Since our launch last year, the Canadian Purpose Economy Project has accelerated, mobilizing the Canadian social purpose ecosystem, developing tools to support social purpose stakeholders and influencers, and convening supporters across the country.
On February 13, during the biennial GLOBE Forum, we held a community meetup and briefing to review our progress through 2023 and share insights into the work ahead in 2024. The capacity crowd (sincere apologies to those on the waitlist that we couldn’t accommodate!) was excited and engaged about the work underway, and many expressed their keenness to be more deeply involved.
Junxion Strategy CEO and Project co-founder Mike Rowlands welcomed guest speaker Liz McBeth, President of social purpose business Armour Valve, and chair of the Family Business for Sustainable Development Committee at Family Enterprise Canada. Her inspiring comments about the uptake of social purpose at FEC and across its membership echoed reports we’re hearing from other associations across the country.
Project co-founders Maureen Young, VP Social Purpose at Coast Capital, and Coro Strandberg, President of Strandberg Consulting, talked about the Project’s progress across the ten levers of change.
Maureen shared insights into Coast Capital’s ongoing work to operationalize its social purpose, which includes embedding social purpose metrics into every employee’s role description and in the coming weeks launching the first product inspired by their social purpose. She also shared that Coast Capital is using the Project’s Social Purpose Professional guide to engage staff.
Coro spoke about the progress being made across the Project’s Action Groups—small groups of leaders who work in each of the areas covered by the Project’s ten change levers. In particular, she shared insight into ongoing work with Boards of Directors, guidance for social purpose investors, and corporate leadership.
Mike closed out the afternoon by sharing some updates about A Call to Purpose, the Project’s work to engage CEOs across Canada, which has now been endorsed by over a hundred CEOs, and is supported by many more. If you haven’t yet read and voiced your support for A Call to Purpose, please do!
For more insights into the work of the Canadian Purpose Economy Project, please review our 2023 Report.
Our thanks go to NEI Investments for hosting the event in their beautiful Aviso Café, Latitude Clean Tech Search for providing snacks and refreshments, and Coast Capital for ongoing support of the Project.