Working in Partnership for a Happier World
Discover more about our new purpose, where our partnership is intent on finding happier, more trusted ways of doing business
Our society has worked hard to overcome an incredible amount of suffering and difficulty over the last two years. In light of that, we’re proud to introduce our renewed purpose: one entirely centred around happiness. It’s no secret that John Lewis is the original purpose-led business, so today’s happier world initiative has taken the core foundations that the business was built on more than 100 years ago and refreshed them to make sense in today’s ever-changing world.
What Is The New Purpose?
It’s simple, really. We want to work in partnership with our customers, our partners and our communities in order to make the world just a little bit happier. The three pillars are: happier people, happier world, happier business. These pillars are a refresh of the original 1909 mission statement by our founder Spedan Lewis when he stated ‘happier partners = happier customers’. We want our partners to feel energised about what’s at the heart of the business and in turn, help our customers recognise this energy, this happiness, this purpose.
What’s The Aim of It?
We understand that we live in a world with a lot of talk and limited action. But that’s where we’re different: our purpose is about making actionable change in a trusted, credible way. We’ve already set out initiatives such as BeautyCycle and our Rewards Programme as well as our many charity partnerships to help our customers feel more connected to our ethos and more trusting of our mission. Community is at the heart of all that we do and we want our customers – whether first time, regular or accessing one of our services – to have a fulfilling experience, every time. We’ll always be honest with our customers, so trust and credibility are crucial.
What It Means For The Customer
Putting our customers and communities first by doing good is essential to our purpose. From our events and experiences, to our in-store and online services, our charity partnerships and even more rewards for our regular customers, happiness is the goal. Sustainaility is also crucial to our future, with our rental and buy back services, like The Little Loop, having more focus and our own-brand relaunches working to put proper sourcing – by weaving in things like surplus wool and by becoming a member of the Sustainable Fibre Alliance – at the centre. As always, we aim for your experience while shopping with us to be just as straightforward, just as satisfying and just as credible as it always has been, but internally we’re continuing to work on the idea that happiness will only elevate those moments for our customers. We’re working with a re-energised sense of purpose and you’ll continue to see more stories like this both on and off site about what it is that we’re doing to make the world just a little bit happier.
Learn more about our services and experiences here and watch our chair, Sharon White, talk more about our new purpose below.
