The pitch decks opened with it.
The TEDx talks ended on it.
Founders whispered it like gospel in investor meetings.
Purpose was the new profit.
For a minute.
Now?
It feels like we’ve wrung it dry.
Pasted it on landing pages, onboarding manuals, merch.
Used it to cover up growth-at-all-costs strategies with feel-good narratives.
It did not start this way.
Purpose used to sting.
It was the line in the sand. The “why” that made you hire slow and fire differently.
It was the reason you walked away from certain clients. And some investors.
But then we monetized it.
Productized it.
Flattened it into slogans.
Workshops sprang up.
LinkedIn bios got sprinkled with it.
Consultancies built frameworks to “operationalize purpose” - usually with pastel slides and no hard questions.
And just like that, it became background noise.
Here’s what the data says.
78% of companies in 2025 describe themselves as “purpose-driven.”
Only 12% can show how it shapes decisions - budgets, hiring, priorities.
Source: State of Corporate Purpose 2025, Benevity
You feel it when you look behind the curtain:
It is not necessarily cynical.
But it is incoherent.
And the new generation of talent? They are not buying it.
It is not a page on your website.
It is the meeting where you say no to a shortcut.
It is the leadership offsite where someone finally says: “We’ve drifted.”
Real purpose lives in systems, not slogans.
In how you price, source, pay, pause.
In how you lead when no one is watching.
You cannot pitch it.
You have to practice it.
Sustainability got us thinking long-term.
Regeneration demands we act short-term.
Now.
It is not about minimizing harm.
It is about restoring what we’ve damaged: climate, soil, trust, integrity.
Regenerative founders do not just offset emissions.
They build companies that give more than they take - from Earth and from people.
Across Europe, a new wave is blooming:
Investors are noticing. The EU Startups 2025 report calls it the “regeneration wave” - and it is reshaping the idea of growth itself.
Source: EU Startups Trend Report 2025
This is not brand work.
It is systems work.
And it is way harder to fake.
We do not need more brands with purpose.
We need people with spine.
It is easy to write a manifesto.
It is harder to change your vendor when you find out the ethics are not clean.
It is hard to slow down your go-to-market timeline when the faster route conflicts with your values.
But that is the shift.
From virtue-signaling to virtue-structuring.
From talking about impact to absorbing it into your operations, your org chart, your rituals.
Not a better tagline.
Not a bolder logo.
What comes next is clarity.
Not performative clarity - actual coherence.
Where what you say and what you do match.
Where your culture does not rely on murals, but on accountability.
Where your metrics do not just track revenue, but repair.
In other words:
The end of performative purpose is not a loss.
It is the beginning of something braver.
This is not about shame.
It is about showing up.
Start where it is messy.
Talk about what hurts.
Invite your team into the tension.
Purpose is not an endpoint.
It is a posture.
And we are just getting started.
Ready for a purpose that grows roots, not just reach?
Then stop branding it.
And start becoming it.
Clarity.
Coherence.
And a new kind of credibility.
One that does not beg for trust.
One that earns it in silence.
No slogans.
No hype.
Just work that heals.
You in?
