Could you be an activist business?
Two weeks ago, I attended Extinction Rebellion’s Big One event at Parliament Square in London. To be honest, protesting isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but somehow this event felt like one that I should attend. Not only was it framed as a peaceful, positive event but Business Declares, of which Wholegrain Digital is a member, were organising a group of several hundred business representatives to attend and make a statement to the government that there are businesses who support stronger action on climate change.
I’m glad that I attended and I found it to be a really uplifting and energising event, but there are many people who believe that businesses shouldn’t get involved in such things and that businesses should be non-political.
I understand this perspective, as a lot of businesses wouldn’t want to risk entangling their own reputations with issues that might be polarising or uncomfortable for their customers or staff. That said, I think that issues such as climate change should not be seen as political and that in a world where the government seems to listen more to the voices of business leaders than environmentalists or other citizens, there is surely a need to communicate that there are businesses who want them to do more.
I also think that the idea of businesses being non-political is a bit of a red herring in a world where there is an obscene amount of political lobbying and media manipulation being carried out by wealthy corporations pushing their own agendas. Surely those businesses with more honest agendas should also use whatever influence they have to try to balance the scales a little in favour of the greater good.
And this brings me to what I believe is the essence of activism - being active rather than passive in trying to create positive change in the world.
When put like this, business activism doesn't sound so scary. It doesn’t specify what any particular business (or person) should do, but simply asks that we each do something.
At Wholegrain Digital, we take action in a number of ways. We do it by trying to push boundaries in better business and web design practices and trying to inspire others to follow our lead. For example, our public projects like the Sustainable Web Manifesto and Website Carbon, not to mention our Curiously Green newsletter are actions to raise awareness of digital sustainability in the wider industry. Our open source employee handbook with policies supporting team members to travel without flying and use renewable energy at home are actions that help and inspire other businesses to go further. And we support government bills and campaigns that align with our mission as a company, such as the Local Electricity Bill and the Better Business Act.
One of the best examples of an activist business that I've come across is Patagonia, who use their resources and reputation to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, including through their own documentary film team. An incredible example of the power of this is the Blue Heart of Europe film and campaign, which recently resulted in the Vjosa river in Albania being declared the first wild river national park. It’s a testament to what can be achieved.
While there are many forms of activism that businesses can take part in, some forms of activism such as non-violent direct action (NVDA) are hard for many businesses to officially endorse. It can be risky for businesses to encourage or even support employee participation in some activities because it may put them in a dicey situation in terms of employee health and safety laws, employers liability insurance, discrimination laws and even (at a stretch) anti-terrorism laws. In a worst case scenario, support for certain types of activism could put a company in serious legal, reputational and even financial jeopardy.
Non-violent direct action is therefore something that normally happens in people’s own time, completely separate from work. That’s fine to some extent but many people are hesitant to get involved in non-violent direct action even if they feel that they want to. While many of these limitations are very much personal, there are some employment related factors that can hold them back, such as difficulty getting time off work or fear of losing their job if they get arrested.
Perhaps this is something that employers can help to resolve. Patagonia apparently allow employees time off to take part in protests and even offer to pay their bail if they get arrested. It's a beautiful example of a business pushing the envelope in how it can use its influence and resources to drive positive change. I wondered, could a small business like ours also support employees in this way?
Since late last summer, I've been working on exploring what support we could offer to our employees in the event that they wanted to take part in activism for issues that they personally care about. I spent a lot of time trying to understand the potential risks for us as a business and I have to admit that it turned out to be a lot more complicated than I had imagined.
After many revisions and some incredibly valuable input from Ben Tolhurst at Business Declares, Bates Wells lawyers and others including Patagonia and Gareth Roberts at Beyondly, I'm excited to say that last month Wholegrain Digital introduced an official employee activism policy, which I believe may be the first of its kind in the UK.
The new policy provides paid leave to take part in activism, security of employment in the event of an arrest, a contribution toward bail costs, paid leave for unexpected extended absence and the offer to pay for training to help stay safe. It also sets out some boundaries of what we expect from our employees in order to avail any support offered, to help mitigate risk for themselves and for the company.
In creating this policy, it quickly became apparent that there were other companies interested in offering some sort of official activism support to their employees. We teamed up with Business Declares to produce an open source template that other businesses can use as a starting point in creating their own activism or NVDA policies.
I'm optimistic that a number of other companies will soon adopt similar policies of their own and that it may inspire more employees to take action on the issues that matter most to them. So in a way, the creation of our own activism policy has itself been a small piece of activism that I hope will create a ripple effect of positive action.
I hope this week's post has inspired you to think about what activism means for you in your business, where you might have levers of influence that you could pull, as well as how you could support your employees to amplify their own impact.
I'd love to hear your own examples of business activism, so please do leave a comment down below or share your thoughts with me on LinkedIn.