We have been on the sustainability journey for a few years now and what a journey it has been. When we started this journey we didn’t realise that we knew so very little about good sustainability practice and naively thought we could consult a good book or expert or even do the odd google search on the way.

On the journey, we found out that sustainability of the planet and people is only one side of the coin with the concept of business being a force for good as the other. This is also called business with a positive impact/purpose. We feel that good business policy can be misconstrued so internally we use the term good sustainable business policy.

Fast forward to today and we are by no means experts, but we have learnt a few things, created some best practice, overhauled our supplier base, created and lived some modern people policies, and built digital products for sustainable business partners.

What is great about good sustainable business is that you feel part of a community, helping each other to achieve the same goal. Nothing demonstrates this more than Heart of The City who have been helping SME’s kickstart their responsible journey’s for the last twenty years. We joined last year and became part of a group of about thirty businesses in the London area all on the same journey at the same time. Heart of the City provides workshops, masterclasses, webinars and expert mentors who coach you how to set up a responsible business programme, and then help you take it to the next level. As a team they have worked with over 1,000 businesses so have learnt a thing or two.

We are only a quarter of the way through our first year with them, but in that time they have coached us on how to focus on a few single minded goals rather than many. How to focus on our sweet spot and develop and execute a measurable plan based upon the agreed goals.

Across each of the workshops there has been lots of advice and tips from people at Heart of the City such as Kate Finnis and Natalie Tickle as well as specialist ambassadors. You genuinely feel working with them that they are sharing the journey with you, steadying you every time you slip. 

It’s been an enjoyable journey so far, learning about good sustainable business and meeting some great people on the way, always happy to help you out. We have been so inspired as a digital product studio we are now in the process of applying to be a BCorp.