Bringing about social progress in this world is an all-hands-on-deck situation. But while the roles of individual groups and political decision makers are clear, the involvement of businesses in activism is not always well understood. According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, Australians trust businesses more than the government (54% vs 45%). And overall, respondents don’t think businesses are doing enough to help improve social issues – they want to see more activism, not less. Clearly, the business sector has a place in societal changemaking… what does it look like for a company to take that role seriously?
We asked Shannon Chrisp, Head of Activism for The Body Shop in the Asia-Pacific region, about how she thinks about social responsibility and the brand’s decision to support MakeIt16 – a campaign to lower the voting age, that has little to do with body or beauty products.
Zee Feed: Where do you think businesses are most effective in helping activists advance social progress?
Shannon: Brands have a type of power and influence that individuals don’t. We have a lot of discussions about this internally… Our founder Anita Roddick really believed in the intrinsic relationship businesses could have with communities that were mutually beneficial. I guess because she was a bit of a disruptor, she realised ‘Hey, I’m in a unique position where I have a platform that many don’t and I wanna use that responsibly.There’s things that I care about that I want the brand to care about.’ Using that platform to raise awareness for these issues was really important to her.
If you think back to the 70s when The Body Shop was founded, it was not expected that brands get involved in activism and have a positive influence. But because of that, now we have platforms and resources that we can use to connect a global community, to bridge the generations. A brand’s platform can act as a springboard to be part of a solution.
As consumers, we’re used to brands getting involved in activism that directly relates to their product – for example, beauty companies lobbying to end animal testing. But supporting a cause like MakeIt16 doesn’t have a direct, literal connection to product – how do you arrive at that decision?
I think sometimes people are like, well, why does The Body Shop have a position in this space? And then it’s a constant conversation about what does that look like? A few years ago we did some purpose work to redefine, well, why are we still here? We focus on three pillars – people, planet, and animals – which fits into our broader purpose of fighting for a fairer, more beautiful world. It’s about making sure that as citizens and as business people, there is still a planet in a healthy position to hand over to [the next generation] and continue doing business in.
But we have a problem worldwide that young people are chronically underrepresented in formal decision-making spaces. These spaces, regardless of whether they are in politics, in business or in civil society, are where the important decisions get made about our collective future for future generations to come, and yet young people are not there.
So youth issues are the global focus, but how we do it will look different depending on the local context. The Be Seen and Be Heard Campaign to lower the voting age is specific to Australia and New Zealand, we’ve partnered with Foundation For Young Australians and MakeIt16. I’m also responsible for Hong Kong, which has different political sensitivities, so there we are working to support young people involved in environmental justice.
How do you measure the actions that a brand takes? It seems like one of the advantages of having a business involved is the ability to put resources into tracking if the efforts have moved the needle…
A lot of brands do what I would call more philanthropy, you know, they donate to causes. And that’s great, we do that too. But with activism I think you want there to be some kind of tangible outcome, whether that is getting a certain number of signatures – in this case to lower the voting age – or change laws. It has to be visible. In Malaysia, we supported Undi18, and successfully campaigned to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, which came into force last year and allowed millions of young Malaysians to vote in national elections.
Being a B Corp, it really does make it super clear that we have to place equal importance on profit, planet and people – I have KPIs connected to activism goals and diversity and inclusion. It keeps everyone accountable as a collective toward our common goals.
What should young consumers be looking for as a sign that a brand is taking their role in social progress seriously? What makes it not just performative activism?
I think when you can see there is a clear focus – that it’s not just speaking on something, or using something, and then going back to business as usual.
Also, internally, we have networking groups – one that’s around ethnicity and race, one around disability, one for the LGBTQAI+ community and a youth collective. They consist of internal employees as well as external people, acting as a body. They get briefed on projects and they advise our executive leadership issues, and we truly listen to them because we know we need to check ourselves. They inform us about not only products but the way we talk to people [as a brand], the things that we stand for, um, the way that we communicate our activism. It needs to resonate, and we know they will call us out if we do the wrong thing!
And then once we take a position on something, we have to make sure that those people in the stores on the front lines feel comfortable speaking to our response. It’s not about telling [staff] they can’t have different opinions, but they need to feel informed on why The Body Shop is supporting a certain issue also, what the issue is, and the challenges. So we’ll run training sessions, we’ll have internal briefings, we do Q&As, we’ll do check-ins with the store teams to make sure that they feel really comfortable and informed, and also that we’re on the pulse of what the reaction is.
For more information on the campaign to lower the voting age and to sign the petition, visit MakeIt16.
Smart people read more:
“Don’t Fall For The Fallacy!” Why Australia Should Lower the Voting Age to 16
No resume, no reference: The Body Shop’s radical approach to hiring – Sydney Morning Herald
What role were you born to play in social change? – Open Democracy
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