expanding output skills: Market research, Web design, strategy & development, video editing, and automation strategy.
  • 9 day fortnights, with option for 4 day weeks
🟠
  • 40% work 9 day fortnights, 40% part-time hours, 20% standard working hours.

Community | Lift the communities we’re part of

  • Protest and boycott important issues (Australia Day, Melbourne Cup)
🟢
  • Buy with intention from local and discriminated groups
🟢
  • We continue to be intentional about our suppliers as outlined in our policy and report the details in the Community chapter of our report. We took it one step further this year with a public call to pledge to audit suppliers in this campaign www.supplier-impact.com
  • Invest $20k in impact businesses plus $20k of 100% pro bono time
🟠
  • We delivered some pro bono time but dropped the ball and had no official measurements in place. We also did not invest $20k in impact businesses because of the reduced revenue with Becky on maternity leave.
  • Sarah personally donated her photography equipment valued at around $7,500 to empower a content and brand producer in the Solomon Islands.
  • Have a RAP, engaged stakeholders and implemented more change
🔴
  • Due to competing priorities and limited time (no lack in desire) we de-prioritised our Reconciliation Action Plan as we want to do it meaningfully and have the capacity to follow through. However, we took a few first steps outlined here.

Environment | Crank up the action on climate and environment

  • Be climate positive at work and at home
🟠
  • We don’t track our CO2 emissions, rather we take a much more general and high emissions view. However, this year, we didn’t donate to the environment (see above) so we can’t say we countered our CO2.
  • Donate 5% to the environment
🔴
  • We fell short here, we didn't make the donation. More details here.
  • Re-use, recycle and manage dangerous waste
🟢
  • We continue to implement our hazardous waste policy and are on a continuous learning and improvement journey.
  • We repair damaged hardware and minimise purchasing of new equipment.
  • Personally we're all Facebook Marketplace fans.
  • Advocate for climate change / inspire sustainable living
🟢

Governance | Operate fairly and squarely as an impact business

  • Maintain current ownership and governance
🟢
  • Harvey is 100% owned by the Smallchua Family Trust and Rebecca Smallchua is our sole Director.
  • Share templates, documents, insight into business for good
🟠
  • We haven’t actively done this publicly, but when people have asked, we have shared. And we’re sharing a series of things as part of this impact report.
  • Re-use, recycle and manage dangerous waste
🟢
  • We continue to implement our hazardous waste policy and are on a continuous learning and improvement journey.
  • We repair damaged hardware and minimise purchasing of new equipment.
  • Personally we're all Facebook Marketplace fans.
  • Maintain B Corp score from 134.1 with workers included
🟢
  • We applied for our B Corp re-certification at the end of this financial year and are pleased to report we achieved the same score (to the decimal point). Wild!
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