Women Behind The B: Georgina Wilson-Powell, Founder of Pebble Magazine

As part of B Corp Month and International Women’s Day at x+why this March, we’re celebrating the women behind the B. Georgina Wilson-Powell spent 16 years launching and running magazines for Lonely Planet Traveller, BBC Good Food, Morrisons, and Time Out. She’s now the founder of Pebble Magazine, a stylish sustainable living guide featuring everything from ethical fashion to low-waste lifestyles and more.

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Tell us a little more about you and your role at Pebble

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I founded pebble in 2017 as a positive storytelling platform that champions stylish sustainable living. We now reach over 1 million readers a year, we have an eco-festival arm, pebblefest (back in 2023), a thriving digital community called Ripples (which is free to join on Mighty Networks) and we’re about to kick off new 3 month content journeys into one big topic at a time, from April. I have a team of 10 at the moment, so my day includes a lot of strategy, team management, overseeing content, brand outreach and spinning a lot of plates! I seem to permanently live on Zoom.

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What does it mean to be a B Corp?

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We’re not quite a B Corp yet! But we’re about to put in our application, having done the B Lab course at x+why! And we’re over the threshold point now.

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How does being a woman in business at a B Corp compare to your experiences in the past?

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Running my own business means I can set a better example and host a more compassionate work environment than the profit-only focused businesses I grew up working in. We are a predominantly female team and it’s important to me that everyone feels empowered to grow in the business.

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Do you think it’s a possibility that one day all businesses might be run this way and what is stopping governments from making it mandatory?

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I hope so, I hope being un-sustainable will become unprofitable and that will change what’s normal. However we don’t have time for this to happen over a generation. We need faster change, more government legislation, tax incentives and wholesale systems change - all of it is lacking right now.

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Do you have any key insights from you B Corp journey so far?

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We’re still in our application stage so I can only comment that it’s a huge piece of work, which has been made even more challenging by our business structure and team changing throughout the lockdowns. However, we can’t wait to be a B Corp, it’s been our goal for several years as for me it’s the most obvious and quickest way to demonstrate our clear commitment to the planet.

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How have you tackled a certain challenge area of the BIA?

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The BIA isn’t intuitive for companies that don’t make a physical product, we’re a digital media platform so it’s been tricky working out where we can pick up points for the systems we have in place.

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What are your sources of inspiration and what motivates you?

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The huge number of sustainable entrepreneurs and inventors creating products that reduce waste or have developed a circular design model. What we do is connect the dots between those leaders and industries and help everyday people understand what they can do to help the planet.

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How has what you do changed you as a person?

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It’s been a huge change. I’m so much more mindful about my impact as a consumer and my responsibilities as a citizen. From not buying fast fashion for the last few years to cooking plant based at home, I’ve adapted and embraced less wasteful ways of living.

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