A Letter to Fellow White People of Just and Sustainable Business
I recently published a paper (“25 Insights, 25 Years”) setting my point of view after 25 years in the field of just and sustainable business. The paper is generally positive, but there is one aspect that has been of growing concern to me: the lack of progress on equity, inclusion, and justice in the field itself.
The field of just and sustainable business is made up of many sub-professions (like human rights, climate change, social justice, civil rights, philanthropy, DEI, and reporting) and my observation is not uniformly true across the entire field. There are many organizations that have made significant progress and are grappling with what it means to embed a commitment to social justice on topics as diverse as pay equity, theory of change, and how to run a conference.
However, the truth is that the field of just and sustainable business remains predominantly white- and Global North-led. This needs to change, and we will never have the transformational impact that we seek until the field is led, shaped, and built by people with lived experiences far more directly connected to the issues we work on.
I have been reflecting on what contribution I can make—as a white man long in the field—to the change I want to see. The list is long, but here I am sharing some observations that fellow white people in the field would do well to reflect upon.
Focus on how you need to change, not on how you think other people need to change. I have been in too many conversations focused on how to “convince” a wider range of people to apply for jobs, attend events, or engage with the field, but far less attention to how the organization or initiative itself needs to change.
Don’t let equity get in the way of equity. Many organizations have made important changes to how they operate on topics such as promotion criteria, paid internships, and pay equity. However, sometimes the disciplined adherence to the “letter” of these changes has become a barrier to what they seek to achieve in practice, such as slowing down the rapid promotion of high-performing people of color into leadership roles.
Show up at other venues and forums, rather than just inviting people to yours. When attending the Forum on Internet Freedom Africa in Tanzania last year I was disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, that not a single company was there. I understand challenges with time and budgets, but the right answer to the question “how many company representatives should attend” isn’t zero. I learned more about just and sustainable business in that one conference than I did all year, and wish that more people had that experience, too.
Understand the impact that life outside of work has on work. I recall the morning my wife Jamie (a Black woman) was stopped by the police for (allegedly) speeding. If that had happened to me, I would have lost maybe 30 minutes of precious work time telling my story to colleagues; by contrast, Jamie lost an entire workday processing what could have happened and why the cop asked her questions that had nothing to do with the speed she was driving. Well-intended commitments to equity in the workplace too often forget the lack of equity that colleagues must endure everyday outside the workplace.
Be interested, be human, and be empathetic. Being able to cite literature and make well-reasoned arguments for change is no substitute for real, empathetic, and deeply human relationships with people with a different lived experience than your own. I see far more of the former than the latter in the field; I think this goes some way to explaining the challenges that many organizations face when trying to establish and maintain cultures of inclusion and belonging.
Don’t use regional context as an excuse. I’m a Brit who grew up considering himself European but has spent the past twenty years living in the US, so I get it when people emphasize regional nuances. However, these nuances are nothing compared to the reality that the transatlantic slave trade had long-lasting effects on the development of three continents and that colonialism is a global reality. These connections and similarities matter far more than the differences, so stop letting details (like different employee data collection laws) be an excuse that delays action.
Understand the lived experience. The reality is that most non-white people in just and sustainable business have had to be twice as good to get the same amount of recognition throughout their entire lives, both before and after entering the field. So, if you are struck by how assertive someone is being, remember that they’ve probably always had to be in order to be listened to; if you feel uncomfortable with a perspective being shared, remember how challenging it must be for the person sharing it; if the messages you are hearing call for a radical change of approach, remember that is the very business of change that you are supposed to be in.
Make space and get out of the way. The process of creating a more just and sustainable world should disproportionately value the voices of the people and communities who have historically been excluded. While allies have an essential role to play, sometimes the right thing to do is to step away and leave space for those with the most relevant experience to define the approach. Stay connected, supportive, and engaged, but don’t confuse that with crowding out the leadership of those best placed to shape the best solutions.
The field of just and sustainable business exists because we want to see transformational change in how companies address issues of social justice and sustainable development. However, too often that natural focus on the desired outcomes we want to see in the world has been accompanied by a neglect of our own state, as if we are somehow not also part of the problem.
We are part of the problem, and failure to recognize this holds us back, because the field will only succeed if we are better able to embed the values of equity, inclusion, and justice into our own way of being. The individual actions and behaviors I describe here do not constitute the structural and systemic change we need, but we’re not going to succeed without them.