Giving Compass' Take:

• Tim Frick encourages business leaders to focus on how they can affect a net-positive social impact while turning a profit.

• For private sector leaders who are concerned about keeping their jobs and their organizations afloat, how can we demonstrate to them the importance of sustainable business?

• Read about four steps toward business sustainability.


Agencies are often trusted strategic partners to our clients, guiding them in important business decisions about everything from sales and marketing strategies to digital transformation and how to mitigate risk in an uncertain economy. As such, we can be quite influential in bringing about positive social change as well.

To create large-scale change, however, agencies need tools, principles and standards that help us (and our clients) collectively create a better future while also generating sustainable, long-term profit to support these efforts. An easy-to-understand sustainable design framework — coupled with a collective willingness to create change and provide access to change-making tools — can ensure that our services benefit all stakeholders, are inclusively designed and align with larger global sustainability goals.

Trade-off thinking — that sustainability should sit outside a company’s need to generate profit rather than integrate with it — keeps many organizations from realizing their potential for a higher purpose and higher profits. If agencies consider sustainability at all (and most don’t) they focus on doing less damage — think recycling bins and LED light bulbs — rather than creating shared value: net zero thinking vs. net positive thinking. If agencies can’t embrace a positive vision for the future and then enact strategies to achieve that vision, how in turn can we expect to help our clients find long-term success?

I believe we can do better.

Read the full article about agencies of change by Tim Frick at B the Change.