Hello, I'm Mary Portis and this is The Kindness Economy, a podcast that looks at the new values driving the businesses of tomorrow.

People, planet and profit in that order. It's the future. Are you ready for better?

We're living in a time when politically at least. The gulf between what's said and what is done is stark.

From the health secretary breaking his own lockdown rules

to the Prime Minister initially refusing to isolate

even as millions were being pinged by the app.

The differences between talking the talk and walking the walk

during this pandemic has never been more stark.

A void opened up at the heart of politics and we saw more inspirational leadership from

Gareth Southgate and his players earlier this summer than we did in government. Why? Well, because

our football team was united in a belief, in a philosophy that held them strong, and they enacted it on the field.

They are young, decent men for whom drive and ambition aren't mutually exclusive to caring about each other and caring about the wider world in which they live. That kind of shared core

belief is powerful and it's fundamental too to the kindness economy. It's almost two years of developing

and talking about this idea and I've experienced so much joy in learning about the people tapping into it

and the myriad ways that they do so.

This series, for instance, and we've heard everything from sheep that fart less methane, beautiful,

to employees going on bike rides together.

I've spoken to businesses that are global and others that are far more local.

But for all this diversity of idea, application and result,

there's one thing that unites all these businesses, a belief in doing better.

For people and planet, as well as making, of course, profit.

Kindness economy businesses know they just can't talk a good game.

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