Beyond Corporate Power at Ethical Consumer Conference 2025: Employee Ownership, CICs and the Future of Business

Last week I attended the 2025 Ethical Consumer Conference, a vibrant gathering of innovators, activists and business leaders exploring how to move beyond traditional corporate power. I first attended last year, just a few months after leaving my Google career and exploring apivot towards building better business.

This year, I returned with a clearer lens following my recent research with the London School of Economics and work developing the Regenerative Business Pulse (early version here).

My takeaways below aren't comprehensive conference notes, but my reflections on key themes that emerged and their implications for business transformation.

Key Insights: The State of Alternative Business in the UK

• 76% of the UK public want laws requiring businesses to serve stakeholders, not just shareholders (B Lab UK research)
• 131,000 UK social enterprises successfully reinvesting surplus into mission (Social Enterprise UK - SEUK data)
• 86% of UK businesses are family-owned, creating a massive  opportunity to democratise ownership
• Employee-owned businesses, cooperatives and Community Interest Companies (CICs) proven as viable models at scale
• Tech co-ops like innovation.coop and outlandish.coop are building open-source alternatives to Big Tech monopolies
• Patient capital from the likes of Ethex are enabling transitions with 5-9% returns rather than maximum extraction

The Ownership Revolution: Why Corporate Structure Determines Outcomes

The conference's central theme was clear: ownership shapes outcomes. Whether examining Outlandish's worker cooperative or EQ Investors' employee ownership, the pattern was consistent - when stakeholders own the business, extraction becomes circulation.

Employee Ownership and B Corps: Embedding Purpose in Structure

Tom Ebbutt from B Lab UK opened with a powerful statistic: 76% of the UK population believe laws should change to make businesses serve stakeholders, not just shareholders. But legislation alone isn't enough. The B Corp movement uses certified businesses as living proof that ethical and profitable models can coexist, while tools like the Better Business Act help embed purpose directly into governance.

Louisiana Salge from EQ Investors demonstrated this in practice. As an employee-owned B Corp where staff participate in governance, they've achieved a B Corp score of 176 (minimum is 80). Their sister charity, The EQ Foundation, owns 20% of the company and receives proportional dividends, showing how ownership structures can ensure wealth circulates rather than extracts.

Worker Cooperatives: Democratic Alternatives to Tech Monopolies

Natasha Natarajan from Outlandish presented the worker cooperative model as a systemic alternative to Big Tech. Unlike hierarchical, shareholder-owned monopolies, cooperative networks operate democratically with mission-driven values. As she pointedly noted: "We pay tax!" - a sharp contrast to tax-avoiding tech giants.

Outlandish demonstrates cooperative principles through:

• Radical pay transparency
• Open-source software development (such as LocalGov Drupal for the public sector)
• Asset-locked structure - meaning assets can never be sold for private benefit
• Profits reinvested into social projects rather than extracted to shareholders

Breaking Big Tech's Infrastructure Monopoly Through Cooperation

Shaun Fensom from Cooperative Network Infrastructure (CNI) revealed that tech giants now control 70% of international submarine cables - the dark fibre networks that carry global data. He discussed a "thin layer cooperative" model that separates infrastructure into passive (physical), active (electronics), and service layers, enabling shared ownership rather than vertical monopolies.

CNI has implemented 300km of spine fibre across UK regions, including innovative data centres using immersion cooling to capture waste heat for communities. As Fensom noted: "100% of energy that goes into data centres ends up as heat" - but unlike the water-intensive cooling of the "Amazons of this world" to save money, CNI brings computing where heat is actually needed.

The Succession Opportunity: 86% of UK Family Businesses at a Crossroads

Emily Darko from Social Enterprise UK revealed game-changing research: 86% of UK businesses are family-owned, many with baby boomer founders approaching retirement. Their eBay for Change-funded research found that the majority of traditional businesses converting to Community Interest Companies (CICs) - limited companies with asset locks ensuring resources permanently serve community benefit - are family firms seeking to preserve values beyond the founder's tenure.

This represents a generational opportunity for ownership transformation. As Emily explained, these transitions require:

• Awareness of alternative models
• Tailored advice for specific contexts
• Patient capital - investment accepting lower returns and longer horizons for social impact
• Policy support including the proposed cross-department Impact Economy Unit (alluded to in this recent governmental policy paper)

During her talk, Emily also shared a poignant moment when a young African leader walked out of her Young African Leaders workshop in Nairobi saying "I grew up in poverty, I want to make a profit and I'll come back to this in a few years." His words highlight the tension between individual wealth accumulation and collective models, a challenge any transition strategy must acknowledge.

Finance as a Tool for Transformation, Not Extraction

Patient Capital: Bridging the Transition Gap

The conference explored how finance can enable rather than inhibit transformation. Patient capital emerged as crucial - accepting 5-9% returns rather than maximising extraction, with longer horizons and mission lock-ins. Chris Butler from Ethex demonstrated this through their platform enabling direct investment in social projects. Chris noted that he believes their success is due to how their mission aligns across all stakeholders.

Mission-Driven Banking: When Activists Run Financial Institutions

Louise Pryor memorably described Ecology Building Society as an "activist organisation masquerading as building society". It faces constant tension between generating profit for future impact versus serving current members' immediate interests. Their recent IT investment exemplifies this - reducing short-term profits to enable long-term growth and impact. Louise also noted that they have a pay limit (ensuring a maximum gap between the highest and lowest paid person).

Ed Grattan from Triodos Bank explained how they've publicly endorsed post-growth theory while maintaining rigorous Minimum Standards.They don't fund nuclear energy currently but remain open to evidence-based changes - showing how mission-driven finance requires constant ethical evaluation.

Rowan Harding from Path Financial delivered perhaps the most striking statistic: "Your money is 21x more impactful than lifestyle tweaks." With 74% of their partnered Asset Managers supporting environmental/social causes (versus 19% for major players), they demonstrate how moving capital can transform systems faster than individual behaviour change. Rowan also noted one of the things she loves about her job is how she is able to align her career with the values as a climate activist.

Cultural Shifts: From Extraction to Circulation

The Creative Exodus from Extractive Platforms

Terry Tyldesley, an artist and music tech consultant who champions ethical tech, noted that only Deezer officially monitors and reports on AI-uploaded music. The French streaming service found that 28% of its uploads are fully AI-generated, increasing 10% in six months. Terry noted that much of the music tech monopoly backlash is artist-led, with artists like Massive Attack quitting Spotify and others enacting a complete digital departure by only offering gigs and physical merchandise. She closed with a call for more consumer-led campaigns to further move away from tech monopolies.

Supply Chain Democracy at Scale

Ben Pearson from Suma, a worker cooperative with equal pay, showed how democratic ownership works at scale. Their Supplier Ethical Questionnaire maintains standards throughout their supply chain, while transparent reporting through CaDI demonstrates accountability. As a fully equal-pay cooperative, they prove that radical equality can function in complex logistics operations.

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The Practical Path: Tools for Organisational Transformation

Building the Parallel Economy: Next Steps for Organisations

The above ideaaren't reforms to make capitalism kinder. They're parallel structures operating on fundamentally different logic. When 131,000 social enterprises lock assets permanently out of capital markets, when cooperatives make profit subordinate to purpose, when family businesses transfer to community ownership, they're building the economy that the majority of the public already wants.

Addressing the Pluralistic Ignorance Problem

My research with LSE's Post-Growth Transformation Lab explores what we call the "pluralistic ignorance problem," where we measured a 33% perception gap between professionals' private support for regenerative practices and their perception of peers' support. This misperception inhibits organisational change.

The Regenerative Business Pulse Assessment

This 5-minute snapshot survey helps organisations:

• Map their position on the extractive-to-regenerative spectrum
• Identify specific governance, ownership and operational changes needed
• Use behavioural science (via the COM-B model) to identify organisational barriers

For Organisations Ready to Transform

1. Assess where you are on the spectrum with the Regenerative Business Pulse
2. Identify which model suits your context (B Corp, CIC, cooperative, employee ownership)
3. Secure patient capital to support your corporate transition
4. Embed mission in legal structure, not just culture
5. Connect with the growing ecosystem of alternative businesses

The Government Opportunity

The proposed cross-department Impact Economy Unit could accelerate these transitions dramatically. If government provided direct funding rather than relying on patient capital from private investors, the 86% of family businesses approaching succession could transform ownership at unprecedented scale.

Conclusion: The Infrastructure for Change Already Exists

The Ethical Consumer Conference revealed that the question isn't whether alternative models work, they demonstrably do. The question is how quickly we can scale their impact. With patient capital, supportive policy and tools for transformation, the infrastructure for change already exists.

The path beyond corporate power isn't theoretical - it's being built right now by countless cooperatives and mission-driven businesses across the UK. The tools, models, and momentum exist. What's needed now is the courage to use them. Business can be a force for genuine transformation, not just incremental improvement. The conference showed that another economy isn't just possible - it's already emerging.