impact | lifework

Why are we here?

The business you have today is not the business that is going to be here in 2-5-10 years time. Traditional business is under pressure more than ever before, risks of doing nothing and sticking with what you've got is far outweighed by the opportunities of shifting towards a more balanced business, across people, planet as well as profit, challenging your business models and pushing for positive impact.

Market and consumer pressures, shifts in investment hotspots, increasingly stringent legislation and regulation all mean businesses have to become more responsible for their role in societal and environmental development. "Doing good when no-one is watching" is going to have to become the norm if businesses are going to survive.

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the group

impact

We believe in building responsible business. We believe this means improving impact across people, profit and planet to the benefit of all and the detriment of none. Linear business models, growth at all costs, extractive capitalism, all need to be in the past. We need to design and build business for the future today.

Not only is balance the right thing to imagine as the future of successful business, but it will be increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve profit targets without a strong focus on environmental and social impact in parallel to financial considerations.

Traditional business driven by profit and shareholders

Significant challenges to this model, increasing over the last 5 years and more to come

Who we are

lifework impact is a boutique strategy consultancy helping businesses adopt and adapt to build more responsibly for the future; driving for financial success, whilst also achieving a balance of positive social and environmental impact. In the belief that this leads to more resilient foundations for sustainable growth and a successful and long term future.

Using our Lifework Impact Cycle, we push businesses to activate their impact.

I - Understand the landscape, threats, opportunities and best practice

M - Understand impact potential, all business can make a positive impact

P - Defining the fit for your organisation and stakeholders

A - Mapping reality of how your business can take action and make measurable gains towards positive impact

C - Getting the leadership to commit and focus on delivery with a plan to make it happen

T - Setting up for success and identifying enabling elements to drive action and achievement towards a positive impact

The cycle starts by increasing awareness and understanding around the business landscape, this includes the threats to business as normal but also the opportunities of making a change and some best practice in this area. With this in mind the next stage of the cycle brings everyone together to further analyse and get excited about the opportunities, connecting the business to the market and consumer developments and trends. It is then about defining the fit for your organisation and team by gaining clarity on your impact opportunities and aligning potential outcomes to your business goals.

With all of these outcomes in mind, its time decide how your business can take action and make measurable gains towards positive impact, and what this process will look like. The penultimate stage involves getting the leadership to commit and focus on delivering a positive impact with a plan to make it happen. This leads us to the final step in the cycle which is about taking action.

The cycle is designed to improve whole business impact or single product impact.

Case studies

EVERGREEN

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PROBLEM

The client came to us worried about the upcoming EPR and plastic packaging tax which would see their annual tax bill increase from 300k a year to £2.7million.

APPROACH

With a clear threat that first informed the brief we used the first two stages of the Lifework Impact Cycle to explore the landscape. This pushed us to consider the opportunities that existed if we were to challenge the business model and the customer delivery models to a more circular one. These were created, consolidated and analysed during Stage 3 and 4 of the Lifework Impact Cycle. During stage 5 we were then able to prioritise the solutions and assign ownership.

OUTCOME

The creation of 5 solutions across 2 categories which are currently in development. They are based around circularity which will decrease the packaging. We're expecting to see the first solution to be piloted in selected garden centres in April 2022. The developments will also push the company into the D2C market, something they had not yet done.

AXIS RETAIL PARTNERS

PROBLEM

The client came to us with the understanding that the Future of Retail was, with the challenges brought about by a global pandemic, never going to be the same again. But they wanted to understand how they could build a responsible and resilient business in what kind of future they would be doing it.

APPROACH

We needed to look at the landscape across retail, from commercial real estate, retailer and consumer perspective. To do this we undertook primary research across 4 markets (UK, DE, NL & ES) with N=4000 consumers, N=200 retailers & N=17 KOLs (key opinion leaders), as well as in depth desk research and use of secondary sources. We translated the research and insights to deliver around a core strategy of empathy.

OUTCOME

The final 60 page report houses the 12 hypotheses as ingredients to the future of retail and offers resources and references to construct versions of the future that embrace the different conditions.

It offers as set of conclusions to be leveraged to transform the way the client work as a business, to give them a narrative to the year ahead, provide a platform for them to discuss with the industry and lastly, to act as a framework and lens for shifting their own investments and developments.