Why social and environmental issues must be at the heart of all modern businesses

By James Dolton, Head of Sports and Partnerships, Pubity Group

As a publisher with a large audience of young people, we have always been aware that we could use our influence and our vision for the common good.

We believe that if you can make a difference, do it. Taking action can dramatically improve people’s lives and, in the extreme, can mean the difference between life and death.

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped raise awareness among customers and businesses about the issues that our environment, our social relationships and our brands are intertwined with each other.

It’s something we passionately believe in at Pubity Group. We see millennial and Gen Z audiences actively pushing brands to do more for the communities they serve, and business leaders need to understand these aspirations.

Over the past few years we have been involved in a number of charities and fundraising projects around the world.

For example, helping coronavirus victims in India, raising $100,000 for UNHCR to support displaced families from Ukraine, and helping to raise funds and awareness for wildfire victims in Australia, to name a few. name a few.

However, there is one organization we partner with on an ongoing basis, charity: water.

Their mission is to bring clean, safe drinking water to every person on the planet and their vision is to reinvent the charitable world with the 100% model. Every penny collected is spent on drinking water projects in a country low on the UN’s Human Development Index.

Plus, they prove each project with GPS coordinates, map pins on their website, and share photos of clean water flowing.

Earlier this year we raised £10,000 with them and know this is just the start of the work we can do together. Incredibly, 771 million people around the world live without access to safe drinking water.

That’s about 10 times the population of the UK. We admire charity: the hope of water over the mentality of guilt, they know it is a problem we can solve and we support them in this mission.

In September, we encourage streamers of all types; Gamers, YouTubers, Vloggers, everyone, at Stream for Clean, the latest Charity: Water campaign, aiming to bring clean drinking water to over 10,000 people in Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, for every £1 invested in drinking water infrastructure, it returns between £4 and £12 to the local economy.

That’s because clean water changes everything. This can impact not only people’s health, but also help children go to school and give women time back, creating equality and work opportunities.

It is estimated that in Africa alone, women spend 40 billion hours a year walking to find water – water that is usually dirty and makes their children sick.

To help the charity: water illustrates the hard work spent all day walking for water, we shot a video where our team carried a full 20kg jerry can of water through the streets of Manchester .

Most readers of this article will never have picked up a 20 kg water can – but believe me, it’s very heavy.

We wanted to grab the public’s attention and encourage them to pick up the jerrycan and carry it a few meters. We then explained how women carry similar containers for miles every day just to supply their families with water.

Most people we spoke to couldn’t believe that women and girls had to lug around these very heavy water carriers day in and day out.

It was a great way to raise awareness of how important water is to all of us – and how we take it for granted.

The charity:water partnership highlights how we can use our different platforms to create conversation that can then turn into action. With our social pages, we have a duty to ensure that we are doing things that will have a greater impact on ourselves and our business.

As Head of Sports at Pubity Group, I now work with sports brands that also focus on issues that help different communities around the world – so watch this space as we’ll report on them in the coming months.

I think it is essential for all of us, individually, as businesses and communities, to explore and understand how we can contribute to the various social challenges that impact us all – from clean water to change climate through gender inequality.

By doing so, everyone can see the value that actions and activism can bring.

Ultimately, any responsible business leader should look far beyond their immediate role and organization to determine where they can help for the greater good.