Cream of a growing ethical business crop
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In association with: Your Ethical Business: How to Plan, Start and Succeed in a Company with a Conscience, by Paul Allen.
“To be a successful ethical business woman one of the most important things you need is a strong sense of self belief,” says Ella Heeks, 29-year-old managing director of organic food delivery company Abel & Cole. “I haven't found it harder to succeed in ethical business as a woman but I've encountered sexism - and ageism - along the way and you need self belief to get you to the point where someone does believe in you.”
One of the most successful ethical business women in the UK, Heeks has definitely reached that point. In just seven years, Heeks has turned Abel & Cole from a failing, almost bankrupt business, to one with a £14 million turnover and she's managed to stay true to the ethical values on which the company was founded. At 22, when she took over the reins of the company, that shows some self belief.
Women in Ethical Business Awards
It's why Heeks, along with nine other top ethical business women, was awarded a Women in Ethical Business Award (WEBA) by Tridos Bank in June. The awards, now in their second year, celebrate the best female-run ethical businesses in the UK.
“Ethical enterprise is bigger than ever. Inspiring businesses and the entrepreneurs behind them, are meeting the public's voracious appetite for products that benefit people and the environment,” says Charles Middleton, Triodos Bank's managing director. “These awards celebrates the people behind the cream of this growing ethical crop.”
Co-founder of search engine everyclick.com Polly Gowers is another one of the female entrepreneurs in this “ethical crop”. She won a WEBA for best ethical business running for less than three years.
Taking on Google
Gowers, 39, had the idea to set up everyclick.com five years ago and began trading in 2004. With the same search engine capacity as ASK.com, everyclick.com gives half of its gross revenue to a number of different charities each month. Users log on to the site, decide which charity they'd like to support and then use the search engine in the same way they'd use Google. Every time members search the net, they'll be clocking up cash for their chosen charity. Since June 2005, the business has donated over £250,000 to 6,000 charities.
Gowers, a former professional horse rider, says the site chimes with the social mood but still, setting up the business hasn't all been an easy ride. She claims the biggest challenge has been raising backers for the site which makes its money through advertisers. “It's been an uphill struggle to have the audacity to take on Google but now we've got 110 shareholders and are growing at a rate of 40% a month,” she says.
Frontline role
That's a phenomenal growth rate and it's reflected in increased staffing numbers too. At the beginning of the year everyclick.com had four members of staff and now it has an 18-strong team. Gowers says the key to the success of the organisation lies not with her, but the core team members who've worked incredibility hard. But, having had her first baby, Claudia, in the last few months and then gone straight back to work, Gowers seems to have led from the frontline.
“My job is to make sure all the technology works and that people are on message about what we do,” she says. “But I also make the tea and wash the floor. When you're running a small company, you have to get involved at every level if you're going to be successful.”
This is something Heeks agrees with too. When she joined Abel & Cole in 2000, there were 20 staff members. As well as heading up the business Heeks would help out stacking pallets and delivering boxes of organic vegetables to customers around the M25 area.
Matching values
Today Abel & Cole has 300 staff members and 30,000 customers. It's no surprise then that Heeks' role has changed too. “As MD I think about the direction of the business and am responsible for communicating what we are doing to customers and the public," she says. "I also develop our relationships with farmers and the product range.”
Heeks landed the role at Abel & Cole after doing work experience there straight from university. It was organised by her father, green business author Alan Heeks. The Oxford University graduate was researching ideas to start her own ethical food business but at Abel & Cole, she found strong values aligned with her own which she felt she could build on.
“Food has a massive impact on the environment through its production, packaging and its transportation. It has a big impact on physical health and in my view, on mental health too,” she says. “It's a very powerful medium for effecting change. If you sell food badly you do an awful lot of damage, if you do it well you can do an awful lot of good.”
- Almost a third of businesses are owned by women
- One in 10 women expect to start a business in the next three years
- Companies with women among their directors achieve a higher shareholder value
What is ethical business?
Heeks won the WEBA because she's heading up a food company that's doing a lot of good. She claims 100% of the UK farmers Abel & Cole work with say they're paid a fair price for their products, 90% of packaging is reused and the company employ “clever” ways to minimise waste. For example, any left over produce is either given to charity, to a zoo or to Abel & Cole farmers to be used as compost. “Ethical business has two meanings,” says Heeks. “It refers to the impact your business has and the way you run that business internally.”
Abel and Cole was voted one of the top 20 best places to work in 2006 and Heeks, like Gowers, says ethical businesses have to look after their staff. Heeks says she looks for potential employees with values that match those of Abel & Cole and appropriate skills and experience.
“We do have entry level opportunities where people can come and learn on the job but for senior roles it's naive to think that sharing values is enough,” she says. “I was young when I came to Abel & Cole but I'd already developed a strong set of skills around business building and administration.”
Ethical entrepreneurial skills
Heeks says budding ethical entrepreneurs need the same kind of skills anyone setting up a business has to have. “This includes skills covering business strategy, operational planning, leadership, recruitment, financial management, branding, marketing and sales,” she explains.
“When I started out I didn't need to learn ethics but I did need to learn how to run a business. Ethical businesses will only succeed if they are run well.”
More and more women, like Heeks and Gowers, are running successful ethical businesses and this trend looks set to continue.
Being a successful ethical businesswoman
At the moment, Abel & Cole are looking at ways to run their vehicles on pure vegetable fat. On a personal level, Heeks is eager to use what she's learnt at Abel & Cole to help other people in ethical business.
Gowers, meanwhile, says she wants to make everyclick.com as big as possible to “raise as much money as we can”, perhaps taking the site to other countries. It'll take plenty of hard work to make this happen, but with the right team behind her, Gowers reckons she's got a good chance the business will become a sustainable fundraising tool for charities.
“As a woman in ethical business or any type of business, you have to try twice as hard to prove yourself,” she says. “You have to be prepared to be tough in a warm way and never take no for answer. There's lots to take on board but if you really want to succeed you will. After all, women are great at multi-tasking.”
Abel & Cole
Everyclick.com
Tridos Bank
Your Ethical Business: How to Plan, Start and Succeed in a Company with a Conscience, by Paul Allen.
