What can for-profit and for-more-than-profit start-ups learn from one another in the climate space?

It’s a big question with many dimensions, and one that was a steep challenge to cover in an hour-long panel, but we gave it our best shot at this month’s inaugural Climate Summit convened by Subak. With peerlessly excellent panellists  Louise Crow (mySociety), Shruti Iyengar (Sustainable Ventures), Dama Sathianathan (Bethnal Green Ventures) and Katie Shaw (Open Supply Hub), it was a huge privilege to host this discussion.

For-profit vs non-profit/for-more-than-profit: is it really an us vs them?

Even how we frame these questions brings up some key questions: what do we call the not-profit-centred founding journey (non-profit/for-more-than-profit? Something else?)? Are for-more-than-profits always fully motivated by mission and impact, where for-profits are motivated by revenue alone? And are for-more-than-profits more comfortable with collaboration, where for-profits focus on competition, as the stereotype holds?

A cursory look around the room at the Subak conference showed us it’s not that simple in the climate space, especially with the rising tide of public opinion focusing more and more on the ethics of how business is done, and critical interest in the context of sustainability and climate impact becoming more powerful and we hope further democratised.

Thinking through fully what you are looking to achieve, and accurately assessing the pros and cons of each way of founding or building your enterprise, are critical; Katie Shaw from Open Supply Hub, which tracks facility location data across retail supply chains, made the point that trust is essential for open source platforms like hers – and that it would be challenging in the regions and sectors in which she works, as well as across the range of stakeholders with whom OS Hub interacts, to build that trust with a for-profit company.

But as Dama Sathianathan highlighted, for-more-than-profits struggle with the philanthropic funding cycles, and the restrictions in terms of eg overhead funding imposed by grant-making bodies – where for-profits, because of their funding mechanisms, might be able to think a bit longer term.

How do we overcome these structures and barriers to do the work that matters?

The rise of nested financial mechanisms and hybridised models can be effective in overcoming some of the challenges which one approach alone struggles to solve – Louise Crow shared how mySociety created a subsidiary company, in part to allow issues like ease of contracting and hiring and compensation more space and a quicker timescale in which to be solved.

To a certain extent, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to how to navigate the structural and financial mechanism – and funding-securing – challenges we all face. And as Shruti Iyengar highlighted, when thinking about any impact-focused schemes for your enterprise, amongst them B Corp accreditation, making sure both the structure and measurement frameworks are exactly right for your organisation is critical.

The triumph of hope over experience

The central point agreed on was the ability and drive to connect, collaborate, and productively compete across these barriers and silos with optimism and towards success is the central point for us all, as we work to avert climate breakdown. 

Or: driving forwards with relentless optimism and building practical, outcome-focused collaboration.