Purpose as your Why

As part of the 2022 Tricor Group conference, their beneficiary partner and TPB friend HandsOn Hong Kong (HOHK) hosted a session focused on ‘ESG Practices with Real Community Impact’. As facilitator Catherine Dannaoui (Executive Director, HOHK) highlighted, a recent PwC study that said nearly 70% of CFOs in Australia view ESG as risk mitigation, rather than identifying it as an opportunity. This talk focused on some of those opportunities and practices that are really making a difference. For The Purpose Business, that all comes down to purpose in the business context and that is how Pat Dwyer kicked things off.

TPB would argue that profit is not the purpose of business (although increased profits means increased ability to be able to strive towards your purpose). That’s business as usual as we know it and has involved many decades of trying the way of the short-term return, absolute profit maximization. In its absolute extreme, this sort of profit at all costs comes at the expense of people, of nature.

The United Nations Brundtland Commission in 1987 said sustainable development was meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, meaning let's not steal from the future generation to finance the life that we live today.

So if long-term wellbeing for all people and planet is the ultimate meta purpose, Pat’s question to the audience was what is your organization doing to get to that?

What’s your vision? Where do you want to go? How do your products and services get to that, while being profitable, without being profit maximizing and profitable at all costs.

“If purpose is your why then purpose-driven businesses are really existing for their unique contribution.”

— Pat Dwyer

Catherine and Pat are in agreement that it’s helpful to frame purpose in terms of what's the difference that you’re making. In an ESG setting, if purpose is your why then purpose driven businesses are really existing for their unique contribution. What is your comparative advantage? What is your one expertise? Is it delivering goods? Is it enabling people to come together?

The audience also heard from Adrian T. (Managing Director of CEO Office at Standard Chartered Bank) on how the bank’s purpose statement, aligned with their brand promise of ''Here for Good" has really driven them in what kinds of products and services they deliver. For Gabrielle Kirstein (Founder at Feeding Hong Kong), her organisation’s purpose couldn’t be any clearer: their sole purpose is to make Hong Kong a better place.