It was a few years back at one of those glossy San Francisco tech conferences, the sort where the air smells faintly of kombucha and the keynote speakers all have a net worth that begins with a “B.” I’d wandered past a booth where a gaggle of bright-eyed volunteers in branded hoodies were carefully assembling “care packages for the homeless.” Each lunch bag came with a muesli (or, in their case, granola) bar, a bottle of water, and a hastily scrawled note of encouragement. The catch, of course, was that these bags weren’t actually going to homeless people. They were going to be ceremonially stacked in a corner for a photo opportunity before quietly finding their way to a bin out the back. I found myself thinking at the time that the only real beneficiaries of the exercise were the attendees who got to Instagram themselves looking compassionate. It was a masterclass in doing good in the most conspicuously empty way possible.
That sort of corporate virtue signalling has become a familiar backdrop to the tech and retail landscape. Whether it’s a big-name cloud company proudly announcing that its conference is “single-use plastic free” (conveniently overlooking the fact that its data centres consume more power than a small nation), or executives donning aprons to pack lunches between their panel sessions on “building a sustainable digital future,” the theatre of goodness has become part of the playbook. The irony is that, despite all the hashtags and highlight reels, very little of it moves the dial in any meaningful direction. The conference still burns through more jet fuel than a Formula One season and the real social problems remain as intractable as ever.
So it was with a weary sense of déjà vu that I read about Lush, the soap and bath bomb retailer, deciding to close all its UK and Ireland stores for a day in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The company framed the move as an act of moral courage, a way of forcing people to confront the suffering of innocents in a conflict that has dragged on far too long. To be clear, what is happening in Gaza is tragic and heartbreaking, and anyone with even a sliver of empathy would wish for a swift end to the violence. But the nagging question is why this issue, why now, and why in this way?
Because if the moral litmus test for shutting up shop is human suffering, then the queue of deserving causes is endless. The Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been persecuted for years, yet I don’t recall Lush dimming the lights in Manchester or Cork to mark their plight. The civil war in Syria displaced millions and left cities in ruins, but there was no sudden shuttering of bath bomb displays then. Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen – the roll call of misery is sadly long. Picking one crisis and wrapping a business decision around it feels less like moral conviction and more like marketing opportunism. A soap company, no matter how fragrant its products, doesn’t suddenly become a global conscience simply by forgoing a day’s sales.
Of course, I don’t doubt that the individuals behind the decision genuinely care. Just as I don’t doubt that the hoodie-clad tech volunteers meant well when they tied ribbons around granola bars. But intention isn’t the same as authenticity. And consumers, who are exposed to more brands, campaigns, and causes than ever before, have become finely attuned to the difference. A brand that truly cares about an issue builds it into the fabric of what it does, day in and day out. It donates consistently, it advocates quietly but persistently, and it accepts that the real work is neither glamorous nor Instagrammable. What it doesn’t do is parachute in with a grand gesture that just happens to attract headlines and conveniently remind people that its shops exist. It is, you know, authentic.
There’s also something faintly patronising about these orchestrated pauses. As if closing a shop for a day is the most profound form of solidarity one can muster. Surely the people suffering don’t need bath bombs withheld in their honour. What they need is sustained humanitarian support, political will, and practical help delivered without fanfare. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to wrestle with whether buying a lavender soap is now a political act. It all risks trivialising issues that deserve deep engagement, not shallow theatrics.
The truth is that businesses don’t need to make a song and dance about their moral compass. In fact, the more they insist on telling us how virtuous they are, the more we’re inclined to suspect the opposite. Authenticity in this space looks like companies acknowledging their own complicity in global systems, being transparent about their shortcomings, and working quietly to improve. It’s messy and imperfect and doesn’t come with slick press releases, but it rings true.
I still think back to that tech conference and the tower of “care packages” that never found a recipient. The lesson wasn’t that the people behind it were malicious, but that the performance of goodness is a poor substitute for the real thing. As brands increasingly look to wrap themselves in moral causes, the risk is that they confuse visibility with impact. What customers, citizens, and indeed the world actually need isn’t another grand day of closure or another photo op with a ribbon. It’s the slow, unglamorous grind of authentic care, the sort that doesn’t need to be advertised to be believed. And maybe, just maybe, that’s a message worth bottling.
