Can Businesses Achieve More With Less? Entrepreneur UK explores how to shift focus from damage control to creating a lasting impact

Richard Johnson is a key figure in the UK's sustainability landscape, playing a pivotal role in launching Benefit Corporation (B Corp), and helping certify the first 50 British companies for meeting high social, environmental, and accountability standards.

With over a decade of experience as a sustainability consultant, Richard authored the Mission Lit guidebook, a resource for entrepreneurs aiming to build purpose-driven businesses. He helps companies navigate the B Corp certification process, making him a key advocate for sustainable business.

Entrepreneur UK finds out why entrepreneurs should embrace innovative and regenerative practices - not just to comply with regulations - but to enhance environmental and social outcomes for lasting success in a resource-limited world.

What differentiates Sustainability 2.0 companies?

Sustainability 1.0 was about improvements. Sustainability 2.0 is about possibilities. Sustainability 1.0 was a recognition that the way in which every company was set up to create and capture value was, in a multitude of ways, creating negative impacts for society and the natural world.

Plans were then put in place to minimise these impacts. That's what we've traditionally called a sustainability strategy. With sustainability 2.0 it's about asking "what would it look like to create the same value, but without the negative impacts. What's more, how many benefits for society and the planet can we design into the way we do business?"

What has driven the rise of Sustainability 2.0 companies, and how can entrepreneurs leverage these trends?

Let's not pretend there's been a rise of Sustainability 2.0. It exists only in fragments, and on the fringes of industries. What we are seeing more of is a stalling of Sustainability 1.0. These companies hoped they could make all the necessary improvements without reimagining their business models or how they fundamentally operated.

We're now at an interesting moment, where companies are midway into the ambitious targets they set at the start of the decade. Will we see more companies, like Unilever and Crocs, row back on the targets, or will companies now start to make the more fundamental changes?

Related: Revolutionising Dairy: How Mossgiel Farm Pioneered Sustainable Farming for the Future

How can entrepreneurs adopt regenerative practices to boost sustainability and attract eco-conscious customers?

We need to be careful when we talk about regenerative practices. The word is being used liberally to describe all manner of things associated with moving beyond a "less harm" approach to an "actively improve."I think we can divide it into the philosophical and the practical.

Philosophically regenerative practices are about new approaches to business which reject the idea of just doing "less harm." On the surface it's about an intention, setting a new goal for business, but dig deeper and there's an emergent field of thinking which goes beyond intentions. It's about new ways of organising which don't perpetuate dysfunctional systems and reinforce degenerative behaviour. Ultimately it's about being more harmonious with nature's cycles. At this level, regenerative practices are very much an emergent field of thinking, just as full of meaningful experimentation as it is meaningless co-optation.

On a very practical level, there are many businesses which rely on inputs from natural processes, think, for the most part, agricultural inputs. Here's where regenerative practices can be very practical. Where a process has traditionally been degenerative, leaving land depleted and weakened, companies are exploring new ways of creating these inputs in a way that actually improves nature in the process.

There's a range of ways we are seeing businesses integrating regenerative inputs into their business, from wheat which improves soil health and improves biodiversity, as pioneered by Wildfarmed, or wool from sheep who help the land sequester more carbon dioxide, as pioneered by Sheep Inc. These companies are showing new possibilities.

What role will sustainability play in shaping future business practices and economic growth?

On a planet exhausted of resources, all growth must come from doing more with less. The companies who can work out how to give us more of everything with less of everything, will be the drivers of growth. More from less is the true meaning of sustainability, and it's the alchemy we need to see from entrepreneurs.

Related: Scaling Sustainably: A Roadmap to Net Zero for Startups