ICAS ICAS logo

Quicklinks

  1. About Us

    Find out about who we are and what we do here at ICAS.

  2. Find a CA

    Search our directory of individual CAs and Member organisations by name, location and professional criteria.

  3. CA Magazine

    View the latest issues of the dedicated magazine for ICAS Chartered Accountants.

  4. Contact Us

    Get in touch with ICAS by phone, email or post, with dedicated contacts for Members, Students and firms.

Login
  • Annual renewal
  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Find a CA
  1. About us
    1. Governance
  2. Members
    1. Become a member
    2. Newly qualified
    3. Manage my membership
    4. Benefits of membership
    5. Careers support
    6. Mentoring
    7. CA Wellbeing
    8. More for Members
    9. Area networks
    10. International communities
    11. Get involved
    12. Top Young CAs
    13. Career breaks
    14. ICAS podcast
    15. Newly admitted members 2022
    16. Newly admitted members 2023
  3. CA Students
    1. Student information
    2. Student resources
    3. Learning requirements
    4. Learning updates
    5. Learning blog
    6. Totum Pro | Student discount card
    7. CA Student wellbeing
  4. Become a CA
    1. How to become a CA
    2. Routes to becoming a CA
    3. CA Stories
    4. Find a training agreement
    5. Why become a CA
    6. Qualification information
    7. University exemptions
  5. Employers
    1. Become an Authorised Training Office
    2. Resources for Authorised Training Offices
    3. Professional entry
    4. Apprenticeships
  6. Find a CA
  7. ICAS events
    1. CA Summit
  8. CA magazine
  9. Insight
    1. Finance + Trust
    2. Finance + Technology
    3. Finance + EDI
    4. Finance + Mental Fitness
    5. Finance + Leadership
    6. Finance + Sustainability
  10. Professional resources
    1. Anti-money laundering
    2. Audit and assurance
    3. Brexit
    4. Business and governance
    5. Charities
    6. Coronavirus
    7. Corporate and financial reporting
    8. Cyber security
    9. Ethics
    10. Insolvency
    11. ICAS Research
    12. Pensions
    13. Practice
    14. Public sector
    15. Sustainability
    16. Tax
  11. CPD - professional development
    1. CPD courses and qualifications
    2. CPD news and updates
    3. CPD support and advice
  12. Regulation
    1. Complaints and sanctions
    2. Regulatory authorisations
    3. Guidance and help sheets
    4. Regulatory monitoring
  13. CA jobs
    1. CA jobs partner: Rutherford Cross
    2. Resources for your job search
    3. Advertise with CA jobs
    4. Hays | A Trusted ICAS CA Jobs Partner
    5. Azets | What's your ambition?
  14. Work at ICAS
    1. Business centres
    2. Meet our team
    3. Benefits
    4. Vacancies
    5. Imagine your career at ICAS
  15. Contact us
    1. Technical and regulation queries
    2. ICAS logo request

How to build an ethical business

Earth in a bag
  • LinkedIn (opens new window)
  • Twitter (opens new window)
By CA magazine

26 March 2020

This article was written before the coronavirus pandemic had escalated in the UK, Europe and the USA and first appears in the April 2020 issue of CA magazine.

The demand for businesses to be ethical is rising. But how can companies ensure that sustainability does not come at the cost of financial stability? Christian Koch investigates

Three years ago, Ed Duguid CA had a “cowspiracy epiphany”. He and his colleagues at the fresh food brand BOL (where Duguid is a director) took the brave decision to eliminate all meat, fish and dairy products, despite these best-sellers accounting for over half their revenue. “It was a huge challenge in terms of numbers, but we now had a business that we felt we could stand by what it believed in,” he recalls.

Sales halved overnight. Yet, their conviction that plant-based foods would ultimately prove commercially successful, as well as better for the planet, was borne out, chiming with recent vegan trends. Today, BOL has sold over 30 million portions of veg and is an £18m-turnover business that has grown at more than 50% for the past two years.

These days, ethical epiphanies in business are happening at an alarming rate (some of it likely, admittedly, greenwashing), whether it’s Volvo pledging to have half of its sales coming from electric cars by 2025 or BP aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Even Lego makes its bricks from sugar cane today. Where once companies would sideline sustainable ventures for fear of upsetting profit-hungry shareholders, now the opposite is becoming true. Unilever’s Sustainable Living currently fuels some three-quarters of the multinational giant’s overall revenue growth. Much of this change in consciousness is consumer-driven, shoppers seeking environmentally friendly companies to spend their money with (the market for ethical spending in the UK is at a record high of £41bn, according to a recent Co-op study).

Should companies fall foul of consumers’ standards, they could face stigma on social media. Accountancy isn’t immune: environmental lawyers ClientEarth recently publicly harangued the Big Four for failing to address the climate crisis in their auditing. But how can you build an ethical brand? By discovering your niche, according to Jocelyn Wilkinson, Responsibility Programme Director at Burberry, which recently launched a sustainable nylon collection.

“What matters is that brands figure out what their interests are… and chart a course for themselves,” she recently told the Walpole Summit 2020 in London. If businesses want to win trust, a good place to start is by achieving B Corp status – the global benchmark that signals a business is ethically sound. An estimated 3,000 companies worldwide have signed up, with the initial self-assessment (bimpactassessment.net) an effective way for smaller organisations to carry out ethical self-audits.

Just as a CA can hold a financial lens up to inform better strategic choices, they are well placed to do a similar thing in ethical areas"

BOL is currently undergoing the process of becoming B Corp-certified. “It pushes businesses to think not only about stakeholder return, but also to have a positive impact on the environment and society,” says Duguid. “I’d encourage all firms to take this step. It’s important business is used as a force for good to combat some of the challenges we will face in the coming decades.”

Whether a company goes down the B Corp route or not, any purpose-driven business must have values embedded throughout the organisation, from boardroom to staff canteen to supply chain (including due diligence on the sustainability of providers). Duguid previously spent five years working at Innocent, the drinks company famed for its ethical stance, not least donating 10% of its profits to charity. “Everybody who worked at Innocent wholeheartedly believed in its mission; the values were truly ingrained in its DNA, something we’ve taken with us to BOL,” he says. “It’s incredible what you can achieve when you have a team who see it as more than just a job.”

On one level, becoming an ethically minded company could mean changing the physical work environment: ensuring all tea and coffee is fair trade, having eco-friendly stationery, energy-efficient lighting or plant-based food in the canteen. Even, in the case of handbag-makers Mulberry, rainwater harvesting for factory toilets. Fostering a work culture in which people can thrive regardless of background is also important. Many firms are adopting a gender-and-race-blind stance towards pay and promotion, or committing the company to better gender/BAME representation (Sainsbury’s ensures 14% of its staff at all levels are from ethnic minorities to reflect the UK population). In 2018, PwC banned all-male shortlists for jobs; it also has a well-established LGBT+ network and works on generational diversity

Turning tide

Smaller firms may argue they have more pressing issues than sustainability. After all, sustainability doesn’t always add to the bottom line, as shown when Bristol coffee chain Boston Tea Party banned single-use cups and promptly saw sales plummet by £250,000. But the tide could be turning.

Socially responsible firms attract talent: younger generations increasingly want to work for companies with a purpose. Meanwhile, the UK’s pledge to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 is predicted to see ‘green-collar jobs’ swell by two million.

A 2017 report for the government estimated greater workplace diversity could boost the UK economy by £24bn. With the Financial Reporting Council recently launching a review into whether auditors should reflect the financial risks of the climate crisis in their accounts, it’s clear CAs have a crucial role to play in ensuring businesses become more ethical, whether it’s identifying company wastage or assessing whether a corporation should adopt electric vehicle fleets.

As Duguid says, “Just as a CA can hold a financial lens up to businesses to help inform better strategic choices, they are well placed to do a similar thing in ethical areas too.”


Read now

Interview: Hiro Mizuno, CIO of Japan's GPIF

By CA magazine

26 March 2020

Peter Kerr CA: Taking a bite out of homelessness

By Kitty Finstad, CA magazine

26 March 2020

2023-03-MarksElectrical 2023-03-MarksElectrical
ICAS logo

Footer links

  • Contact us
  • Terms and conditions
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Privacy notice
  • CA magazine

Connect with ICAS

  • Facebook (opens new window) Facebook Icon
  • Twitter (opens new window) Twitter Icon
  • LinkedIn (opens new window) LinkedIn Icon
  • Instagram (opens new window) Instagram Icon

ICAS is a member of the following bodies

  • Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (opens new window) Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies logo
  • Chartered Accountants Worldwide (opens new window) Chartered Accountants Worldwide logo
  • Global Accounting Alliance (opens new window) Global Accounting Alliance
  • International Federation of Accountants (opens new window) IFAC
  • Access Accountancy (opens new window) Access Acountancy

Charities

  • ICAS Foundation (opens new window) ICAS Foundation
  • SCABA (opens new window) scaba

Accreditations

  • ISO 9001 - RGB (opens new window)
© ICAS 2022

The mark and designation “CA” is a registered trade mark of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), and is available for use in the UK and EU only to members of ICAS. If you are not a member of ICAS, you should not use the “CA” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to accountancy, tax or insolvency services. The mark and designation “Chartered Accountant” is a registered trade mark of ICAS, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and Chartered Accountants Ireland. If you are not a member of one of these organisations, you should not use the “Chartered Accountant” mark and designation in the UK or EU in relation to these services. Further restrictions on the use of these marks also apply where you are a member.

ICAS logo

Our cookie policy

ICAS.com uses cookies which are essential for our website to work. We would also like to use analytical cookies to help us improve our website and your user experience. Any data collected is anonymised. Please have a look at the further information in our cookie policy and confirm if you are happy for us to use analytical cookies: