Beyond the Billboard

Guy opened with a deliberately uncomfortable question: what does better business actually look like beyond marketing?

Kate’s answer stripped away the language that so often makes this conversation feel complicated.

“Better business that’s not just a marketing effort represents driving real, measurable impact or change on the ground.”

For 1% for the Planet, that means businesses committing 1% of annual revenue (not profit) to approved environmental organisations, with that contribution independently certified every year.

It is simple enough to explain in a sentence. Serious enough to shape a budget. Visible enough for employees, customers and partners to understand. And difficult enough to mean something.

Kate describes 1% as the “Goldilocks” commitment: attainable, but not insignificant. Across nearly 25 years, contributions from businesses of every size have added up to almost $900 million USD in certified environmental giving.

Or, as Guy put it:

“There’s a beautiful simplicity to 1% for the Planet. A business is willing to commit 1% of its revenue. It’s putting your money where your mouth is.”

In a market crowded with ambitious claims, the percentage cuts through. There are no adjectives to hide behind. Just a number, a commitment and the evidence that it happened.

From Instinct to Infrastructure

Not every purpose-led business begins with a framework.

Dryrobe® began with a product, and a founder trying to make an extra £100 a week. As the company grew, so did its ability to help. Products went to people doing good things. Money followed. Those informal acts became the Warmth Project, creating a home for the causes, communities and people the brand supported.

The instinct was there from the beginning. The infrastructure came later.

“We’d say, ‘We do what we can, where we can.’ It wasn’t quantified. It was not really understood in the business,” Gideon explained.

When Dryrobe® examined its activity, it found it was already contributing around 1.7% of revenue. Joining 1% for the Planet was therefore not about discovering a conscience. It was about giving an existing one structure, visibility and accountability.

Plenty of businesses are already doing good work, but it may be happening in fragments: one team volunteers, another donates products, a founder supports a local cause and someone in marketing tells part of the story. Without a common framework, the whole can be difficult to measure, and even harder to protect when budgets tighten.

For Gideon, 1% offered a clear line through it all:

“It’s a big commitment, but it’s a good commitment. Everyone gets it. It’s nice and simple to understand.”

Goodwill became a system. Isolated activity became a collective direction. And a founder-led instinct became something the entire company could carry.

Rewriting a 70-year-old Business

Joelson arrived from the opposite direction.

This was not a young challenger brand writing purpose into a blank business plan. It was an established commercial law firm, founded 70 years ago, reconsidering what the next 70 should stand for.

Phil described the process as “reverse engineering” the business: revisiting its values, changing its partnership agreement and adopting a triple bottom line of people, profit and planet. B Corp certification created the framework and joining 1% for the Planet deepened the commitment.

For a partnership, 1% of revenue is not an abstract figure. Every pound committed affects the profit pool shared by the partners. The decision demanded real internal debate, and that is precisely why it carried weight.

“To ensure that we’re able to give advice that feels authentic and true, we have to live those values as well,” said Phil.

That lived experience now strengthens Joelson’s work with founders and entrepreneurs. Its lawyers are not advising from the sidelines, they understand what it means to change governance, secure internal support and make commercial decisions through a wider lens.

The result is influence that travels. One firm changes how it operates. Its employees become advocates. Its clients encounter new models. Other professional-services businesses begin to reconsider what is possible.

Purpose stops being a department and starts behaving like an ecosystem.

Trust is the Bridge

Doing good and doing well are often framed as competing ideas. The conversation suggested something more interesting: when purpose is credible, it can become part of how a strong business grows.

For Dryrobe®, visible responsibility signals something beyond environmental action. If a company demonstrates care for people and planet, Gideon argued, customers can reasonably expect that same care to reach its materials, supply chain, product quality and durability.

“I think it’s a trust-building thing. If you’re proud about the stuff you do as a company and you put it out, like-minded people gravitate towards that.”

Trust is the commercial bridge between impact and growth.

Phil pointed to Nielsen research showing that B Corp products were growing around 20% faster than the wider category average in the dataset presented at a recent Joelson event. Within Joelson itself, average annual turnover growth has been around 10% since B Corp certification, although he was careful not to claim certification as the sole cause.

The point is not that a logo produces growth. It is that excellent products, strong service, employee pride, customer confidence and independently verified values can reinforce one another.

“The one thing that we always get back in employee feedback is that they love the volunteering days we do with the charities,” Phil said.

“True investment can generate proper revenue and proper purpose,” Phil said.

Purpose is not a substitute for a good business. Done properly, it helps make a good business harder to ignore.

One Percent Becomes a Movement

The real power of 1% is not found in any single company.

It is found in thousands of businesses making the same understandable promise, across around 65 industries and 100 countries. It appears in outdoor brands and law firms, food businesses and technology companies, established organisations and founders making their first hires.

It also appears in what those businesses can offer. Contributions may include cash, products, professional expertise and employee volunteering, provided the environmental partner genuinely wants and values that support. Flexibility sits with the business; agency stays with the nonprofit.

Then the community turns the individual commitment into something larger.

“Joining 1% for the Planet is a business-level commitment, but it’s also an opportunity to join a conversation and learn with some of the leading businesses in this space,” Kate explained.

Guy has seen that effect firsthand. Blue Earth introduced Joelson to 1% for the Planet.Dryrobe® encountered a wider community of companies wrestling with the same questions at Blue Earth Summit. New relationships formed, ideas travelled and individual action began to gather momentum.

“As soon as you become part of it, you see it everywhere,” Guy said.

This is what Blue Earth exists to do: bring the people building what comes next into the same room, then make the collisions count.

Because change rarely arrives as one immaculate idea. It moves through introductions, challenges, shared evidence and somebody seeing what another business has done and deciding: we could do that too.

Can Purpose Outlive the Founder?

The conversation ended not with an answer, but with the next big question.

What happens when a purpose-led business is sold?

Kate raised the example of a founder working to protect decades of environmental progress through succession. It opened a wider discussion about challenger brands, acquisitions and whether purpose can survive new ownership.

For Guy, this is not only a risk. It is an opportunity. Smaller businesses can carry new ideas into large organisations, but only if their commitments remain intact.

“The more that we can get top-down, the more the collective impact can be larger. We can genuinely solve problems and genuinely reshape industries.”

That may be the next frontier of better business: building a purpose that is not dependent on one charismatic founder, one generous leadership team or one favourable year. Purpose written deeply enough into governance, culture and financial commitments that it survives growth, investment and change.

Not a campaign. Not a chapter. Part of the company’s operating system.

The Future’s Happening Here

There will never be a perfect year to begin.

There will always be another headwind, another uncertainty and another reason to wait until the conditions improve. But the future is not waiting for a more convenient trading environment.

“There’s never a perfect time to take action,” Kate said. “Usually, the time is now and you just have to get started.”

That is the spirit behind Blue Earth Summit 2026.

From 14–16 October at Woolwich Works, more than 7,000 founders, leaders, innovators and investors will come together to explore what is next for business, technology, culture, human potential and the natural world. 1% for the Planet joins as Presenting Partner, alongside Joelson, dryrobe® and a growing community proving that the future is not an abstract destination.

It is being financed. Designed. Debated. Measured. Built.

And, one percent at a time, The Future’s Happening Here.