Better Business. Better Decisions. Better Outcomes.
Evidence-led thinking for a more sustainable, resilient and prosperous future.
Welcome
I am Professor Chris Harrop OBE, a non-exec director, an academic, business leader, author and sustainability strategist.
For more than forty years I have worked at the intersection of business, sustainability, people and change, exploring a deceptively simple question:
How can better business create better outcomes for people, planet, prosperity and resilience?
This website brings together my books, academic and applied research, original models, practical tools,keynote thinking and emerging ideas.
My work ranges from modern slavery, responsible business and sustainability-washing to Net Zero, climate adaptation, trust, taxation, inequality, organisational resilience and competitive advantage.
The subjects are different. The underlying philosophy is consistent:
Truth Well Told
Truth Well Told is the principle that runs through my work. A phrase brilliantly created by Harrison K. McCann in 1912 when he founded the advertising agency that later became Mcann.
In a world of misinformation, sustainability-washing, political polarisation and increasingly complex business challenges, evidence matters. But evidence alone is not enough. It needs to be understood, explained honestly and translated into decisions that people and organisations can act upon.
That means distinguishing fact from opinion, evidence from assertion, genuine impact from good intentions, and meaningful progress from claims of progress.
For me, Truth Well Told is therefore more than a communications principle. It is a way of approaching responsible business:
Evidence → Understanding → Communication → Action → Impact
It underpins the books, research, models and practical tools you will find across this website.
Explore the Work
Books
A growing collection exploring some of the major challenges facing business and society.
From Chains Unseen and Sustainability-Washing to The Tax Advantage, The Constraint Advantage, Due Diligence 2030 and The Human Adaptation Economy, the books translate complex sustainability and business issues into accessible, practical thinking.
Explore the books →Research
Evidence before opinion.
My academic and applied research examines the issues shaping the future of responsible business, including Net Zero, the Sustainable Development Goals, trust, social cohesion, supply-chain transparency, taxation, climate adaptation, inequality and sustainable competitive advantage.
Explore the research →Models & Frameworks
Complex problems often become easier to understand when we can see the system behind them.
I develop evidence-led models that help explain relationships between people, belief, trust, cohesion, impact, sustainability, carbon, adaptation, prosperity and competitive advantage.
These include the Human Centricity Model, Chains Unseen, Belief Conditioned Change Model, Truth Well Told, National Cohesion Systems Model, Tax Funded Impact Model, 4Ms of Sustainability-Washing, Carbon Intelligence Cycle, Human Adaptation Economy, Sustainable Prosperity Cycle and Prosperity Dependency Model.
Explore the models →The Harrop Framework
The Harrop Framework brings much of this thinking together.
Its central proposition is that organisations create sustainable competitive advantage when they consistently make better evidence-based decisions that improve outcomes for:
PEOPLE • PLANET • PROSPERITY • RESILIENCE
Rather than treating sustainability, strategy, trust, resilience and competitive advantage as separate disciplines, the Framework explores how they interact as parts of the same organisational system.
Explore The Harrop Framework →Speaking
Ideas become useful when they start conversations.
My keynote work draws upon four decades of business experience and current research to explore sustainable business, Net Zero, climate adaptation, responsible leadership, trust, modern slavery, competitive advantage and the future role of business.
The emphasis is always the same: Truth Well Told. Evidence, clearly communicated and made useful.
Explore speaking →Resources
Knowledge has greater value when it can be used.
The Resource Centre brings together practical tools, evidence, frameworks and materials designed to help leaders, researchers, students and organisations turn ideas into action.
Explore the Resource Centre →What Connects the Work?
At first sight, modern slavery, climate change, taxation, misinformation, sustainability-washing, inequality and organisational resilience can appear to be very different subjects.
They are increasingly connected.
Businesses operate within complex human, environmental, economic and information systems. Decisions made in one part of those systems create consequences elsewhere.
Truth Well Told provides the starting point: establish what the evidence actually tells us.
From there, my work seeks to understand the system, identify practical interventions and explore how better decisions can create better outcomes.
The journey is therefore:
TRUTH WELL TOLD
Evidence → Understanding → Better Decisions → Action → Impact
And ultimately:
People → Planet → Prosperity → Resilience → Competitive Advantage
Current Thinking
My research continually evolves as new evidence emerges.
Current areas of work include the Human Adaptation Economy, exploring the products and services society will need to thrive in a changing climate; the relationship between shared prosperity and business prosperity; new approaches to Carbon Intelligence; the changing regulation of sustainability claims; and the question of why responsible businesses can sometimes find themselves competitively disadvantaged against organisations that externalise more of their social and environmental costs.
These are not simply sustainability questions.
They are questions about the future competitiveness and resilience of business.
Evidence Before Opinion
Truth Well Told begins with a simple discipline:
Evidence should always outweigh opinion.
My work combines academic research with more than forty years of practical experience across business, sustainability, governance and public purpose.
I do not regard any model or framework presented here as a final answer. They are working contributions to difficult questions, intended to be tested against evidence, challenged, improved and, where useful, applied.
An Open Knowledge Approach
Much of the work on this website is made freely available because useful ideas should travel.
You are welcome to read, reference and use my published models and thinking with appropriate attribution and without changing the integrity of the original models.
My hope is simple:
Truth Well Told. Trust Well Earned. Impact Delivered.
Professor Chris Harrop OBE