Features
What would we do with £200,000?
Yes, that’s how much has been pledged in pre-registrations for the Blue & Green share offer. We are amazed and humbled by the confidence and generosity of our readership, so we wanted to share with you where the money would actually go.
In terms of technology, we need to merge the Blue & Green Tomorrow and Investor websites into one sleek fit-for-purpose website. We need it to be optimised for tablets and smartphones, with apps available on all mobile operating systems. We want you to be able to read B> anywhere, anytime, on any device.
In terms of readership, we want to grow faster. Time really is running out for our blue and green marble of a planet and we need to reach more people quickly. That means promoting our website and e-newsletter to investors and consumers, encouraging more people to invest and spend sustainably. We want to create international editions in foreign languages so our readership and impact can be truly global. We want correspondents in New York, Rio De Janeiro, Cape Town, Dubai, Hong Kong and Sydney. We already have applicants who want to work with us in most of those locations.
In terms of platforms, we’re going back to our roots. We get a surprising number of requests for print versions of our guides. And we’re going to create just that. 2015 will see us launch a stunning 12-edition per annum print magazine, available on mobiles, online and critically, in hard copy, with early access to content for subscribers who will get a beautifully designed magazine printed on sustainable forestry paper for their coffee table. Foreign language editions will follow in 2016.
In terms of our writers, we want to pay more graduate journalists more than the living wage, to give the young people most affected by our current unsustainable economic activity not only a start in their career but also an opportunity to frame the debate with their own future interests at heart.
In terms of other people at B> towers, we need to build a small senior team to help us achieve all this. This will be an entrepreneurial team (helping me with commercial, digital and content) who won’t be paid large salaries, but will take a stake in the business and use the investment we receive to turn B> into a thriving and prosperous global amplifier of every individual and organisation working in sustainability.
That’s what we’d do with the £200,000 already pledged. Even more pledges will allow us to do even more, even quicker.
So, if you haven’t already, you can tell us what you think about B> in our 2014 reader survey and register to receive the share offer prospectus when it is published in August.