Partner Highlights: Bringing Purpose to Profits

Tonic Talks to Purpose and Impact Partner, New Commodity

It is becoming more and more common for professional companies to want to create a mission bigger than their industry. With a push to parallel profits and purpose, New Commodity’s Founder and Impact & Culture Advisor, Kiersten Rippeteau, found that many companies understand weaving culture and engagement into their business strategy was a good idea, but didn’t know the actionable steps to make purpose a standard practice. Now, Kiersten and Justin Neagle, New Commodity Partner and Purpose & Growth Advisor, help companies redefine success to not only include profits, but the positive impact businesses can have beyond their own bottom line.

Tonic employees collaborating

Emily Kucera

I am so happy that businesses are finally being recognized as an outlet for “good.” With that said, this focus on a triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) being woven into a business strategy is somewhat of a newer adopted concept. What services do you offer your clients trying to be more purpose driven?

Kiersten Rippeteau

You can really categorize our services within two lines of business, one being our services which really align with positive impact goals — our Culture Assessment and Impact Quick-Start. The other is our Impact Roadmap, which lays out practical steps for our clients to get from where they are today to the performance and impact they want to have.

Emily Kucera

I love that you offer services for those just starting their impact journey, and other options for more veteran businesses looking to expand their purpose. What sets you apart from other activating agencies?

Kiersten Rippeteau

We’re dedicated to making positive impact a practical approach to business. Drawing from our backgrounds in operations, organizational strategy, sales, and marketing, we empower our clients to navigate the complexities of positive impact by ensuring their business goals and impact objectives are aligned.

Emily Kucera

Because as we both know, companies need to stay profitable to share their purpose. Throughout your website there is this nod to the importance of origin stories and values. What is New Commodity's origin story? How did you get into the industry of activating purpose and positive impact?

Justin Neagle

In a nutshell, we’re two people who care deeply about the state of the world and the world we’re leaving for our children. We fully embrace the idea that businesses have a pivotal role in driving the positive change we need in the world. Our mission is to empower as many businesses as possible to seize the opportunity for meaningful impact.

Emily Kucera

That gave me goosebumps! And what is the number one challenge you have seen companies face when they want to become more impactful?

Kiersten Rippeteau

Treating positive impact as a standalone initiative rather than integrating it into core operations — it creates competing priorities for leaders. The key is aligning positive impact with business objectives so they complement each other. Creating this alignment can be complex at first, but that’s why people like Justin and me are doing what we’re doing with New Commodity!

Emily Kucera

In your expert opinion, is it easier to start an impactful organization from the ground up, or better to have a successful business that can then lean into doing good? Are there pros and cons to both roadmaps?

Justin Neagle

There are definitely pros and cons to each journey.

On the one hand, if you start with impact in mind you have an easier time implementing it into everything you do. However, if you are so focused on changing the world, society, or your community you can stray too far away from running the business practically. We say this all the time — we want you to be as impactful as possible, but if you run your business poorly you won’t have the leverage to create the positive change you want to see.

On the other hand, implementing positive impact into a successful business comes with positives and challenges. One big positive is starting with more leverage to create impact because you are not worrying about the key structural components like payroll, building processes, and figuring out value props for sales, to name a few. You also generally have more capital to invest in initiatives that will give you and your team early wins to fuel “impact energy”.

The challenges you face are generally culture-based and that can be very difficult to morph. You may have people who are not interested in being impactful in the way the leadership team envisions. It also can be hard to get all the leaders on board with the new vision. These challenges can create employee churn and reduction in productivity that leads to investments in hiring, training, and retention that the company was not expecting.

Volunteering for Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado

Emily Kucera

And companies seem to finally understand that purpose helps to retain both internal talent and consumers when discussed transparently. But, of course, this has led to "impact-washing," when companies overstate their positive engagements, much like the phenomenon of "greenwashing" in regards to over or falsely stating sustainability measures. Is there any one thing companies can do to prove their good?

Kiersten Rippeteau

Building brand trust is crucial here. One thing almost any company can do to build it is honest annual reporting. Companies that communicate their progress truthfully will gain both trust and a competitive edge. Doing an annual impact report right requires being honest about the positive data and transparent about areas that need improvement. It’s also important to assess the business as a whole to ensure no part of operations contradicts the positive impact goals.

And, yes, it’s true that some companies might try to inflate their impact in these reports, but consumers and the media will see through it. Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen the devastating effects of eroded brand trust in some of the biggest companies out there. So, do your annual reports with integrity and not only will the market reward you but you’ll have a powerful tool for measuring and improving your impact year over year.

Emily Kucera

That is great advice. I love New Commodity's focus on quantifying and metricizing impact as mentioned. For some, until you can "see the numbers" there aren't actionable steps towards an overarching goal. Was this evaluation important to New Commodity's approach? Have you learned that creating measurable impact has helped companies direct their efforts?

Justin Neagle

This is really important to us. One of our core values is Be Practical, and I think it is represented here the most. We love to see businesses wanting to do more and make positive impact a cornerstone of their operations. And, as the saying goes, you manage what you measure. That’s part of what drove how we built our tools, like the Impact Quick Start and Purpose Archetypes. They give businesses a quantifiable snapshot of where they can likely have the most impact, how aligned their stakeholders are, and a clear starting point for their impact journey. There are other tools we love out there that help quantify impact, like the B Impact Assessment and Just.

Emily Kucera

Throughout your website there is a call back to this "ripple effect," which I love. Often I hear individuals want to do better, but get discouraged thinking one person can't make that much of a difference. I can only assume some companies feel the same way. How do you validate this change in companies and emphasize putting power back in the individual's hands?

Kiersten Rippeteau

For us, the ripple effect is about every company doing something, however big or small, that positively impacts the world outside their four walls. The misconception that a company has to tackle every aspect of positive impact if they’re going to do it at all is what leads so many leaders to abandon their efforts. Instead, get started by prioritizing a single critical path towards positive impact that aligns with the company’s core capabilities and resources. That first step could range from fostering a healthy company culture to implementing carbon footprint reduction initiatives. The key is to meet your company where it is, then take the first step.

Emily Kucera

At Tonic we love to get to the root of ‘impact,’ using our profits, people, and professional strengths to help those in our local communities and the world at large. How would you define 'impact' at New Commodity?

Justin Neagle

At New Commodity, we define ‘impact’ as the result of a business leveraging its resources and operations to address societal and environmental challenges in a meaningful way. The impact we aim to have is that every business operates at net positive–environmentally or socially. Our role is to act as a catalyst for this transformation, leveraging our expertise, resources, and networks to help other companies amplify their impact.

We believe in the power of collaboration and the ripple effect that’s generated when businesses address societal and environmental challenges. To help widen that ripple effect, we provide the tools, knowledge, and support businesses need to integrate sustainable and socially responsible practices into their operations. We advise on strategies to reduce environmental footprints, enhance community engagement, provide a healthy culture for employees, and foster ethical supply chains. Our approach is rooted in the belief that every business, regardless of its size or industry, has the potential to make a positive impact.