56 Jean Oelwang interview


DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD


The Elders; Desmond Tutu, President Carter and Nelson Mandela


Virgin Mobile in Australia, she decided she “wanted to go back into this nexus of working between business and the social sector. At the same time, Richard (Branson) was looking at starting Virgin Unite as a not-for-profi t across the group. It was lucky timing for me.”


To the heart of business These days Oelwang’s agenda is choc-a- bloc with plans for driving Virgin Unite’s core mission: “Business as a force for good.” One high-priority initiative is a networking eff ort designed to build an online and offl ine community of entrepreneurs and people “that really never accept the unacceptable.” What’s the name of the group? Oelwang pauses, just for a second: “It’s just the community that never accepts the unacceptable.” Indeed, never


experience for Virgin Unite. Oelwang recalls a lesson learned while working in South Africa some 15 years ago for a mobile phone company that was about to launch a new pre-paid service. Despite research indicating their pre-paid service would have a diffi cult time attracting customers, it was hugely popular “and within a month, we made our annual sales target.” One big reason for the unexpected success: many of South Africa’s poor were using the pre-paid cards to launch their own entrepreneurial startups. “That was a light-bulb moment for me,” Oelwang recalls. “I realized that business could play a huge role in giving people the tools they need to drive change.” Seven years ago, while joint CEO for


accepting the unacceptable is a common theme for Virgin Unite and


Oelwang. When asked


to look ahead fi ve years and forecast changes in how business might relate to society, Oelwang refuses to


accept conventional wisdom. “Five years from now I think we’ll see


a brand new way of doing business and a brand new way of living,” she forecasts. “The movement will have actually moved into the heart of businesses rather than being something that’s an add-on, as a typical corporate philanthropy charity... Business as a force for good will actually be at the core of everything that we do as businesses” ||||


New York-based Michael Connor is the editor and publisher of Business Ethics Magazine (business-ethics.com)


To help build new platforms for global leadership, Virgin Unite brings together partners and nurtures organizations to the point where they can be spun out independently


CREATING CLIMATE WEALTH


The business case for addressing environmental and social issues is simple: it can save money, win customers, boost morale and improve profi ts. An April 2011 report by consulting fi rm KPMG surveyed 478 senior executives from companies around the globe, fi nding that nearly half “thought that sustainable practices would defi nitely improve profi tability for their companies.” One example: Wayne Balta, IBM’s VP


for environmental aff airs and product safety, told KPMG a decades-long eff ort to improve environmental performance is paying off . “For every dollar we spend,” he says, “we are getting $1.50-2 back. If you think it is expensive to do things for the environment, you should try ignoring it. You’ll fi nd out how expensive it gets.” US-based GE saw sales of its


“Ecomagination” environmental and healthcare products grow to $18bn in 2009. Revenues are expected to grow at twice the total company rate over the next fi ve years. In its annual corporate citizenship report, GE says: “Our goals are to make money, make it ethically and make a diff erence.” Harvard professors Michael Porter and Mark Kramer have coined the term “shared value” to describe the economic value engendered by creating social value, writing “The result is a positive cycle of company and community prosperity, which leads to profi ts that endure.” By investing in employee wellness


programs, they report, pharmaceutical fi rm Johnson & Johnson has saved more than $250m – a return of $2.71 for every dollar spent over a six-year period. Researchers at London and Harvard


Business Schools recently released a study showing that fi nancial analysts are increasingly awarding more favourable ratings to fi rms with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. More companies are taking note.


Just over a decade ago, only 44 fi rms followed suggested guidelines to report sustainability information, according to the Global Reporting Initiative, an Amsterdam-based NGO. By 2010, that number had mushroomed to 1,973.


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