Suppliers who aren’t meeting your climate goals can sometimes be talked into making changes – it might be a tough conversation, but totally worth it… And even cooler if you’re the person who puts them on a better path.
Other times though, those conversations are just tough, without the awesome result at the end.
A slightly abstract example of “tough conversations with suppliers” you may have seen in the news, is the Netball Australia / Gina Rinehart thing.
Rinehart is Aus’ richest woman and the head of Hancock Prospecting, a ginormous mining company.
Short version: H.P. had signed a deal to sponsor Netball Australia for $15 million which came with some standard conditions – one was that the logo was to be worn on the team uniform.
Donnell Wallam, a First Nations player, was not cool with wearing the logo due to the history H.P. has of making horrendous genocidal comments about First Nations people.
There’s more to the story (here), but utimately, Netball Australia walked away from that sponsorship deal.
Since the story came out, it’s been said that Netball Australia was already in financial difficulty, so the $15 mill was a huge lifeline.
Still, knowing where that money came from made it a no-go – that’s a pretty firm stance considering the numbers involved.
It shows that even on the brink of potential collapse, values stand up stronger than dollars – they just have to.
Netball Australia have since been picked up by Visit Victoria who have pledged to match the $15 million deal – a pretty awesome example of things working out in the end, with an even better result.
Could you drop a supplier, sponsor or investor if they went against your values? Could you walk away from $15 mill?
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