If you want to be a socially responsible, you have to know how your products are produced. If you don’t know the source, you may be contributing to social damage by buying or using this product.
True leaders in the social century question EVERYTHING.
In researching my next book, I’ve been looking into a personal care/beauty products company called Aveda. They are a socially valuable and responsible company through and through. Their CEO, Dominique Conseil, believes that how a product is made is far more important than what a product can do.
Here’s how he sees the role of Aveda in society:
“Beauty is a good an fundamental thing. It affects people’s lives in many positive ways: it influences their self-esteem, it can heal and cure, it can make people become more confident. Beauty can make people succeed and feel good about themselves—and thus become better persons.”
To that he adds a stinger that guides the culture of his company as they develope new products, “It’s only beautiful if it’s good. I always ask, ‘tell me how you did it, too.’ Because if you did it at the expense of people’s health, or the planet’s well-being, then it cannot be beautiful.”
Your business cannot be good unless the entire value chain operates to give back, not take away, from the greater community and the environment. Tomorrow, question everything. You might be shocked to find out that some of your company’s suppliers aren’t doing the right thing for their employees, partners or the planet. And to support them is to support HOW they create value.
Check out a great interview with Conseil:
Sustainability From Within
