When employers and investors speak up, lawmakers pay attention. The Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) was founded in 2017, and the award-winning nonprofit has partnered with hundreds of companies across the world to advance fairness and quality in systems of punishment and incarceration.

By engaging businesses to use their voices, resources, and working practices, the organization has worked to change criminal justice narratives, support legislation, and create real opportunities for deserving individuals. 

Founder and CEO Celia Ouellette (pictured above with Richard Branson) spent a decade practicing as a defense attorney, primarily on capital cases across the United States. As a lawyer, she found herself constantly fighting a criminal justice system that was cruel, expensive, racist, and broken. Despite working to save people from execution, she could only help individuals one at a time. “It’s not enough to pull people from the river one by one,” she often reminds conference audiences. “We have to go upstream and change the system — so they don’t fall in the river in the first place.” 

When it came to delivering systemic change, Ouellette recognized that businesses could make a difference. No constituency is as important to lawmakers, and it was clear that business support would be decisive in driving policy campaigns over the line. So RBIJ was set up to rally and strategically deploy that support. 

Across the United States, there is an established and growing need for companies to speak out. Six in ten Americans feel that it’s no longer acceptable for companies to remain silent on social issues. The same number says they will reward businesses that actively address these issues. The past two years have been a reckoning for the American justice system, and its flaws are now recognized as some of the most glaring social problems facing the United States today. 

An excellent example is Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty, which RBIJ launched at the South by Southwest Festival in 2021. Spearheaded by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, the campaign brought together more than 250 international business leaders to back an end to capital punishment around the globe. Supporters include Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Unilever CEO Alan Jope, and author and entrepreneur Arianna Huffington. Their support has already been deployed in campaigns from Utah to Singapore through op-eds, interviews, joint statements, and private advocacy. In addition, the campaign has been covered by over 250 media outlets in more than 10 countries. By amplifying business support for change, we have helped shift narratives around criminal justice issues and given campaigners invaluable ammunition for advancing reform. 

We’ve also convinced businesses that criminal justice reform isn’t just a moral or a reputational imperative for companies – it’s an economic one. Take The Clean Slate Initiative as another example; it closes certain types of criminal records after a specific time. The group’s motto is: A criminal record shouldn’t be a life sentence to poverty. The United States loses more than $80 billion each year from the underemployment of people with criminal records. One in three American adults now has a record and faces substantial and often wholly unnecessary work, education, and housing barriers. Removing these restrictions for deserving individuals who have done their time will automatically allow employers access to a vast, diverse, underutilized talent pool. With over 11 million vacant jobs to fill in the Great Resignation, it’s a strategy that could benefit businesses greatly. 

This demonstrates another critical aspect of criminal justice reform — marshaling key business voices to support specific local policy campaigns. Last year, for example, RBIJ brought together companies to help end juvenile life-without-parole sentencing in Ohio. It was an essential step forward; no other country sentences children to die in prison. We worked closely with state campaign partners on the ground to end this cruel practice. 

We also work with employers to create change within their operations, most notably through hiring. In March 2022, again at South by Southwest, we launched Unlock Potential with the support of the Walmart.org Center for Racial Equity. The program is a groundbreaking intentional employment initiative to keep young people away from encounters with the justice system. By providing meaningful, long-term career opportunities for individuals aged 16 to 24 (who are most at risk), Unlock Potential aims to break cycles of poverty and incarceration while at the same time advancing economic mobility and racial equity.

Our work at RBIJ has never been more critical. While the United States makes up just 4% of the global population, it accounts for 21% of its prisoners. The country’s justice system is rightly decried as inefficient, wasteful, cruel, and racist. Internationally, lack of access to stable and accountable justice systems remains “a great threat to sustainable development,” according to the United Nations. There is an existential need for corporations to “walk their talk” on issues like systemic racism and embrace their responsibility as a force for good. We work with them to do precisely that. 

I am asked all the time, “what do you do?” to which my most authentic response is, “I buy dirty businesses and clean them up.”

This all started in the early 2000s when I bought a local same-day courier company, which forever changed how I do business. 

When I acquired Novex Delivery Solutions, the local same-day industry was full of contractors using old “beater” cars. The annual turnover of drivers averaged 40%. This was when the first hybrid vehicles were being produced, reducing pollution by 50%, and harmful particulate matter by 99%. With these vehicles becoming available, I had to find a way for our drivers to afford to upgrade their vehicles while continuing to make a profit for themselves and the company. And so began the quest to operate as a triple-bottom-line business.

“How” was the big question, and it demanded that we and our customers change how we do business. We even asked ourselves if we would be a green company that delivered packages or a courier company that didn’t pollute the air and lungs of the people in our community.

Fortunately, I was joined by an incredible team who, after learning about the effects of climate change, was enthusiastic about making a difference and having an impact — from sustainability strategies to culture, to define the purpose behind why our staff came to work. 

This work is both practical and aspirational. Of course, we had to help offset costs for our drivers so they could upgrade to hybrid vehicles. We solved this by selling full wrap advertising on the cars to like-minded and forward-thinking companies such as Vancity and passed the advertising revenue to the drivers. This achieved one known benefit, another hoped-for benefit, and one unanticipated benefit:

1. Less pollution. This was known and led to benefits number two and three below. We were (and still are) the change. 

2. Increased business! Doing good work and doing the right thing gave us the hoped-for advantage over our competition. More companies started deliberately choosing to work with Novex because we were focused on sustainability and positively impacting our shared community and environment. 

3. Increased morale of our drivers. They were proud to be using hybrids and minimizing pollution. This resulted in significantly less turnover, and fewer costs in hiring and training, resulting in increased profit. Today we have less than 15% driver turnover, and the increased profit goes toward our environmental and social work. 

Of course, we had milestones to achieve, but we also discovered many unanticipated benefits of making these changes. Due to the combination of setting targets plus having a passionate team with the same vision and values of people, planet, and profit, we managed to keep hitting (if not surpassing) our milestones. 

I’ll take a moment to brag about the team and their achievements: 

• 2004: Introduced 20 hybrids to our fleet of 100 vehicles
• 2007: Novex became the first carbon-neutral courier company in North America and set a goal to reduce GHG emissions by 33% by 2020
• 2009: Introduced the first 2 Smith electric trucks in Canada for delivery
• 2013: Became B Corp Certified
• 2017: First fully electric cars added to the fleet 
• 2018: Novex joins the United Way Social Purpose Innovators program
• 2020: Achieved 59% emission reduction, surpassing the goal of 33%
• 2022: Announced the plan to become a zero-emission company by 2030
• 2022: Launched a podcast called “CEOs & Self Driving Cars,” adding visibility and fun into the green space

The lesson and my takeaway from this experience are that as a triple-bottom-line company—this is just a proxy for better management. If you are ready to make the change, willing to get creative and buy-in from your team, then business can be the solution. 

Sugar Ray Leonard is back in the fight, but this time, he’s not swinging his lightning-fast fists to knock out a lightweight competitor. The champion boxer recently teamed up with New York City entrepreneur and philanthropist Daniel Neiditch – a heavy hitter in his own field – to face off in a friendly boxing match in support of the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation, which supports childhood diabetes. 

The fundraiser took place at Sugar Ray Leonard’s Pacific Palisades residence, where donors and supporters of the Foundation gathered to watch the match. Leonard and myself clocked in for the super middleweight standoff, both weighing in at 165 pounds. After throwing a few well-calculated punches and swift hooks, the match ended in good humor, with both contestants sharing the victory. 

Once the gloves came off, the six-time world champion, 1976 gold medal winner, and three-time golden glove champion showed off his gold medal and championship belts. The event successfully raised donations from generous benefactors and boxing enthusiasts to fund research and care for pediatric diabetic patients. 

Leonard, whose father struggled with diabetes, established the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation with his wife, Bernadette, in 2009 to benefit and create awareness for childhood type one and two diabetes. The former boxer was inspired to jumpstart his charity after witnessing his father’s uphill battle with the disease and the complications that affected every aspect of his life. His foundation strives to help children with diabetes live healthier, longer lives through diet and exercise while supporting research efforts to fight back against the childhood condition that affects more than 20,000 children in America alone. 

This boxing match my first fight either. In October of 2019, I entered the ring with heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield, that time in support of Global Autism awareness. He may have been punching above his weight class in that match but still came out on top as a champion for his cause. 

Leonard and Holyfield are just two of the famous faces I have worked with to support various charitable causes. My philanthropic work, is aimed primarily at empowering disadvantaged children and harnessing celebrity influence’s potential for a good cause. In the past, I’ve teamed up with other famous faces to benefit charity. I have bowled a few frames with Paul Rudd on behalf of the Stuttering Association for the Young and joined Steven Colbert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Montclair Film’s annual fundraiser in Newark, benefitting children in underprivileged communities. 

In 2019, I took to the mound at Target Field to throw out the first pitch at a Twins game on behalf of the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, and also tossed one across the plate at Fenway Park in front of Red Sox fans. I once led a live auction that offered donors the chance of an enlightening lunch and ride in a Lamborghini to benefit the Max Alexander Foundation.

Through my philanthropic work, I aim to show that the combination of creative fundraising efforts with the power of the celebrity can be an effective strategy in creating awareness around a cause for good. While celebrities themselves are more than capable of giving to charitable foundations on their own, the influence they evoke when they publicly support a specific cause creates a much larger ripple. 

Bringing a well-known name or face to a movement enhances the awareness around the cause and even lends credibility to it. While marketing and advertising agencies use this “celebrity effect” to boost profit, I see it as an opportunity to make a positive difference where it counts. Celebrities, socialites, and business moguls worldwide have a tremendous power that, yielded in the right way, can make a monumental impact on philanthropy and charitable efforts. Their superstar status amplifies their voice and gives them a stage from which they can encourage a giving spirit and draw attention to important issues that desperately need resolution.

So, while the match with Leonard may have ended in a draw, it marks a victory in the endeavor to use celebrity influence for good, and a win for the kids of the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation. 

The war in Ukraine is exacerbating an already dire food crisis in the Horn of Africa. Just a few weeks ago, in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, roughly 13 million people were waking up severely hungry every day.

Now, given their reliance on Ukrainian and Russian imports such as wheat and cooking oil, food prices are skyrocketing, putting access to basic nutrition even further out of reach. 

In 2020, African countries imported $4 billion in agricultural products from Russia and $2.9 billion from Ukraine, with the Horn as the top destination. My organization’s market assessment in Mogadishu, Somalia, found a 50% increase in the price of flour in just the last few weeks. African economies also relied on about $5 billion in product exports to Russia, including coffee, fruits and tobacco, which have all halted recently, crippling already fragile financial systems.

Just this week the UN Conference on Trade and Development issued a report predicting food shortages and civil unrest. The governments of Kenya and Somalia have declared national emergencies. 

Sadly, the conflict in Ukraine is only the latest in a bombardment of shocks to the Horn of Africa. The region is experiencing the worst drought in recent history, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes in search of water. Many are living in refugee camps where they are unable to grow food on the dry lands. Pastoralists, who make up about half of Somalia’s population, are not able to feed the livestock that they depend on for survival. Our best estimates are that at least one million heads of livestock have already died or migrated.  

6 Ways You Can Help

There are many ways to help people suffering in these forgotten crises, and we hope that leading companies and individuals will consider the following: 

• Donating to trusted organizations like Action Against Hunger 
• Using their platforms – social media, websites, newsletters – to inform and inspire others 
• Exploring Board and Advisory positions with nonprofits  
• Offering to match donations made by their employees 
• Calculating and mitigating your personal and corporate carbon footprint 
• Reaching out to charities to explore new and creative ways to partner over the long-term

Afifa Ali Abd is one of the 2.6 million Somalis forced to leave home. She is now living in a refugee camp in another area of the country. A mother of seven children, Abd says more people are arriving at the camp, but there is no shelter, food or water to be found. “My family went to sleep hungry last night, we will go to sleep hungry tonight,” she said. Neither she nor her husband can find work and food in the market is unaffordable without any income. 

In addition to rising food prices, ongoing armed conflicts in parts of the region also are forcing people to search for food, water and safety elsewhere. In recent years, floods and cyclones have destroyed homes, displacing even more families. Locusts have destroyed crops. 

And of course there are the economic impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns and ongoing supply chain disruptions. Africa had no safety nets in place before the pandemic, and our economies have not recovered. According to the World Bank, the pandemic pushed 40 million more people in Africa into extreme poverty. I am not sure how much more the people in this region can take. 

Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, we had a massive deficit in food supplies. Now, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find solutions. In Kenya, upwards of four million people will need assistance because of drought, including and 600,000 children younger than age five who are already suffering from acute malnutrition. We are trying to treat as many children as we can for malnutrition and make sure they have nutritious food so that they can grow normally, but we can’t reach everyone. 

We’re trying to help people become more self-sufficient. In Uganda, for example, where the government has given millions of refugees small parcels of land, we are teaching people to grow drought-resistant crops, and sell any leftovers at the market. We’re also providing cash to help families buy food. But it’s not enough. People are barely surviving.  

I’ve been a humanitarian aid worker in Africa for 18 years. We are accustomed to crises. There have been food shortages, droughts and conflicts that have impacted people’s livelihoods and food security. But in the last couple of years, the shocks are coming from all directions and compounding each other, creating a dire situation for the world’s most vulnerable. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. 

It’s difficult even for donors to focus on more than one issue at a time, but the people we serve don’t have that luxury. Right now, the global community’s attention is on helping the people of Ukraine, and rightly so. But we can’t lose sight of the daily, life-threatening crises elsewhere around the world. 

Climate collapse, conflict, and the economic impacts of COVID-19 stretched the already-fragile system in the Horn of Africa. The situation in Ukraine is putting even more strain on our dwindling energy and resources. My hope is that this horrible conflict will bring more visibility to the ways we are all interconnected and to the need to address the multiplicity of challenges humanity faces together.

I’m proud to lead a company that has joined the United Nations (UN) Global Compact as a signatory member, dedicated to improving communities by aligning with the targets outlined and categorized by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).

One of the ways we can all work towards a more sustainable future is to make a conscious choice to replace some of our meat-based consumption with more products made with plant-based ingredients. This is because meat and dairy products are a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water use, deforestation, and pollution.

Unfortunately, we seem to be heading in the opposite direction. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, global demand for meat is projected to double by 2050. And with the worldwide population expected to cross 9 billion by 2050, demand for daily protein servings is expected to increase by 74%. Think of the impact we can have if just a fraction of those servings came from plant-based sources like soy, quinoa, or pea protein.

Take soy, for example. It contains all nine essential amino acids that our bodies cannot produce on their own, making it one of the only complete plant-based proteins available. Soy is also comparatively efficient to grow, using less water, emitting less carbon, and producing more protein per acre than beef, eggs, or milk. Therefore, replacing even a tiny portion of animal proteins with plant-based proteins grown efficiently can have a long-term positive impact on our environment.

Positive Impacts of Plant Fuel

In addition to the positive environmental impacts, incorporating plant-based ingredients in one’s diet positively impacts the world’s food supply because it makes better use of our land resources. According to a research study published by the National Academy of Sciences, replacing all animal-based items with plant-based diets could add enough food to our supply chain to feed 350 million additional people, which would go a long way in supporting the UN’s Sustainable Goal of zero hunger.

While changing diets and forming new habits is not always easy due to inequities of access. There’s certainly more to uncover around the impacts of plant protein on exercise performance — we do know eating less meat can reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and some cancers. Eating more vegetables also provides a good amount of carbohydrates that the body can burn during exercise — all great reasons to make the change.

Fueling Sustainable Businesses

Having a positive impact on society is more than just making the world a better place; it also makes good business sense. People are increasingly affected by critical societal issues, and investors and other stakeholders are watching closely as consumers demand that companies take a stand. From improving the environment to diversity and inclusion, investors are increasingly considering how companies support communities, society, and the planet, as part of their investment thesis.

In fact, between 2018 and 2020, total U.S.-domiciled sustainably invested assets under management, both institutional and retail, grew 42%, to $17.1 trillion, up from $12 trillion. This growth is driven by multiple factors, including the global spotlight on sustainability and waste reduction and corporate responsibility to lead that change.We must prioritize creating a better world – both now and for future generations.

The United Nations Secretary-General put it best in his 2020 State of the Planet speech. He said, “Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century. It must be the top, top priority for everyone, everywhere.” To read his entire speech, click here. But be warned – it’s not for the faint of heart, but it may just convince all of us to take one small step toward improving our world and creating a more sustainable future.