Encourage business to reduce social harms says RSA’s Matthew Taylor

In his annual lecture to the RSA, Matthew Taylor will say that businesses from food retailers to banks should address the ways in which they encourage unwise behaviours and take greater responsibility for their social impact.

Business has long been in the business of ‘nudging’ people to behave in certain ways. Unfortunately, it has often been in the wrong direction for customers and society, according to Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Matthew Taylor.

Company leaders have a choice to make about the view they take of the future, Taylor argues. Is it a future in which companies can get away with evading accountability for their social impacts? Or is it one where public expectations and social challenges will make it more important that companies show alignment between profit making and social responsibility?

In his speech, Taylor argues that growing public awareness of the behaviour change agenda provides companies with an opportunity to forge deeper relationships with their customers, by helping them align their short term desires with their long term ambitions and responsibilities.

Speaking in the Great Room of the RSA, Matthew Taylor will argue that companies that want genuinely to align commercial strategy with social purpose need to look hard at the ways they operate, from employment practice to the corporate mission, Those of us outside, who want business to contribute to what the RSA calls a ‘21st century enlightenment’ also need to play our own part in encouraging and supporting new ways of making money by doing good.