Foresights

As Sir David Attenborough has taken to Instagram to reach a wider audience, he has also said that saving our planet is a communications challenge.

This follows encouraging commitments from big corporates about further pledges on carbon neutrality, especially at Climate Week NYC late last month. This is to be welcomed as there is an ongoing realisation from brands that it is better to be on the right side of history on this one.

But we all have a part to play, from the largest companies to the smallest. And that is why Sir David’s communications challenge is also a challenge for communications.

I sometimes think that advisory companies – including communications – think they get a free pass because they do not have a carbon footprint the size of an extractive company or an airline. And so - in some respects - they can hide in plain sight, even though they are advising companies at the same time about their positioning in this endeavour.

There are of course many honourable exceptions. Last month PwC announced it aims to bring its carbon impact to net zero by 2030. In the adjacent discipline of advertising, AdGreen was also launched last month, an initiative to eliminate the negative environmental impacts of ad production.

However, I am not convinced that communications, as a discipline and sector, is there yet.

Starting a company, as I have, at this moment has brought plenty of challenges in the form of our familiar foe, Covid-19. But there are also benefits of starting from scratch, with new ways of working built in from the beginning, as well as the virtue of starting with a clean slate.

But we start as we mean to go on. As such I was determined that Impact & Influence would tread lightly in this world and our mission is to be societally as well as carbon positive.

We do everything we can to reduce our impact on the environment, including keeping travel to a minimum, as well as being virtual. While Covid is a foe, it has also brought about the acceptability and desirability of different working patterns. “Doing a zoom” at home is no longer frowned upon, even by the most ardent champions of presenteeism because they have been forced to adopt and adapt. This behaviour shift has come at a good time for modelling a new business.

I also wanted us to be offset from the outset. Even though we are only just operational we use Ecologi – a great platform that allows companies to have a climate positive workforce.

It means Impact & Influence has already planted more than 300 trees. Not many just yet, I know, but we are new and small – and we recognise this has to be part of the new model army.

During my quest to tread lightly, one of the areas I have become increasingly interested in – through impact investing – is the concept of intentionality. How we move from neutralising harm to actually having a more positive impact.

With this in mind, from today we are adding on a discretionary (for now) 1.5% on to our fees – matching the 1.5-degree challenge of holding global warming to pre-industrial levels, which could limit the most dangerous effects of climate change.

This additional amount will go directly into further climate positivity through the Ecologi platform. Clients are at liberty to use this internally or externally. We are proud of this and we hope they are too.

Moreover, clients already on our roster are seeking to create a positive impact, aligned to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and so, in this respect, we are meeting Sir David’s communications challenge.

By championing our clients – as we always do – we can catalyse and accelerate the pace of change.

Impact & Influence, an independent consultancy focused on the next generation of leaders and companies, launches today.

The company which has been founded by Rishi Bhattacharya, a former senior executive at Edelman and Instinctif Partners, also specialises in impact investing.

“We are focused on creating value for our clients – the next generation of CEOs who are coming through, maximizing their impact and influence through delivering innovative ways of communicating and engaging stakeholders, shareholders and society. We also believe there is an imperative to do this as leaders and companies are increasingly aware of their own positive impact,” said Rishi Bhattacharya, CEO and Founder of Impact & Influence.

“At first glimpse it may seem strange to be setting up a new venture at this time, but as companies go through a Covid-19 reset – including the communications industry – it is exactly the time to be doing this.”

He is joined by Nicola Forsyth who has more than 12 years’ experience creating corporate and consumer campaigns, offering strategic corporate counsel, media relations support, social purpose and sustainability communications consultancy.

She has had in-house roles with HSBC, TSB Bank, OVO Energy as well as being head of content for Green Traveller, a sustainable travel website.

She has also worked in agencies including Edelman, Teneo Blue Rubicon, Third City and Seven Consultancy.

Impact & Influence – which is following the virtual agency route - is also convenor of like-minded partners, blending and delivering world class advice and is launching with clients in the fintech and energy sectors. The company also has a mission to be societally and climate positive and is offset from the outset.

Impact & Influence’s CEO also has an advisory panel which includes Anne Groves, former Global Head of Public Relations at Magic Circle law firm Clifford Chance and a senior adviser and trainer, Chris Kelsall, the former COO for HSBC Global Banking in Europe who is now the Managing Director of NetZero Solutions, and Richard Sambrook, the former Director of Global News at the BBC and Director for the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University.

At Instinctif Partners, Rishi was co-head of Corporate and Capital markets as well as initiating the firm’s impact investing offer. He also launched the SDG500, a ground-breaking $500m impact investment platform dedicated to financing the Sustainable Development Goals, for Bamboo Capital Partners in Davos earlier this year.

Rishi also spent nine years at Edelman, advising clients in the energy, tech and financial services sectors, including being head of Energy & Industrials in EMEA.

Before moving into communications consultancy, he was a broadcast political journalist during the Blair years.

He is also on the board of trustees of Chawton House, Hampshire, UK, which promotes the study of early women’s literature and is linked to the author Jane Austen.

It is time for a reset. A reboot. A time to look again at the way in which we go about our lives, as well as the lives of others, how businesses conduct themselves and how leaders actually lead.

Before Covid-19 gatecrashed in our lives – very much uninvited, unwanted and undesirable – the warning signs were already flashing on our dashboard.

From climate, to geo-political tensions; from leaders focusing more on nations than united nations, to the growing gulf between the haves and have-nots.

Heat and noise.

But, perhaps with less fanfare there have been trends flowing underneath the megatrends.

Like the climate activism of the Greta generation which, by the way, I do not believe is purely defined by age but by outlook. But the calls are getting louder. Look underneath though, at the channelling and flows of capital as it assesses risk, of which climate is a key determining factor.

We are also in an era of the greatest generational wealth transfer in history.

So in many senses it seems the balance of power has already shifted to the next generation, as they move from occupying the streets to occupying positions of power and influence – from business to politics. And not only will they have this power in their hands, but they will also have wealth to back it up.

And that is why – in the middle of the greatest era of turmoil of most of our lifetimes – I have decided to found Impact & Influence – to recognise both the influence of the next generation of leaders and the impact they have now and will have in the future.

It is just at this moment, as the world seemingly teeters between these trends, that we are channelling our efforts to accelerate the positives, applying communications to create commercial value, while believing in the positive co-existence of profit and purpose.