Just is a framework that, at its core, is designed to create conversations within organizations and between organizations within the industry. The framework provides a guide to creating meaningful policies and ensuring those policies turn into actions that generate increasing levels of positive impact over time. While we at Living Future asked the question “What does good look like?” to guide the development of Just 3.0, we know that achieving a Level 4 in all Indicators is not the end goal.
Organizations change, people change, communities change, and the world changes. Our understanding of “what good looks like” for social justice and equity also changes. By taking on the Just program, we are asking organizations to start an ongoing journey to engage with their employees and community; to ask questions and listen with intention; to continuously evaluate their impact and evolve their policies, processes, and practices to improve their impacts; and to do so transparently by publicly publishing their performance on this journey via the Just label every two years.
In this way, we humbly acknowledge we are all learning and can do so more effectively and joyfully by working together and supporting each other as we all progress on this journey. When organizations register for Just, they join a community that asks questions and seeks answers, not knowing where the journey will take them and knowing the journey does not end in a destination, but that the journey itself is the goal. By seeing the unfilled boxes of their Just label as opportunities for growth, Just organizations continue to move toward equity and justice using the Just program as a pathway to guide progress.
Just organizations are joining a movement. They become part of a community that embraces the complexity and interconnectedness of the world we live in, takes responsibility for its actions and impacts, holds itself to a high ethical standard in words and actions, and embraces transparency and vulnerability as essential parts of operating a company. We need to tell other people what we are doing and why. We need to hold ourselves accountable to ourselves, our employees, our communities, our customers, and ultimately to the highest ethical standard—what is good, what is right, what is just.
We invite you to join this community of practice and start on your journey of growth and transformation toward social justice and equity in the workplace.
