More than a tick-box: purpose, profit & the reality in between

Exploring how working towards B Corp shapes the everyday decisions behind a purpose-led business.

By Claire Mellon, Co-founder and Chief Client Officer

When we first started talking about building Cohesion, we spoke a lot about purpose and what that would look like in practice once the business was live, decisions needed to be made and commercial reality started to take shape.

It’s very easy to say that purpose and profit should sit alongside each other. It’s a much more interesting exercise when you start to test that in real situations.

Working towards B Corp accreditation has been helpful in that sense because it encourages you to ask better questions.

Why are we doing it this way?
Who does this decision benefit?
What does this look like in the long term, not just today?

None of those questions are particularly complex on their own. What matters is taking the time to ask them consistently, especially when it would be easier not to.

In reality, it’s not a case of purpose versus profit. It’s about how the two interact.

There will always be decisions where there is a quicker route, a more commercial route, or a more convenient option. The B Corp framework doesn’t remove those choices. If anything, it makes you more aware of them.

We believe it’s less about getting every decision perfectly ‘right’ and more about being clear on the principles we’re using to make them.

I read Small Giants by Bo Burlingham when we first starting building Cohesion. The book provided real life examples of businesses that aren’t necessarily trying to be the biggest. Some are deliberately trying to be the best at what they do, on their own terms.

That feels closely aligned with how we’ve been thinking about Cohesion’s growth – a deliberate process driven by being clear on what matters and equally clear on what we’re not willing to compromise along the way.

At this stage, we’re still early in the journey, there isn’t a long track record to point to and we’re not trying to suggest that we’ve figured it all out. What we do have is a clear intention to build something that stands up over time, and a framework that encourages us to check ourselves as we go.

Purpose and profit can sit together, but it doesn’t happen by default. It happens through the choices you make and often the ones that don’t sit front and centre.

These choices and decisions are the ones that will shape our business in the long run.