Chris Baker on: Launching a purposeful business

The move from Adland to purposeful business 

I spent close to 20 years working in agencies, in strategy and, generally, loving the world of ideas and creativity. Then, gradually, throughout my career, I got more into social purpose, climate and Government, and worked for a few charities. I realised I wanted to try and use the skills I’ve developed over those years for good. The light-bulb moment was when we launched Change Please. It was this brilliant moment of serendipity with Jamal, who’s the founder and has driven it. We were sat outside a coffee house in Covent Garden and saw a person experiencing homelessness out the front, and time and time again, people would walk past and say they didn’t have any change, then go straight into Cafe Nero to spend three quid on a skinny latte. It felt like an odd journey and there might be an opportunity to do something.  

The idea for Change Please was born to provide people experiencing homelessness and people struggling with an opportunity to train as a barista and to turn their lives around. 

The learnings from Change Please, that people are willing to make small changes in their behaviour to make a big difference, led us to think we could do something similar with Serious Tissues.  

The broken (toilet roll) market 

Serious Tissues is a toilet roll brand that plants a tree for every roll we sell. We also are UK-made, made from recycled paper that’s already in the supply chain, from offices or home use. We are also carbon neutral and plastic-free. We tried to create something that would be as close to the ideal product for the 21st century. 

When you walk down the toilet roll aisle in any supermarket, everything comes in plastic, and it’s also all made from Virgin pulp. That means a tree grown for 20-30 years is cut down in its prime to make toilet roll, which is pretty much the ultimate single-use product. 

Now, more than ever, we need trees to capture carbon, so it’s madness to be cutting them down for this purpose. Bamboo is a good alternative; it grows in 5-6 years to the point where it can be harvested, but the tricky bit with bamboo is that it needs to be cultivated in mainland China, meaning a high number of air miles to get to us. So, using paper in the supply chain and turning that into toilet roll, is a great option. 

The importance of spending power  

Looking at the state of the world now, there is a responsibility on business to do things differently. However, the pace at which the organisation moves into that space is up to individual business. The most powerful way to change the world is to change how people spend their money. Money is arguably humanity’s most powerful invention. It builds cities, fuels businesses, and drives governments, so if you move the cash, governments and businesses respond.  

On average, about two-thirds of every country’s economy is consumer spending. So, imagine what happens if you move that spend from Starbucks to Change Please, from Andrex to Serious Tissues, Dove to Wild, Cadbury’s to Tony’s. All these businesses that have been happily raking in cash would suddenly have to move to react, and the shift happens quicker. So, if you can afford to pay a bit of a premium for these products, you will help these brands to scale and force the bigger companies to change.