“Markets are not an entity or a sector of society, but a system and process that we are all part of”.
| Paul Gilding
Entrepreneur
Business | Philanthropy
While I had considerable experience both starting and managing non-profit organisations, my first foray into running my own business was in 1995 after I left Greenpeace. I had long argued including inside Greenpeace, that business could be mobilised to drive change on sustainability - but whether I could earn a living doing so was an open question. After all, while my then twenty years in activism gave me credibility, knowledge and profile on the issues, it also meant business leaders would be sceptical of my motivations. I used to joke at the time that going into business meant my Greenpeace colleagues would think I’d sold out to the corporate sector while the corporate sector would think I was a Greenpeace plot to infiltrate them!
I concluded I would need to be actually in business myself to earn the trust of business leaders - so I formed Ecos Corporation to test my ideas. I also wanted to understand business properly, and that meant knowing what it felt like to be an entrepreneur, to have your family’s income and security depend upon the performance of your business. As I soon learned, whereas in a well-funded non-profit organisation you can have the wrong idea for years, the market is far more ruthless with mistaken views of what the world needs. That meant being in business would keep me focused on what was real for market participants. It would also allow me to prove my argument that markets could be leveraged to drive societal change - with me being commercially successful in a purpose driven business being effectively ‘proof of concept’, even if on a very small scale.
The market we see today is living proof that markets can drive social change - think EV giant Tesla and Elon Musk taking out the top spot as richest person in the world in Jan 2021. However, markets still needs a nudge along, whether through pure philanthropy or old school campaigning that sheds light on injustices impacting people and planet. Recognising this, I’ve also invested time and capital in establishing non-profit organisations, to support and catalyse action on issues that I’m passionate about.
Below are links to more information on my past and present businesses and philanthropic endeavours. As well as being a history of my entrepreneurship, it chronicles the evolution in my beliefs on where I could have the biggest impact on driving change.