BrewDog's B Corp Status Change

4 Minute Read

Takeaway: Trending headlines, slipping sales, or consumer pressure can all be factors that push organizations to force-fit a justice movement into their corporate persona. This is a recipe for disaster.  Real change starts with modernizing your operating model.

A recent Guardian article shared that BrewDog, a multinational brewery and pub chain, has lost its B Corporation status. Alright, let’s start with the basics: what the *bleep* is a B Corp?

Simply put, a B Corp is a for-profit company that conducts itself under the mission of a non-profit (i.e., Tom’s footwear, buy a pair give a pair).

The news that BrewDog’s B Corp status has been revoked is salacious and serves as some good clickbait. Yet, the true issue is the pattern that BrewDog’s social/environmental fall from grace reveals. The pattern we’re referring to is the innumerable amount of companies out there that claim to be constructive pawns on the social and environmental justice chessboard. Their marketing teams even produce pretty graphics about it, so it must be true! All jokes aside, we are not suggesting that these organizations have bad intentions, in fact, we would guess the opposite. What it does reflect is their misunderstanding of the implementation of true change.

Start With The Operating Model

Impactful, world-changing, skeptic-convincing change STARTS with the operating model. The common trap that many leaders fall into is retrofitting an environmental or social cause into an existing operating model. Trending headlines, slipping sales, or consumer pressure can all be factors that push organizations to force-fit a justice movement into their corporate persona. This is a recipe for disaster. 

Real change only begins to take effect once you unwind the operating model and optimize each piece, dissect how they depend on one another, and rebuild them to achieve your goal. Our advice?

Going Beyond Headlines and Moment-in-Time Tweets

There is a lot of information floating around out there to ‘get loud’ about. Furthermore, in our current climate, it is expected that companies chime in. In fact, OTM is on a mission to reduce our carbon footprint and incorporate an approach to sustainability within our operating model. We’re a globally deployed team and are taking steps to reduce our impact, and one day aspire to become a B Corp. Nobody’s perfect. Not us. Not BrewDog. But we’re trying our best. That’s the important thing – a commitment to do better. 

Don’t you want to be more than a tweet about the current social injustices against women and protesters in Iran, or an Instagram post about the horrors of forced labor abroad? Don’t you want to build it in, make it real, and spread it throughout your community? Hey BrewDog, give us a call, we’ll have a beer and chat about getting you back on the B Corp roster. But start with your operating model and look at systemic change, that integrates both the technical environmental stuff and the social and behavioral change.

Sources:

Erin Chase is a Support Consultant at ON THE MARK. OTM is a global leader in collaborative operating model modernization that creates real change, fast. OTM’s passion for collaborative business transformation is supported by pragmatism, systems thinking, and a belief in people that is unparalleled for 33 years. 

Solving Operating Model Challenges: BrewDog’s B Corp Status Change

4 Minute Read

Start With The Operating Model

Going Beyond Headlines and Moment-in-Time Tweets

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