B-ing the change you want to see in the world!
Can you believe we are a quarter of the way through the year? Where did that time go?
March has seen a lot of changes at Greatest Good. We are getting ready to say goodbye to Rach, our Community Manager, as she returns to full time study focusing on two of her passions: sustainability and food. We hope to announce her replacement next month.
This week, we lodged our B Corp application to start the journey of being independently measured as a business for good.
We've also been talking to existing for-purpose members who will be adding new products, as well as signing up new for-purpose member organisations, so keep checking back weekly as we add these new items to the ecosystem to help you shop good, do good, be good, feel good.
As always, we love to hear your feedback, so please reach out to us if you'd like to share your thoughts on how we can improve.
Thoughts
The Australian corporate regulator has finally moved on from giving fines to companies for greenwashing, announcing it is taking legal action against a financial services firm. They have given notice to the finance and social sectors that they will be taking more action on any form of greenwashing or other impact washing. Given our observations in both sectors, we expect the court cases to pile up....
Meanwhile, rest assured that we perform due diligence on all of the organisations on the Greatest Good ecosystem. Unless they can prove they are making the impacts on the underlying United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) target areas, we won't let them use these filters. We have deliberately set the bar high to give you comfort that when you search using the 50+ ecosystem filters, you can truly find the for-purpose organisations that match your values.
Inspiration from our members
- Fruit2Work and Hotel Etico have been selected as two of the eight social enterprises selected to participate in the Paul Ramsey Foundation's inaugural Social Enterprise Growth Incubator
- Want more than the 32 or 64 packs of laundry wash sheets from Good Sheet for the Planet? Well, you can now buy a 96 pack combo. We also recommend their organic cotton produce bags for your fruit and vegies!
News and updates
Social Enterprise budget submission
Social Enterprise Australia and a range of social enterprise sector leaders, federal politicians and senior Australian public service staff discussing how social enterprises are helping to tackle some of our country’s biggest social, environmental and economic challenges.
Other social sector news
- Australian Federal Treasurer, Jim Chalmers released an essay on how we need to rethink capitalism. He also considers redesigning investment markets so that "well-run for purpose organisations could get more of the growth capital they need". This was a recurring theme at the impact investment summit and there are increasingly great blended finance options to provide capital to the for-purpose sector, well beyond traditional grants and donations offered only to not-for-profits.
- In a rare moment in politics, the Federal Government and each of the state Governments agreed on a new set of National Fundraising principles to standardise the state-based approach. This is the first step towards implementing consistent legislation across Australia .
Regulatory updates (the sometimes boring, but always important stuff)
Privacy Act Review
The Government has released the Privacy Act Review Report (the Report) which sets out the response to various reform recommendations and proposals raised by the Privacy Act Review Discussion Paper released in October 2020.
The Report sets out the proposed reform agenda which will affect all sectors and all levels of the Australian economy. It is likely to be the most significant change to Australian Privacy laws since the introduction of the Australian Privacy Principles, especially if the current $3m annual turnover applicability is removed.
National Office for Cyber Security
The Government has announced it will appoint a senior official to a new National Office for Cyber Security to help mitigate the impact of the kinds of major incidents that struck Australian businesses in 2022.
The scope of their role includes:
- provide strategy to the work across government, to ensure that the billions of dollars being invested in cyber security each year is strategic and appropriate
- managing cyber incidents in a proper, seamless, strategic way across the Australian government
Other regulatory updates
You can more on these items and other regulatory updates in our monthly regulatory posted on the Blog page (use the Regulatory Updates filter). We can't provide legal advice but you can find significant proposed and upcoming legislative changes to discuss with your legal advisers.
Greatest Good is a social enterprise that connects conscious consumers with for-purpose organisations.
We are a directory, community and marketplace that helps consumers to find, engage with and support social enterprises, B Corps, charities and other not-for-profit organisations.