Mark Price speaking at BITC's AGM 2011 video and transcript

Thursday 1st December 2011

BUSINESS IN THE COMMUNITY AGM

Mark Price’s speech

1 December 2011

 My gratitude to you all for coming to the AGM is particularly profound this year. 

 You are here, I know, because you truly believe in the contribution organisations like yours can make to our wider society.  You represent the pinnacle of business engagement with our communities.

At this meeting twelve months ago, I suspect we all had an uneasy sense of what could lie ahead for our country and across the world.  But I’m not sure we would have predicted the range and extent of events: the incredible scenes on our streets last summer; natural disasters; the tight rope balancing act between recovery and a double dip; the volatility of the Euro; the increasing impact of the public sector cuts and the growing unemployment and hardship faced by so many in our communities where one in five of our young people over 16 is now unemployed or not in training or education. 

We all feel the impact - employees, customers and suppliers and of course our community partners in all the markets, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.  So I particularly thank you for your continued support of Business in the Community.

There’s never been a more important time for business to play its part in our society and I am heartened that our support has remained solid and has in fact grown.

I would like to acknowledge all our new members here today. Perhaps you would like to stand so we can see who you are and welcome you with a round of applause.

Thank you.  I truly believe that it’s not a coincidence that this organisation is strong.  Responsible leadership recognises that actively focusing on some of the key issues facing our society can build long term social value and, through that, enhance business.

I’d like to thank Ian Cheshire for his remarks earlier and for his leadership of the Visioning the Future work that crucially is helping us define how we can best support members.

Delivering on what I set out last year

Whatever sector we work in, all of us in the room who believe in market capitalism must recognise the extent of public concern about and distrust of big business. The focus on executive pay in the last couple of weeks and the protests on the steps of St Paul’s - with similar activity going on in over 80 countries around the world – are vivid illustrations.

We should not dismiss the protests and the rumblings – rather, they should stiffen our resolve.  A year into my term as Chairman, I am more convinced than ever that the extraordinary network Business in the Community represents is of huge importance.  Together we can and must ensure that we really do bring about positive change that will ultimately create a fairer and more sustainable society.

This time last year I set out my ambitions for the next three years and I would like to give you a brief progress report on these. 

A simpler, more focused Business in the Community

First, I said that my aim is to build on the rich heritage created by the invaluable leadership given to us by The Prince of Wales and the many business leaders who have done so much remarkable work under BITC’s banner. 

Because today’s challenges require a response different in degree to anything done before, I have been working over the last few months with Stephen and the team to ensure that BITC is a simpler, more focused organisation, fit for purpose – able to drive change over the next decade and the hub through which corporate community partnerships can be developed.

We have reviewed all our messaging, our brand and our structure to define a new way of presenting BITC.  This will make it much simpler to understand and easier to engage with.  We will punch home the huge value that can be gained from membership of this unique movement committed to responsible business.

For me it is simple – Business in the Community is about transforming business and transforming communities. It is a bold and interconnected proposition that creates mutual benefit: our member companies help transform communities by

tackling key social issues and in so doing are transformed themselves.

Business in the Community essentially does two things; it offers a range of products and services to our members to help them transform their business and engage with the local community, and it asks members to work together to tackle key social issues through six focused campaign areas looking at these areas – each with a clear goal that we can report against.

Marketplace Behaviour – led Stefan Orlowski, Heineken
Environmental Sustainability – led by Alex Gourlay, Boots
Workplace and Employees – with a number of teams contributing led by Steve Holliday, National Grid, Talent and Skills, Adrian Joseph,  Google Race for Opportunity, Alison Platt, BUPA, Opportunity Now, Truett Tate, Irvin Lee, Proctor and Gamble Business Action on Working Well, Lloyds Employee Volunteering
Education and Young People –  driven by Paul Drechsler Wates, Education and HRH Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan, Mosaic
Employment - led by John Varley, Business Action on Homelessness
Enterprise and Culture –  with a number of teams contributing led by Charlie Mayfield John Lewis, Business Action on Economic Renewal, Mark Allen Dairy Crest, Rural Action
 

My warmest thanks to all the individuals and teams who are carrying this work forward so impressively.  I know they would like me to say how much they would welcome anyone who would like to sign up to join them in their campaigns.

Underpinning all of these areas, and to mind the single most important measure of success we need to demonstrate, is our ability to scale up what works to have a greater impact. And this is achieved through our regional teams, our national campaign teams and increasingly internationally through our global partner network operating in over 60 countries.

Priorities

All that has happened this year has reinforced my belief that the priorities for Business in the Community must be to build on the programmes we already know work.

Stephen and his team have made enormous progress this year on a number of fronts – and I know they would be the first to say that there is so much more we can do.

Young unemployed

The future of our young people has moved to the top of the agenda, particularly for those not in education, employment or training, and for those more suited to vocational careers.

The figures are shocking and we cannot allow young people to be let down and denied the opportunity to fulfil their potential.  None of us wants a “lost generation”.

We must change the way we think about employment and ensure we are doing all we can to keep people connected to the world of work. We have to review how we recruit and how we engage young people, particularly the non-graduate talent pool.

Inextricably linked to this must be a renewed commitment to support our schools and work in the most effective way we can to meet their needs, rather than foist our ideas and offers of support upon schools struggling to manage. We have a proven model of needs-led engagement with schools in Business Class – so ably led by Paul Drechsler - and we need more companies to get engaged.

I would also like to mention the work Ken McGeekin has been leading on Breakfast Clubs – a down-to-earth but incredibly effective way of helping children to be able to get the most out of their school day.

Business Connectors

We need to work locally to help build the communities in greatest need. At the heart of community regeneration is the capacity to support and nurture enterprise.  We must do all we can to support small and new businesses and support the communities in which they trade and operate.

That’s why I am so pleased to see the Business Connector network - under the fantastic leadership of Gwyn Burr from Sainsbury’s who leads our Community Investment team - start to take shape.   I believe this will be a powerful route to achieving significant local scale for our proven programmes. 

We can already see the impact Business Connectors are having in the communities into which they have been seconded. They play a massive role in matching resource to local need, encouraging volunteering and mentoring - and they are enabling us to forge critical partnerships, particularly with the other Prince’s charities.

I would like to thank the companies who have seconded employees as Connectors and also congratulate those companies who have achieved the Community Mark this year demonstrating excellence in Community Investment - my thanks to Phil Hodkinson for his work Chairing the Independent Assessment Panel through which he steers the Community Mark.

Coordinating with The Prince’s other charities

In mentioning the Prince’s other charities, I was so pleased to hear from Mark Allen that The Prince’s Countryside Fund will be helping nearly 450 young people through apprenticeships and training, as a result of grants given by the Fund.  Tor Harris and her team are doing an incredible job identifying projects where financial support will make a real contribution to building a sustainable future for our rural communities.

The Yorkshire Moors Agricultural Apprenticeship scheme, for example, offers five places to young people aspiring to be upland farms.  This will not only increase the labour supply on these farms but ensure there are future generations of hill farms to manage and maintain the North York Moors.

This, together with the work we are doing with the Prince’s Trust on opportunities for young people, yet again demonstrates to me the extraordinary vision of His Royal Highness.  His charities reach out to so many aspects of our society where inspiration and support is needed and where a difference can be made. 

We will continue to explore the opportunities presented through coordination between the charities.

The opportunity of the 30th Anniversary

We are at the eve of the 30th Anniversary and I want to start a new period of change rather than a period of reflection. I want the newly refocused, repurposed organisation to challenge and inspire us all to achieve greater things and make a bigger difference and above all I want more companies to join us.

I am excited about the new opportunities:

-       Building on the six campaign focus areas and ensuring all we do contributes to these goals.

-       Building the movement of Business Connectors across the country

-       Prince’s Trust collaboration on young people

-       Taking the opportunity of the 2012 Olympics to build a legacy of new jobs through support for social enterprises in our arc programme

-       The merger with Arts and Business enabling us to consider the cultural dimension of community regeneration and the role the arts plays in transforming communities.

One other aspiration I have is for Business in the Community to communicate more effectively with the public.  It is imperative that we inform people about the work that is going on and the wonderful results that have been achieved. 

We are living in a time where trust in all our major institutions has declined dramatically. So it is even more important that people know that there are businesses that care and are actively doing things to make society better without depleting the world’s resources any further.

I hope we can work together over the next year to look at ways we can tell this story and BITC become the vehicle through which we do it.

The Prince’s Seeing is Believing programme remains one of the most powerful ways this organisation tells stories and we will use it over the next year to bring the Transforming Business, Transforming Communities proposition to life. 

I’d like to thank Chris Hyman for his leadership of the Seeing is Believing programme and to Chris Satterthwaite of Chime for joining the Board to help us develop our overall campaign..

In conclusion

I believe that business remains a force for good but with the real changes that we are facing in our country and indeed the world  today there has never been a more critical time for collaboration and to scale up what works.  I am very grateful to Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi for his leadership of our International Team.

Profits need to be generated responsibly. This means businesses accepting greater responsibility for their environmental and social impacts; and addressing their most material impacts both as risk management and to maximise business opportunities.

It must be about partnership, collaboration and impact. If it is, it will be about mutual benefit.

I want to be able to look back at the 30th Anniversary of Business in the Community and be confident that this was a year in which we stepped up to the mark – one team, united and coordinated - to help create a more sustainable world. 

I am extremely grateful to my Board for their leadership and the help they have given me over this first year and to all of the regional, international and campaign leadership team members for their support. I would also like to thank Stephen Howard and the staff team at Business in the Community for their work this year and for all that has been achieved.

Thank you