Karen: “Do the three p's people talk about: people, planet, profit, impact on how you run your business?”

Will: “Being a recycling business all three are very, very pertinent to Recycling Lives…..” but he underlined that “ If we didn't have a thriving commercial business that was profitable we wouldn't be able to achieve the outcomes for the community and the people on our programmes.  So profit is a core part of what we do but it's ethical profit.”

Sarah added: “I think you have to take a long term view of profit, we're all in business and profit's important isn't it because the more you can create sustainable profit and grow your profit the more you have power to do all those other things and so it's a hugely important part of the equation that we can never ignore.”

There are always challenges

Karen: “We’ve talked about some of the great stuff that's going on but what challenges have you experienced to date?”

Sarah: “Overall the biggest challenge and opportunity is connecting the things that we're talking about to be mutually supportive of each other. So if you can get your people to support your proposition and to support your work into communities, to support your profit and get all those things to actually turn in a virtuous circle.”

Will: “ [our business faced] a lot more challenges in terms of producing a product that you need to still compete with everybody else on price and service and we're able to achieve that but it was harder to set up in the first place and it can sometimes be harder to manage.” But he was sure that it is “absolutely crucial that a company operating our sphere can deliver on the price and the service and then the social impact is on top of that because otherwise you're not going to get a look in.”

Hear the full story of how Will and Sarah connect profit with purpose and the other inspirational stories in the vibrant voices series.

For more information about how we are shaping a vibrant economy