The first of Stevens & Bolton’s ‘In their shoes’ series, where we speak to our clients about the challenges and opportunities facing their markets.
For many business leaders, balancing commercial performance with purpose can feel like a trade-off. For Charlotte Harrington, CEO of Belu, that tension is precisely where the opportunity lies.
Belu is no ordinary drinks business. The charity-owned social enterprise supplies bottled water, canned water and refillable water solutions to the hospitality and corporate sectors, while giving 100% of its profits to WaterAid and investing in environmental initiatives. Its mission is ambitious: to change the way the world sees water.
Having spent more than a decade with the business, Charlotte has helped transform Belu from a small social enterprise into a recognised brand with a growing national footprint. Along the way, she has navigated market disruption, changing customer expectations and increasingly complex regulation, all while staying true to the company's purpose.
We sat down with Charlotte to understand the realities of leading a purpose-driven business in today's economic climate and what other leaders can learn from Belu's approach.
Purpose as a commercial differentiator
Despite its social enterprise status, Charlotte is keen to stress that Belu operates very much as a commercial business.
"We trade as a limited company, so to all intents and purposes we're a commercial entity," she explains. "The difference is what happens to the profits."
Rather than rewarding shareholders, Belu directs its profits towards social and environmental impact. But Charlotte is clear that purpose cannot come at the expense of commercial discipline.
"It starts with running a successful business. The difference is that every decision is viewed through the lens of whether it furthers our purpose."
That mindset influences everything from strategic decisions to day-to-day operations. While many organisations promote values, Charlotte believes purpose-led businesses are tested most when conditions become difficult.
"When times are tough, that's when your values really matter. They're not words on a wall. They're the framework that helps you decide what the right thing to do is."
For Charlotte, one of Belu's broader objectives is demonstrating that purpose-led business models can succeed commercially and be applied far more widely than many people realise.
"We want to show there's a different way to do business. Hopefully, that encourages other organisations to do things a bit differently, however small that change might be."
The challenge of navigating policy
Like many business leaders, Charlotte highlights regulation as one of the biggest challenges facing her organisation today.
In particular, she points to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, which aims to ensure producers take responsibility for the packaging they produce and contribute towards the cost of improved recycling infrastructure.
While Belu supports the environmental objectives behind the policy, Charlotte believes its implementation has overlooked important nuances.
Because Belu operates exclusively in the hospitality sector, its customers already pay commercial waste contractors to manage and recycle their packaging. As a charity-owned social enterprise, the organisation also initially believed it would qualify for exemptions available to charities.
"The intentions are absolutely right," Charlotte says. "But the implementation is too simplistic."
Belu has spent considerable time engaging with MPs, government departments and policymakers to explain the unintended consequences for social enterprises. While she remains realistic about the prospects for change, she has been encouraged by the willingness of government to listen.
"We're starting to get conversations with the right people. Whether that leads to the outcome we'd like remains to be seen, but there is at least an openness to review and refinement."
The experience offers a lesson many business leaders will recognise: even well-intentioned policy can create unexpected consequences when it fails to account for the diversity of business models operating across the economy.
Winning on more than price
Against a backdrop of ongoing economic uncertainty and cost pressures, it would be easy to assume that purpose takes a back seat to price. Charlotte sees things differently.
"Price always matters," she says. "You've got to be in the right ballpark."
Belu will never be the cheapest provider in its market, and there are some tenders the business simply chooses not to pursue because the decision is based solely on price.
"If all they want is a price, then we're probably not the right fit and we're unlikely to win."
Instead, Belu focuses on customers that value reliability, service and shared values alongside commercial competitiveness.
For a product such as water, which many view as a commodity, that can seem challenging. Yet Charlotte believes success comes from excelling at the fundamentals.
"Do the basics brilliantly," she says. "Communicate well, forecast properly, deliver consistently. Then the magic moments come."
The approach appears to be resonating. Despite market pressures, Belu is winning more business than ever, proving that purpose and profit do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Many of its strongest customer relationships are with organisations that have already invested heavily in the provenance, sustainability and quality of the products they offer. For those businesses, water becomes another opportunity to align purchasing decisions with organisational values.
Looking ahead with optimism
Despite the challenges, Charlotte remains optimistic about the future.
Belu may have established itself as a recognised brand within hospitality, but she sees significant room for further growth. Demand across the water market continues to increase and the company's mission remains far from complete.
"We're still a relatively small player in a very large market," she says. "There's a lot more we want to do."
That sense of possibility is something that has characterised Charlotte's own career journey.
Having previously worked as a Category Director at Tesco, she made what she describes as a brave decision to leave corporate life and join Belu while on maternity leave with her third child.
Looking back, it is the move she is most proud of.
In a large corporate environment, she says, it can be difficult to see how your individual contribution shapes the wider business. In a smaller organisation, every decision carries real accountability and visible impact.
"When I joined Belu there were six people. If you didn't do something, it simply didn't happen."
More than a decade later, that sense of ownership and possibility still drives her.
"There is never a dull day," she says. "We're constantly innovating, changing and finding new ways to create impact."
For business leaders navigating their own growth challenges, Charlotte's experience offers a powerful reminder that purpose and commercial success are not opposing forces. When aligned effectively, they can become a source of resilience, differentiation and long-term growth.
