Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent thinks so
We have a very simple five-point strategy for the business. One is that we will only ever make drinks that are genuinely good for people - we see that as our most important responsibility. We'll then make sure that we do what we can to increase the supply of ethically grown fruits of the world.
We also have sustainable packaging, so we bought out the world's first recycled plastic bottle this year, and we're pushing forward on taking the amount of paper out of the cartons.
We make sure the business is resource efficient, so Innocent is always run on 100% green electricity. Our biggest manufacturing partner has moved to green electricity and that instantly took out 15% carbon dioxide embedded in each and every Innocent smoothie carton which is a material change and one that they feel was worth paying 10% more for their electricity.
And the fifth thing we did as part of the business model was to make sure a minimum of 10% of profits go to charity each year, principally back into the countries where the fruit comes from to aid rural development projects. And giving 10% away is a nice headline of course, but what it means is we're still keeping 90% for ourselves. If you can't achieve what you need in your business with 90% of your profits then you're probably not just being as efficient as you could be.
If I had to come up with the economic rationale of why it's worth businesses widening out the remit it would be this. One, I think it allows you to have a more engaged, loyal consumer base. Second, I think it can get you closer to retailers.
Third, I think the biggest, commercial benefit is allowing you to keep an intelligent, committed group of people engaged for longer. I get a groundswell of motivation for myself about the fact that we're trying to do things just a little bit differently and I think the rest of the team do too.
We do it because we always have done it that way and we never thought about it, it was just the way we wanted to do business. But I accept it's very easy for me to be like that because we set up the business from scratch. There's an opportunity commercially, be it with your consumers, be it with the people that work for the business, be it your retailers.
There's nothing better than doing well by doing good. There really is this win-win out there. And I just think that's going to make us look much better down the golf club right? I mean even if we just do it for our own selfish reasons then let's do it. Because I think history will judge us harshly.
This is an edited extract of Richard Reed's British Brand Group's Lecture. Read a longer version on the Read section of the website.