We Asked our Mentors: If They’ve Noticed Entrepreneurs’ Social Responsibility has Become a Competitive Advantage

Social responsibility is a trend that appears to keep growing and can be an important factor to job seekers, we asked our mentors if they were aware of any IG clients that are purposely employing ethical marketing, ethical products, or other socially-conscious strategies and has it been a competitive advantage for them? 

Hari Stirbet: All Rhyze Ventures Social Entrepreneurship clients! 😊 

Anne: Fill it Forward employs environmental and socially conscious strategies.  

Patricia Muir: Diversity/Equity/Inclusion is also becoming upfront and central in supporting/enhancing brand. 

Kevin Boon: Planet Bean is launching a campaign to support Women’s Shelters across Canada. 

Saskia Brussaard: Purple Martin Naturals is making soaps from locally sourced tallow as part of strategy to reduce important oils, regenerative farming and zero waste. 

Mark Granskou: The new term is ESG – envt/social/governance – and investment is exploding in this area. 

Stacey Curry Gunn: A socially conscious client, Chef Pam Fanjoy’s Junior Chef Program supports youth mental health through food/connection for community wellbeing.  

Mickey: Udderly Ridiculous donates goats to third world countries and donates a percentage of profits to women’s charities like shelters, etc. 

Carol Johnston: SLIAO comes to mind. That is a huge part of their hiring strategy and platform. They purposely look to employ diverse employees. I see them lately on their social media more and more talking about social responsibility and it is working for them. Another client, Poshak Brand Progoti is brand of clothing made by Bangladesh seamstresses; Poshak contributes to their pensions.  

Mark Goldberg: the Lang school of business at U Guelph has totally embraced this concept. Their slogan changed to “business as a force for good” and enrollment has gone up with the focus on the sustainability of doing good in the world. 

Nancy Carroll: Ben Cullen, Cullen Foods is attempting to look into how to bring in larger context retailers another way to see the full ecosystem of business. The example would be, they are marketing beans as “where have your beans been” an entirely transparent, Canadian businesses in how can you do business showing where the seed originated and how it got to the store. They are taking this initiative very seriously.