Working with business for the benefit of all
Posted 19th May 2008 15:37pm by Stephen Howard
Stephen Howard, Chief Executive, Business in the Community
Business in the Community is about mobilising business for good. One of our current priorities is climate change. This is an issue that has been driven by The Prince of Wales and culminated in the creation last May of The Prince of Wales’s May Day Network, the largest movement of businesses committed to taking practical action to tackle climate change. We hope that by 2011 we will have 100,000 businesses engaged with the network and committed to take action.
An initiative that we have launched more recently with the support of The Prince of Wales is Mosaic. This is an exciting new mentoring programme to create a resource of successful Muslims, who though their knowledge and experience aim to address the issues facing young Muslims and raise their aspirations.
For the past 18 years we have been taking senior business leaders into communities to visit schools, community groups and prisons as part of The Prince’s Seeing is Believing programme. This programme provides a powerful personal experience for participants and enables them to witness effective examples of how business leaders can shape society through their actions, both inside and outside their businesses.
For 25 years we have successfully worked to raise awareness and tackle urban poverty and deprivation. However, in 2001, at the request of The Prince of Wales, Business in the Community launched Rural Action to inspire business to make a difference to the prosperity of our countryside. Working in partnership with companies and other rural stakeholders, Rural Action aims to support rural communities to be vibrant and sustainable
In the current climate we are seeing a rise in global competition, in which people will be the UK’s only certain natural resource for the future. Our work places will see large numbers of unskilled jobs being replaced with high skilled ones. At Business in the Community we are working with business and government on this critical issue to discover how we can unlock a wide range of talent that is hidden in the UK, the aspiration to use them and the enterprise to put them to work.
At Business in the Community we believe that responsible business practice should be part of the DNA of an organisation. It should be an essential ingredient in everything that a business does.
