Haiti Cotton Presentation at Oxford

Hugh Locke and Atlanta McIlwraith making a joint presentation at University of Oxford on May 18, 2018.

How often is Haiti a topic of discussion at the University of Oxford? The answer is at least once in the last month when Atlanta McIlwraith, representing Timberland, and I, representing the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA), made a joint presentation about the reintroduction of cotton to Haiti at the Responsible Business Forum 2018. Our talk is available on YouTube and the accompanying Timberland/SFA case study can be downloaded here.

Atlanta and I outlined the business model being put in place in connection with Haitian cotton, including the new blockchain-ready data management system we are developing to inform consumers about the measurable impact of cotton and other crops on farmer income, food security, climate change and women’s empowerment. Our talk was very much in line with the Forum’s focus on “transforming business into a profitable and scalable force for the common good in the 21st century.” Much of the discussion over two days centered on practical examples of how “to generate financial, social, and environmental value at scale.”

Now its second year, the Responsible Business Forum brings together global companies at Oxford’s Saïd Business School to share their experience of creating new models of responsible capitalism. The Forum is under the leadership of a Mars, Incorporated-led think tank that is researching what Forrest Mars, Sr. in 1947, termed the “economics of mutuality” when companies take on this broader responsibility.

Click above for slide deck of our Oxford talk.It was a good idea in 1947 and it remains a good idea now, as evidenced by yesterday’s announcement by Goldman Sachs of a new exchange-traded fund that incorporates social impact metrics developed by Paul Tudor Jones through his Just Capital initiative. This is part of a larger move by Goldman to make environmental, social and governance issues more central to the bank.

Atlanta and I titled out talk “Changing the World Through Supply Chains” because we agree with Jones when he said recently on CNBC that, “If you’re going to have true social change… it has to start with business.”