With an unprecedented urgency and mounting existential pressure due to various crises in the world, why is the predominant business mindset still merely to do less harm?

The focus is to mitigate damage and work towards sustainability, when in fact we should be moving from sustaining what we have now to a more regenerative frame of mind – from the concept of simply doing less harm to actively doing more good.

Here are four ways you can start...

Using the negative as a source for positive change

We can all start with evaluating past actions and acknowledging previous wrongs to fuel a better future. Brands can strive to finish better than they started and look to introduce bold, smart and creative ways to turn a past negative into something positive.

A key part to this is looking in the mirror. We need to have constructive, frank, positive conversations about the dark side of our businesses. Identify the elephants in the room. Look at business models, the categories we sit in, and understand the predominant codes and behaviors to spell out where the problem areas lie. We all already have an inkling of those – whether they’re functional, environmental, logistical or ideological – so let’s face them and start addressing them.

Swiss running shoe brand On Running is a great example here. One of its initiatives, its CleanCloud technology, is turning the very real shadow side of sports apparel – carbon emissions – into material for its concept trainers.

But it’s not just environmental wrongs that need righting. Miller Lite last year literally turned its negative past into fuel, by owning up to the historically harmful representation of women in beer advertisements.

Its ‘Bad Sh#!t to The Good Sh#!t’ campaign turned sexist ads into sustainable hops. Old sexist ad prints were turned into fertiliser for 200 female brewers. The aim was to help them gain a foothold in a male-dominated industry,

Imagine your preferable future

A key to identifying where we can do more good is to imagine our future. If we’re a chocolate brand whose supply chain and resource is under threat what are the future scenarios we can see playing out – and crucially what is the preferable one? This can be broad or specific, but it helps us understand what we can actually do – where we can effect change. A lot of that over the past years has been linked to brand purpose, but this can be quite intangible.

In contrast, finding something that is clearly within our remit as a business, brand, or through our product, will genuinely make a tangible difference. This is why Tony’s Chocolonely is cited so often in this context. With one mission statement to reduce slavery in chocolate, the brand can focus on something it can tangibly achieve to contribute to a positive transition.

Precise and focused actions

Focused resource and energy are a huge part of doing more good. Precise actions can have an exponential impact, allowing us to unlock the most effective alterations within our existing behaviours and systems.

Many of our existing systems, networks and supply chains are not used to their full potential or are becoming obsolete (outdated manufacturing lines or empty office spaces, for example). So brands need to find new and innovative ways to use those resources and systems to avoid them becoming obsolete.

Coca Cola is a good example here, the brand using its existing distribution methods to deliver vaccines across Africa in collaboration with Last Mile. Lego, meanwhile, is applying practices of play through its Braille Bricks to help all children learn the language while being inclusive to those with partial or impaired sight.

Building decentralised networks

A huge part of looking to the future in this way is empowering the customers we serve. Having witnessed the failure of long-trusted systems, there is a growing frustration among people with how current institutions (whether legal, political or financial) are centred around authority, hierarchy and control rather than those they serve.

Businesses and brands need to look for alternative forms of organisation that provide more access, transparency and autonomy. We need more decentralised approaches where everyone in the network has a say about the future.

From ObvioHealth taking a decentralised approach to clinical trials, to Star Atlas offering a multi-player blockchain-based online game that is player-owned and funded by decentralised governance – there are so many ways in which this thinking can empower change for the better.

There are many ways in which we can move towards positive transformation as businesses – and it all starts with reimagining what the world beyond ‘business as usual’ can look like. In a good way.

Gareth Lewis is Joint Managing Director at Space Doctors.