Country Bridge

Andy Chapman (andy@changetheconversation.co.uk) and Bridget Knapper (bridget.knapper@ecguk.org)
Co Founder of Change The Conversation Ltd

The London Chapter is using Slack to communicate and collaborate (https://ecguk.slack.com/messages/general/)

Current Activities

• Consultants Training session from 12-15th October based on Matrix 5.0.  We think 15 is the maximum of delegates that we can have and to date I think we have 9.

Local Chapter

There is a working local chapter in London.

Members:

• Andy Chapman, andy@changetheconversation.co.uk
• Bridget Knapper, bridget.knapper@ecguk.org
• Frank Hartkopf
• David Wallace
• Andy Chapman

Legal entity

Economy for the Common Good UK, Community Interest Company (CIC) is the official legal body for the UK

Notes about State of Affairs

Email from Andy from Feb. 23, 2016

• The ECG in the UK - we are both still very interested in, and committed to, the ECG as an emerging way of thinking about how the economy and business should change - and we are both involved (Bridget much more than I, and Anke too) in the discussions about the further development of the matrix. We also intend, as do Anke/NEF and Jules Peck, to complete a peer group Common Good Balance Sheet process for our own businesses later this year. The question is more: how can the ECG best be positioned and promoted in this country?
• In the UK at the moment, the landscape concerning sustainability and business is predominantly driven by "big picture" issues such as the COP21 agreement, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the growing interest in natural capital accounting. Quite a lot of large companies (multinationals) are very interested in the idea of finding a tool that they can use in a practical way to monitor their activities against the SDGs but feel that there isn't really an existing tool or framework that fits the bill, despite their being a plethora of such things out there. In that context, the ECG has to contend for attention with better-known and better funded initiatives such as the B Corp movement, Blueprint for Better Business, the GRI indicators, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and others. That's not to say that the ECG might not attract support in that world over time (not least because, unlike B-Corps, a company does not have to alter its articles of association to complete and publish its Common Good balance sheet!) but it is likely to be a longer term process.
  There is, of course, more of a prospect of attracting smaller organisations and especially social enterprises to sign up to do the CGBS. Jules is hopeful of doing so fairly soon via some work he has been doing with Social Enterprise UK. However, this brings us to the second main outcome of our conversations...
• Time - neither Bridget nor I are really prioritising working with small organisations primarily or exclusively doing ECG consultant work. In my case, it's because my own company, Change The Conversation, is focused much more on working with larger public and private sector organisations on a wide range of issues. The ECG is an interesting part of the conversation that we can, and are, having with some clients but it is only a part. We don't have a lot of extra time or energy for developing the ECG beyond our existing commitments to it (mentioned above).

Newsletter

Archive: http://us15.campaign-archive2.com/home/?u=93a9b4074cb4ec91e4a51971a&id=c083a81305

Subscription Link: http://mailchi.mp/53b1cd9435dc/april-2017-newsletter

Further Documents

ECG in the UK – draft Communications Strategy.docx (from June 2017)

DW 2013 observations the development of the ECG in the UK_Gus.docx

UK 2015 ECG Consultant Seminar - Guidelines.pptx

US_UK_Strategy_Gus_Hagelberg.docx