Conscious Brands: A Year in Review

Wow! 2022 is only a few weeks away! What are you celebrating this year? Where are you finding joy in your life? What are you most proud of? What seeds have you planted that you will be harvesting in 2022?

Is there a new normal? Or is there a lot of the same with different system constraints? This past year has been curious to say the least — and with curiosity it has guided and shaped all that has emerged.

Here are a few thoughts to round out the year.

What am I celebrating this year?

• Amazing success in my garden — I was harvesting dark leafy greens up until the first week of December from my greenhouse in Calgary, -15 outside and toasty warm inside.
• Deepening roots in the relationships in my life — I am so grateful for community and all the resources that are available to me. As a lot of you know, I have a morning contemplative practice that includes both journaling and meditation. One of my journaling exercises is to offer generosity to my community. What I have found is that the more generous I am with time and resources the more that comes back to me. Where is generosity showing up in your life?
• My summer colleagues Jen and Daniel — I was fortunate to have two summer University students help build out the professional services offering for our Conscious Brands Assessment tool. We have our first cohort of professional service companies rolling out the CBA tool to their clients. Our mission is “Inspire and activate 100k internal change agents to help their organizations live into their higher purpose by 2030”. We know that we can’t do this alone and it will take a community.
• University of Calgary and Conscious Crypto - For all the amazing potential that crypto currencies and digital assets offer us there are definitely some downsides, even beyond the environmental issues that are often circulating in the media. As with many other things, I feel that in the problems we can find the solutions. In my opinion, this is the case with the emerging digital space and why we have committed resources to creating a community and voice within the space. In May 2021 we worked with the University of Calgary to produce a white paper that explores what a crypto currency/digital asset that aligned to an impact driven model could look like — visit ConsciousCryptos.com to download the white paper. Watch for updates in early 2022 for our launch of a new ranking index of the most Conscious Cryptos.

www.consciouscrypto.com

Where am I finding Joy in life?

• Bike trips — for the last 6 years I have been doing at least 2 self contained bike trips a year. These have ranged from a few hundred km group trips to an epic 1600km solo trip I did in 2018. I love the contemplative nature of peddling, the people I meet, the slower pace of it all and the giving in to what comes up. This year a group of 4 of us set out in early July on a 450km ride down one side of the Kootenays (British Columbia, Canada) and back up, mostly on rail trails and through some single track. This was during the Heat Dome where temperatures in the day ranged from 40–45 degrees! This meant starting to ride at 5:30 in the morning and getting as many kms in before we parked by some water to cool down.
• Family — this time of non-travel has allowed for more time to hang out and connect with family. Even with my oldest daughter moving out to explore the world with more independence, this has evolved our relationship.
• Lunch Break — one of my good friends, a friend that i don’t see in person as often as I would like, has been the co-creator of a weekly video series called Lunch Break. During our lunch break, Gage Mitchell and I dive into a brand in the CPG space, looking at the brand side of things, the product side of things as well as the overall impact side of the brand and give the brand an overall score. These videos are available both to the Evolve CPG community and on Youtube. I look forward to my weekly dives with Gage — let us know what you think.

Lunch Break

What am I Most Proud of?

• The renewed interest in B-Corp — We have been working with many new and old clients over the last 12 month certifying and re-certifying as B-Corps. Each client has a unique reason for becoming a certified B-Corp and their own way that they will be using the tool. I love the moment when clients see beyond marketing wins, that being part of the stakeholder-driven business community is going to make the world a better place for all. And when they identify how their business can offer its unique contribution to be part of the solution.
• The Conscious Brands COP — Furthering the celebrating of our Conscious Brands Assessment tool go-to-market strategy with professional service providers. I am so excited by the unique voices, perspectives and wisdom that the first Cohort brings to the larger ecosystem we are co-creating. It is truly community supporting and improving the tool in real world usage.

Conscious Brands Assessment Tool

What Seeds Have Been Planted That Will be Harvested in 2022?

• The ImaginALL Collective — As many of you are aware, Conscious Brands is the entity that manages and maintains the Conscious Brands Assessment tool. The ImaginALL Collective is where all advising and supporting client projects takes place. The ImaginALL Collective has some unique offerings and a web presence coming in early 2022.
• Impact Dashboard — We have been working with a Calgary-based software company to build the first iteration of an impact dashboard; this first iteration will include B-Corp and the Conscious Brands Assessment tool. The dashboard is a central repository of information, data and goals/targets to help an organization to visualize (imagine)ALL the impacts they have as a result of operating their business.
• Fractional Impact Officer — Over the 16 years of operating in the purpose-driven space of business, we have had many successes, and we have seen where our projects have not fully lived into their potential. As we operate to continuously improve and mitigate these gaps through the introduction of new products, like our CBA tool to assess readiness, and services like B-Corp consulting, we have seen another area to help support organizations — this is our Fractional Impact Officer. Just as it sounds, we partner with an organization to design/tweak, implement and manage their organizational impact (this can be called sustainability, ESG, purpose driven, etc — but ultimately it is the impacts we have from operating a business). We work with an organization from 5–15 hours a week for a period of 6–18 months, typically in a staged process that is heavier in time on the front end as we build capacity internally and further embed these regenerative capitalism principles into the core of the organization.