Business becoming a force for good is a key part of how we believe the change towards a sustainable world will happen, and that involves business standing up to flawed government policies through protest when needed.
So as part of our work convening businesses to stand up for social change (see Business Stand Up last year), Matt worked with #BusinessDeclares to join with over 350 business leaders at Extinction Rebellion’s ‘The Big One’. Together business leaders convened outside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to call on our government to end support for fossil fuels and we captured this in a rapid turnaround film to get more business leaders involved through social media.
Filmed on Friday and released on Saturday, this film framed the action clearly in terms of who was taking part and what the call was, and capitalised on the event still being current to get shared on social media for the duration of the protest. The film features BusinessDeclares founder Ben Tolhurst (Business Declares) alongside leaders Louisa Ziane (COO – Toast Ale), Charlotte Sewell (UK Business Leadership Advisor), Hermione Taylor (CEO – Do Nation), Matt Hocking (CSO – Leap Design Agency), Chris Cayley (Founder – Cyan Partners) and Adam Garfunkel (MD – Junxion Strategy) who were just some of the many inspiring leaders sharing their calls to action.
The film received over 10,000 views in the first 4 days, over 20% of them from senior business leaders.
Businesses are great stakeholders in the health of our planet and the Climate and Ecological Crisis is already causing great challenges to industries and organizations worldwide.
Thankfully, the business community holds great power. But as Spider-Man’s dead Uncle said ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ and so Business Declares are standing at the forefront of this movement to galvanize the voice of business and harness their power for change.
Want to get involved? Join Business Declares here and/or join our bi-monthly newsletter sharing the best actions and insight for business leaders to take in addressing the climate crisis because if we all put our big, juicy business brains together, there is no limit to what we can do.