The story of Mirth represents a hopeful path for what we see as not only some distant future, but the current state of business. Traditional views have dictated that businesses make money, nonprofits do good in the world. We know there is a different path. One where a business can make a profit while also being a positive force for change and improving peoples’ lives, the best of both worlds. But it isn’t easy. If it were, everybody would be doing it. We’re up for the challenge, baking in sustainability, empathy and humanity to this business from the ground up.
First we went through an extensive process of creating a Theory of Change (ToC). A concept that originated in the nonprofit sphere but has since been adapted to social impact businesses, it outlines how a company plans to achieve its long-term goals by detailing the specific actions, expected outcomes, and causal relationships between them.
You’ll notice that our mission, “to improve the emotional well-being of people and communities,” doesn’t mention anything about manufacturing a canned drink. The mission is our north star, and providing this drink is the vehicle for accomplishing that goal. For more info on our ToC, check out our previous post that dives in deeper.
While everybody loves a good socially-conscious mission statement, the hard work comes in how to implement it in the real world. When logistics, supply chains and profitability are thrown in the mix, it can be very easy for the convenience of an established path to take over. This is why setting priorities and processes are important. We chose to work with the innovative Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council’s Green Masters Program, which contains an enlightening online tool to assist with this process.
First it led us through a Materiality Assessment. Basically you look at how important a variety of factors related to Environment, Workforce, Society and Governance & Leadership are to both the business and our important stakeholders. We then whittled this down into four priorities we will focus on to begin the business, which are: Materials Management, Product Circularity & Life Cycle Management, Diversity/Equity/Inclusion, and Customer Welfare.
They say you measure what matters. The stage we’re at right now is creating the reporting processes for how we can measure these topics both pre-launch, and during our growth phase while keeping them standardized over time. We’ll be keeping you updated on this process, and how we’re diving into the details on what matters. We’re going to set some ambitious goals. Some of them we’ll meet, some of them we won’t. But audacious goals are what lights a fire in a team, and keeps sustainability at the forefront.
Lastly, we’re setting ourselves up for eventual B-Corp Certification. Right now it is arguably one of the gold standards for sustainability-related certifications that is respected by both industry insiders and the general public. This certification system is rigorous and ensures that a company is truly centering social and environmental impact into their operations. The standards are currently undergoing an update, and we’re following along with these changes and setting up our systems so we can be ready for this process in an authentic way that lets our community know that your health and well-being isn’t just a tag line, it’s at the core of what we do.