Emerge Stronger: Impact Report 2020

If there’s one word that sums up 2020, it’s COVID-19. Overnight, all our engagements pivoted to online—from our weekly team meetings all the way to large-scale strategy facilitations and conferences. Like so many, our homes became our offices. How long would we work remotely? That was anyone’s guess.

A Focus on Emerging Stronger

Our 2020 Impact Report strives to capture some of the challenges of this year. We’ve worked to support the wellbeing of our team, while working with clients to advise on seismic shifts in strategy and helping to navigate these unprecedented times. Our focus has remained clear and unwavering: to support the leaders of the next economy to emerge stronger from this crisis.

That said, we recognize the climate emergency continues unabated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have made significant progress since the launch of the Creative Climate Disclosure, where we joined others in our sector to declare a climate emergency. This Impact Report includes our 2020 Creative Climate Disclosure information as we aim to align our commercial and environmental goals to deliver meaningful impact.

Choosing Wisely and with Intention

We recognize our impact as a social impact consultancy lies in the difference we make for our clients. So when we choose to engage with a client, we know we are also choosing the shape of our impact.

In our 2019-20 financial year, a significant proportion of our clients’ work was in the Health & Social Services sector. Our expertise in this sector and our extensive networks ensured we have been able to draw lessons from Canada, the US, and the UK, and apply that learning with clients in other places.

Moving forward, we aim to work in social finance, social purpose business, and social services as priority sectors, believing that we can have a significant impact in these areas and make a difference to society and the environment with this focus. We need to support moving money to do good while supporting those organisations that are leading the way to a new era in business and those that provide the safety net to the most vulnerable in our societies.

The Impact We’ve Had

This year, our team have collectively offered 496 hours of advisory services through pro bono project work—or 5% of our team’s time. We’ve supported clients in sectors such as global insurance, finance, social services, beauty and wellbeing—even the world’s largest sporting goods retailer. Plus nearly 35% of client projects were B Corp related. We’ve contributed toward global sustainability strategy, developed principles for governance and accountability, and paved the way for sector level change in multiple industries. 

We are making progress on how we measure our impact as a consultancy, and we’ll continue to develop our approach, make a positive difference, and measure and report on our impact in the coming year.