Any person that’s penned a business plan can tell you, you can conjure up the most impressive, creative, world-transforming concept, but when it comes time to prove your idea’s impact long-term, you need someone that’s good with data and insights in your corner. That’s where Clear Horizon comes in.
Clear Horizon is a consultancy group that works with purpose-driven organisations to help measure the impact of their work and inform improvements that transform ideas with purpose into truly impactful initiatives. They collaborate with their clients to design the approaches and structures that will track the impact of social and environmental initiatives and provide evidence to inform learning, improvement and strategic decision making. Because what they say is true – you can’t manage what you don’t measure!
The Clear Horizon team know that if you teach a person to fish they’ll never go hungry. Which is why they don’t believe in gatekeeping their expertise. Rather, through the Clear Horizon Academy, they empower their clients by providing the skills, knowledge and tools necessary to successfully and independently measure their impact.
Focused on positive change since inception, Clear Horizon is particularly intentional in its partnerships, exclusively working on humanitarian, community-led, or planet-protecting projects. But for this female-led company, doing ‘good’ starts in the office, with a staff-driven program of give-back initiatives that centre the values of their collective team.
To learn more, we chatted to Clear Horizon about how their values inform their work, empowering through education, and how the certification process helped identify opportunities for improvement in their business.
Image: Clear Horizon
Can you tell us a little about what Clear Horizon does and how you collaborate with like-minded businesses, NGOs, and government departments?
We are a values-based evaluation and impact measurement company. We collaborate with change-makers to design and evaluate solutions for people, place and planet. From creating strategic learning for systems change initiatives to developing digital solutions, we drive sector-wide transformative change.
Courage and innovation are encouraged in our work. We aim to be at the cutting edge of our discipline and love to invent new processes and tools. Clear Horizon runs on an enthusiasm that is highly valued both internally and by our clients.
You work with a wide range of clients, united in wanting to leave the world better than they found it. Why was it important for you as a business to pursue B Corp Certification?
To demonstrate to our customers, employees, prospective employees, and suppliers our commitment to being a ‘for purpose’ organisation. We have been committed to social justice and environmental sustainability since our inception, and being certified is one way to publicly show this commitment.
Image: Clear Horizon
How do your values inform the way you do business as a B Corp, and what are some areas or initiatives you are particularly proud of?
We are a women-led business. We value diversity and are not afraid to speak out about injustice. We are strong supporters of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and strive to be good allies to First Nations people’s in the push for self-determination. We deliberately choose to work with organisations that share our commitment to social justice and environmental sustainability.
We pride ourselves on walking the talk, embedding learning and innovation into our work.
A common thread across all our work is our desire to build the capacity of our clients to do their own effective measurement, evaluation, and learning. We work across diverse sectors with a range of clients who share our goals and who are working to increase the public good.
We are a young and dynamic organisation that values work-life balance. Committed to conserving Australia’s biodiversity and strengthening our local community, we acknowledge the rights of Indigenous people within Australia and overseas and work proactively for social justice and environmental sustainability.
Image: Clear Horizon
As a business in the consultancy space, if you could share a message with business leaders what would it be? What would you like to see become the ‘norm’ for the future of business?
We’d like to see businesses take a balanced purpose and profit perspective to everything they do, in every part of the business.
The planet is in crisis, and businesses have to step up and play a part in finding and implementing solutions. This starts with recognising our impact as a business on people and planet.
Is there a particular B Corp that inspires you?
Not one specifically; we are inspired by the power of collective action. We have been aware of B Corp Certification for a number of years, and have wanted to be part of the movement for a long time. It took time and commitment to complete the process and we are so glad we did! It’s been a rewarding experience.
Image: Clear Horizon
Over the past year we’ve seen record numbers in businesses using the B Impact Assessment, as well as businesses successfully gaining certification. For anyone currently on the journey, do you have any words of wisdom?
We found it particularly challenging to demonstrate our impact on communities. The certification process does seem to be more applicable to manufacturing or the provision of goods, rather than service-based businesses. We have developed a tool called the ‘Impact Log’ that purpose-driven organisations like us can use to capture our impact through the collection of impact stories – this will help to demonstrate our direct impact but the reach beyond our customers is very difficult to measure.
However, we found the certification process very valuable, so our tip is to look for and value all the insights that it can give you about your business.
It has helped us to identify and address gaps in how we document organisation processes. In addition, the continuous improvement approach that B Corp encourages has helped us to set goals for the future, which we can work towards in anticipation of recertification.
A big thank you to Clear Horizon for taking the time to share its journey with us. To find out more and explore their offering visit: clearhorizon.com.au
