The Issue
Board Directors and the C-Suite continue to face unrelenting pressure from stakeholders to deliver tangible and transparent progress on ESG (Environmental-Social-Governance). This presents an increased risk (and opportunity) for corporations. The “S” in ESG has taken on heightened importance during COVID 19 – along with issues related to societal inequities and injustices.
Of worthy note, a robust corporate ESG performance may not be enough to satisfy stakeholder long-term expectations!
The new frontier of Sustainability is Corporate Purpose – additive to ESG performance. This means taking a public stance and defining your company’s role in addressing societal challenges – aligned with the UN SDG’s. Defining the ‘why’ of your brand remains increasingly important for Millennials and Gen Z in particular.
Firms will need to address these emerging brand risks and embrace a new form of courageous leadership. Defining and owning your firm’s Purpose is your most critical competitive advantage.
The Social Purpose Exchange is a news and insight forum illuminating Corporate Social Purpose – the emerging frontier for Sustainability. Follow our latest insights via YouTube, Podcast and our Foresight newsletter.
The Opportunity
Social Purpose is the New Frontier for Sustainability
CEO’s and Boards have an opportunity to enhance their future competitiveness when they INVEST in Social Purpose: People increasingly want to be associated with brands that stand for something or are a force for change. This means that an organization’s duty to society will become at least as important as its duty to shareholders. Relying solely on shareholder pre-eminence may inadvertently create brand risk by ignoring the societal context.
The opportunity is this: defining and owning your Social Purpose is the most critical competitive advantage of our time. Reframing your business around its social value is the challenge most worthy of your leadership. Those who don’t embrace this opportunity will face serious risks in the increasing competition for TRUST, TALENT, RELEVANCE and long-term survival. Failing to LEAP is your biggest risk.
“To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Without a sense of purpose, no company can achieve its full potential.”
2018 Letter to global CEOS: A Sense of Purpose
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Our Thinking
Goodman Sustainability Group has pioneered a proven framework that empowers organizations to consider a Social Purpose agenda – one that is fit for purpose, transparent and quantifiable.
Our Ethos
We help organizations understand Social Purpose as a necessary underpinning – ensuring their long-term business viability.
Being Clear About Corporate Social Purpose:
Old model “Corporate Social Responsibility” and the new world of Social Purpose is like buying a ticket to a play versus acting in it.
Social purpose companies take actionable overt steps to be part of the long-term solution/fix – by partnering and applying business insights to complex societal issues. As corporations consider Social Purpose, tackling the root cause of a problem rather than simply funding its symptoms – brings optimal societal benefit (and shareholder value creation).
Social purpose companies take actionable overt steps to be part of the long-term solution/fix – by partnering and applying business insights to complex societal issues. As corporations consider Social Purpose, tackling the root cause of a problem rather than simply funding its symptoms – brings optimal societal benefit (and shareholder value creation).
The simple Hallmarks of a defensible Corporate Purpose
- Linking the ‘why’ of your organization to a societal challenge (as defined by the UN SDG).
- Strong and ever-improving ESG performance as a necessary condition of being in business.
- Corporate Purpose as a cohesive strategy along with ESG performance.
- Strategic Public Private Partnerships should be the back-bone of Corporate Purpose implementation.
- ESG & Corporate Purpose embedded into the entire culture, supply chain and stakeholder framework of the brand.
- Willingness to be held publicly accountable utilizing the measures of business: systems thinking – root cause models, efficiency and effectiveness of capital and resources, transparent and clear outcomes, momentum towards solutions.
- New model of Courageous Leadership with Boards and the C-Suite out in front of the issues.
Our Mission
To help organizations consider ‘acting’ in a Social Purpose role – with a view to making meaningful and transparent progress on a societal ill. Goodman Sustainability will be the global thought leader for Social Purpose: what is it and how to measure it.
Our Vision
By 2025, all major global brands declare their Social Purpose commitments – cohesive with shareholder value creation.
Our Thinking
To inspire and URGE organizations to adopt a “Corporate Purpose” that enables long-term competitiveness and tangibly contributes to at least one of the 17 UN SDGs.
Guiding Principles
What we do
Core Competencies:
- CSR, ESG and Social Purpose Expertise
- Global Climate Change Policy Expertise
- Government Relations (managing complex multi-Stakeholder forums)
- Indigenous Community Partner Expertise
- Boardroom Governance and Risk Management
- Social Purpose Thought Leadership (Global Social Purpose Council – the VeriStell Institute Founding Member)
Board and C-Suite Services
Advisory Services
- Corporate Social Purpose
- Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Principles
- Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation and Litigation Risk
- Strategy, Reputation Risk and Brand Promise
- Stakeholder Engagement
Reporting, Disclosure and Compliance Services
- ESG
- Climate Change, including TCFD and EU Taxonomy disclosures
- Assurance
Leadership Development and Coaching
Corporate sustainability
We enable organizational and board governance discussions regarding the management of societal risk.
Merging investor and societal lenses
Practical templates for understanding how your organization can think about risk and the imperative for this dual agenda consideration.
Considering a foundational guiding principle
Court a willingness to collaborate with authenticity without undermining an organizational value creation agenda — setting the tone from the top down.
Embedding the model
Encouraging organizations to embed societal purpose into their entire corporate structure and board governance model.
Stakeholder Clarity
Understanding Stakeholder complexities early on – allows for more optimal outcomes.
Single stakeholder category challenge
One issue, one line of site to advocate with government (relatively easy to resolve).
Multiple stakeholder challenge
Multiple stakeholders who don’t agree. High need to manage a consensus approach along with cohesive new metrics (complex to resolve but possible).
Extreme stakeholder challenge
One complex issue with a non-consensus future state, non-consensus solution, metric, or agreement about who the legitimate stakeholders are (no clear resolution example, although meaningful progress is possible).
Underpinning transparency
We help organizations ensure their mission, vision, and governance model all have a clear line of site to both the shareholder and societal pre-eminence lens.
Expertise
Our expertise in developing and leading diverse, multi-faceted alliances that enable consensus on key policy matters has shown success. Our governance and government policy work experience extends to advocacy and negotiations in multiple jurisdictions and with Indigenous communities. More specifically, Faith Goodman’s past work experience includes discussions in the EU, the U.S., the Canadian federal government and most Canadian provinces. In addition, Faith has travelled to over 75 countries and understands the cultural diversity elements of Social Purpose.
GOVERNMENT Relations and STAKEHOLDER Alliances
We facilitate government relations and stakeholder alliances.
Indigenous affairs
Faith Goodman has a history of building authentic and collaborative formal alliances with First Nations and Metis communities in Manitoba, Canada. As Founder of Until The Last Child, her innovation work is profiled at untilthelastchild.com
Climate policy
Canada is a world-leading climate policy jurisdiction. Each Canadian province has taken a “boutique policy approach” for energy and climate policy matters – in addition to that of the federal government. This jurisdictional complexity remains a challenge for organizations. Our well positioned expertise to navigate discussions on low carbon fuels and LFE emissions remains current.
Social impact bonds
Social Impact Bonds – an emerging field globally. This innovation allows for public/private partnerships to tackle costly and complex social policy issues by leveraging new sources of funding. Faith Goodman has been a pioneer in partnering with stakeholders on Canada’s first Social Impact Bond for child welfare.
Industry bench-marking
We have over a decade of experience with Solomon and Associates’ Complexity-Weighted Barrel benchmark model, currently used throughout Europe, California, Alberta, Ontario and the Canadian Federal Government. This model allows energy-intensive trade-exposed entities to credibly understand and measure progress against a global facility population of similar type.
Thought Leadership Engagements
We speak to groups and present at conferences.
- Crush Life Sciences, Belmont, MA, Delayed
- The Walrus & VeriStell Institute Presents: Global CEO Summit, Dec 3, 2020
- Toronto Board of Trade Social Purpose Workshop, Nov 10, 2020
- Chamber of Commerce AGM & Convention Expo, Oct 26-27, 2020
- CAGBC Building Lasting Change 2020,
Sept 22, 2020 - Toronto Board of Trade Social Purpose Workshop, Mar 5, 2020
- ICD Social Purpose Forum Jan 29, 2020 “Event Planning”
- Institute of Corporate Directors Peer-to-Peer NFP Governance Forum, Oct 31, 2019
- Toronto Board of Trade Social Purpose Event Booth, Mar 5, 2019
- Institute for Corporate Directors – Social Purpose, Nov 6, 2018
- EcoFiscal Commission, 2016
- Ontario Chamber of Commerce, 2016
- Canada Economic Business Council, 2016
- Hart Energy Washington DC, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, San Diego, 2008, 2010, 2012
Dedicated to Corporate Social Purpose research.
VeriStell Institute is dedicated to promoting the rapid global adoption of ESG and CORPORATE PURPOSE as the new frontier for corporate Sustainability. The organization is a global Think Tank (Not-For-Profit) – helping organizations positively impact society and remain highly competitive. The VeriStell Institute is an affiliated entity of the Goodman Sustainability Group.
Learn more at VeriStellInstitute.com
Memberships and Affiliations
Governance Professionals of Canada
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Public Policy Forum
Toronto Region Board of Trade
Institute of Corporate Directors
Who We Are
Faith Goodman BSc, BEd, MBA, ICD.D is CEO of Goodman Sustainability Group, Senior Editor of The Social Purpose Exchange, Founder & Board Director of the VeriStell Institute and Founder of award-winning Canadian national charity Until The Last Child (UTLC).
Team of Experts & External Consultants
Goodman Sustainability Group has proven expertise in tailoring the client organizational need with specific and relevant consulting support.
- Peter van Dijk, Chief Strategy Officer – Former Senior Vice President at TD, Former Partner at PwC, Executive in Residence at Global Risk Institute and Senior Fellow at C.D. Howe Institute
View Peter van Dijk’s Biography - Derek Purchase, Chief Development Officer – Former EY Partner (Risk Management & Sustainability Audit)
View Derek Purchase’s Biography - Keith Robson, Consultant, Former CEO Institute of Corporate Directors Canada
- Glen Hodgson, Economist and Financial Consultant, Low Carbon Economy – Former Chief Economist, Conference Board of Canada)
View Glen Hodgson’s Biography - Brenda Cherry, Western Canada Lead – Former Vice President, Alberta Energy Regulator, former Vice President – Controller for Suncor Energy and a Chartered Accountant.
View Brenda Cherry’s Biography - Renée Friedman, London, UK Consultant – Formerly Head of Events at Responsible Investor, Managing Editor at The Economist Intelligence Unit and Economist at the UK House of Commons
View Renée Friedman’s Biography - Sean Mallen, Strategic Communications, Host of ‘The Social Purpose Exchange” – Former Global News Anchor London (UK) News Bureau Chief (Crisis Communication Expert)
View Sean Mallen’s Biography - Dave Trafford, Executive Producer of ‘The Social Purpose Exchange’ podcast – Newstalk 1010 Radio Host & Executive Producer iContact Production
View Dave Trafford’s Biography - Geoffrey Rowan, Former Managing Director of Ketchum Public Relations (Crisis Communication Expert) View Geoffrey Rowan’s Biography
- Rachel Dobbs, Manager – Marketing & Operations
- Christopher Hinchcliffe, GSG Foresight Newsletter Editor – DPhil, Law Oxford, Author
- Argyle Public Relations, Social Media & Communications Partner
- Leonard Wyma, Graphic Designer and Consulting Artistic Collaborator
- Michael R. Davidson, Videographer, The Social Purpose Exchange
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