It is visible everywhere. Our world is facing a crisis of trust and the public confidence in business leaders, government and media “to do the right thing” continue to drop according to the biggest global survey of trust in 2017 by the Edelman Barometer which covered 28 countries and over 33,000 people.

There is a crisis of trust in our faith that society’s system will offer most of us a fair chance in life. A large number of people do not even trust the companies they work for. Most companies have a ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ page in their portal and some have moved on to talk about sustainability, but is a rigorous audit ever done and is this proof of sustainability performance available for the public to view? There is a lot of talk but transparency and accountability is harder to come by.

Can any profit-seeking company truly be the Best for the World? NOW believe that a profit-seeking company can help to save the world if they are purpose driven at the same time.

NOW is a for-profit technology platform with a purpose to help the hospitality industry we know and love to thrive. NOW raises the bar on sustainability, accountability and transparency and we will invite inspiring and responsible companies to join the NOW Force for Good Alliance, so travellers looking for a sustainable travel experience can find and support them.

NOW joined BCorp prior to launching itmustbeNOW.com and we became a Certified B Corporation last month. It commits companies to consider stakeholder impact for the long term by building it into a company’s legal structure, followed by a self-assessment with no independent audit. NOW received an overall B Impact Score of 97 … with 80 as the minimum passing mark.

Not only do we need a new way of doing business to gain back customer trust and confidence, we need everyone to be empowered to scrutinize, ask questions, demand change when needed and only support companies who deserve our trust. The positive news is that we are seeing more businesses that have found their voices as a force for good and morality, for evidence-based decision making and actions, for accountability and transparency, for integrity and common decency. And we are seeing more empowered people demanding honesty, transparency, accountability and competence.

An insightful millennial once told me that the Gen Y&Z generation is super skeptical and it’s all good. That trust – or, too often, the lack of it – is one of the big issues of our time and it must be earned. That the public is the ultimate influencer and must be informed, inspired and empowered to vote with their wallets to drive the change.

It must be NOW.