GB Shared has spent the last eight years connecting businesses across the North and now nationally — fostering a collaborative, responsible culture and helping companies large and small to connect, collaborate and drive positive impact at local and global level.
Read moreNorthern Star: GB Shared — a virtual business marketplace with built in purpose
6 min read
GB Shared is the sustainable business marketplace of the future, providing a centralised platform that connects local people and companies, with an open pool of resources and opportunities in their region.
With roots in Lancashire, GB Shared has spent the last eight years connecting businesses across the North and now nationally — fostering a collaborative, responsible culture and helping companies large and small to connect, collaborate and drive positive impact at local and global level.
GB Shared’s founder, Lisa Edge, tells us more for our Northern Stars series.
“We're focused on impact, not income”
I was born in Bolton and grew up with a really strong sense of community spirit. But, as I progressed through life and my career, I noticed the business world just didn’t have that same spirit of togetherness. While individual businesses had their own areas of expertise and many made a positive impact, there didn’t seem to be a shared mission.
I left the private sector and then spent almost two decades in the public sector as a Head of Employer Engagement — engaging with thousands of businesses over that time — all with the same questions: ‘How do I get funding? Recruit graduates? Find peers to network with?’
That realisation sparked an idea to create a virtual sharing platform that connects people and businesses with opportunities and resources in their local area, to ensure that talent and the companies who need it can reach one another and businesses who share the same goals can work together — creating local supply chains.
In 2016, that idea became our first platform, Lancashare. And from day one, we have had two aims: to listen to our local communities and to drive sustainable growth. Everything on our platform must have a sustainable impact, because we'd rather make a difference than make a million. And by enabling businesses to work with local partners, the supply chains we create are sustainable by nature.
Noting the sustainable impact of collaborative working, we partnered with a global sustainable accreditor, mapping our journey to accreditation and offered this ourselves as an optional part of our membership. Alongside this, we connect businesses with sustainability support, resources and education, to respond to the challenges many of our members have in meeting regularly evolving sustainable procurement standard and ensuring that they have the knowledge to understand and navigate them.
Taking our regional impact across the country
Fast forward eight years and Lancashare has expanded into multiple markets in the North, launching Mancheshare, Yorkshare, Cumbriashare, Merseyshare and eventually — after further expansion across the North East — becoming GB Shared, the UK’s first sustainable marketplace and supply chain register, completely powered by businesses.
The more our ecosystem has grown and formed centralised hubs across the UK, the larger the pools of local resources, opportunities and connections have become. It's free to use, you only join to share and access member benefits and while you help yourself to shared opportunities, every click helps someone else. Sharing freely also creates equality and drives a ripple effect of positive impact. The live data we capture about the local and sustainable impact of businesses, also paints a great picture of activity across UK counties.
Our members’ shared impact includes:
- Thousands of member introductions, creating hundreds of local supply chains and reducing carbon emissions.
- Thousands of jobs with local people, helping to reduce unemployment.
- Shared millions in funding, billions in tenders, encouraging businesses to spend locally and stimulate regional economies.
- Embedded social values with a national youth platform and discounts for charities.
- Opened doors to opportunities for thousands of young people, charities and communities.
All this has been achieved through sharing, which makes our members the true heroes of our story.
The best part is that GB Shared makes it possible for everyone to drive positive change in their local community. There is a growing demand to buy locally, ethically and sustainably nowadays, and we have created that infrastructure and a responsible business framework. Our virtual environment means that delivering positive impact is only a click away for everyone and we really can connect the UK.
Beyond the platform, we’re also connecting people in real life. Hosting annual conferences since 2021, we’ve brought together businesses and industry professionals across health and wellbeing, construction and property — and most recently the emerging tech community with this year’s Manchester summit, GBConfex24, which explored the future of technology.
Our advice to purpose-led businesses
First, we need to harness the power of responsible business. We can only reduce our environmental impact by working together. Joining our GB Shared community can help you to make responsible business decisions with purpose and work with like-minded suppliers and partners. The business community has a huge responsibility to make sure we leave the planet and future generations in a better place, so it’s important we all play our part.
One size doesn’t fit all. We find that businesses in different regions face unique challenges and possess unique strengths. Therefore, it’s important that we offer a local, tailored approach to allow businesses to seize the relevant opportunities in their area.
Together, we must empower the next generation. Young people don't just need jobs and experience — they need 360° career advice and life skills that build confidence, employability and prepare them for life after education. That’s why we encourage our members to share their experience and future opportunities, opt into guest speaking and teaching opportunities, offer work placements and internships, jobs and careers advice. It's free for education to access these opportunities.
Finally, it’s about creating an environment where everybody can succeed. GB Shared's vision is to help businesses access resources and opportunities in their local area to grow and we’ve been lucky enough to have been joined over the eight years since we started by thousands of businesses who share that vision. That has fostered a positive environment and countywide (now countrywide) collaboration.
It’s exciting to see True North emerge as a network that shares our values to unite businesses across the North and to use data to identify where resources are most needed. Using our eight years of experience connecting local supply chains, GB Shared stands ready to support people in the True North network to access opportunities and resources in their own local areas.
Join the True North network
True North is a network of like-minded organisations committed to supporting the future of the North.
Interested? Find out more and join the network.
