How to use the Collins-Porras Vision Framework to build an ethical business that lasts

If you’re running a vegan or ethical business, the chances are that you began with a goal beyond just making money. You probably started with a sense of mission, a deep urge to make things better for our fellow animals, the planet, and future generations.

But running a values-led business isn’t always straightforward. The day-to-day can sweep you up in customer queries, campaign logistics, or figuring out how to make ends meet. And on top of that, you’re trying to do things differently within a system that wasn’t built for different. 

How do you stay true to your ethics while operating in a largely linear, capitalist world that rewards speed, scale, and profit above all else? 

Over time, that original fire can start to flicker. You might find yourself asking, what are we working toward, really? Are we still aligned with what we set out to do?

That’s where vision comes in, not as a slogan, but as a guiding principle for how you do business.

A framework for your vision

Recently, Ethical Globe’s Shailen Jasani was listening to Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, an updated version of the classic business book by Jim Collins and Bill Lazier. In it, Collins revisits the Collins-Porras Vision Framework, a powerful structure for organisations that want to endure and stay true to their purpose over time.

We thought it would be helpful to share a bit about this.

Originally developed with Jerry Porras in the bestselling Built to Last, the framework was based on research into visionary companies that had outperformed their peers for decades. While it was designed with large companies in mind, its principles are just as useful for small, mission-driven teams, and especially for those of us trying to build a better world for all beings.

Let’s explore the framework and how it might help you in your own work.

What is the Collins-Porras Vision Framework?

At its heart, the Collins-Porras Vision Framework is about clarity. It’s designed to help organisations define who they are, why they exist, and where they’re going.

The framework has two main parts:

• Core Ideology: Your unshakable foundation, based on core values (the guiding principles that don’t change with trends or circumstances) and core purpose (your organisation’s reason for existence, beyond just making money)
• Envisioned Future: Your bold, inspiring destination

What makes this framework different is that it encourages both steadfast commitment to values and ambitious long-term goals. You’re not choosing between staying true to yourself or striving for growth, you’re doing both.

Core ideology: Your guiding North Star

Collins describes Core Ideology as your organisation’s “guiding North Star,” the part that never changes, even as your goals, products, or strategies evolve. This ideology is defined by your:

Core values (Guiding beliefs)

Collins and Porras say that most organisations have three to five core values that are “so fundamental and deeply held that (they) will seldom change, if ever.” These values can’t be created in response to market research. Instead, they already exist within you and are waiting to be discovered if you haven’t yet named them.

These are your non-negotiables. They’re not about what sounds good on a website, but reflect what truly matters to you, even when it’s inconvenient.

For vegan and ethical businesses, core values often include things like:

• Compassion for all sentient beings
• Anti-speciesism
• Environmental stewardship
• Transparency and honesty
• Consent and autonomy (including for our animal kin)

Your values guide your hiring, your messaging, your supply chain choices – everything. And crucially, they don’t change with trends or market pressure.

Reflection prompt: What values would you fight for, even if it cost you money, popularity, or growth?

Research from Bain & Company shows that purpose-led companies with strong core values outperform their peers in employee engagement, innovation, and customer loyalty.

Core purpose

While your values are how you behave, your purpose is why you exist.

Collins defines it as “the organisation’s fundamental reason for being.” It’s not a goal or a target, but a guiding force. If your business were to still be running 100 years from now, would its core purpose remain the same as today? 

Given its importance within your organisation, the core purpose should stir your soul. Collins and Porras suggest asking questions such as, “How could we frame the purpose of this organisation so that if you woke up tomorrow morning with enough money in the bank to retire, you would nevertheless keep working here?”

Examples might include:

• “To challenge the commodification of our fellow animals”
• “To disrupt the fashion industry’s reliance on animal exploitation and unsustainable materials by championing innovative, plant-based alternatives” 
• “To accelerate the shift to a compassionate food system”

Your purpose reminds you why you started and keeps you going when things get hard. It can’t be manufactured to please the audience. It must be felt.

Envisioned future: Where you’re headed

In the Collins-Porras Vision Framework, the Envisioned Future is where your vision becomes expansive and energising. It’s not just about keeping your organisation afloat; it’s about dreaming big and articulating where your organisation is headed.

The BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

Bill Gates famously said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years”. 

Collins and Porras propose an antidote to this: the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). The BHAG is a bold, long-term goal – a ‘mission’ – something that might take 10–30 years to achieve but is crystal-clear and galvanising.

The Growth Institute says the goal should ideally be so big and hairy (in their words, “We’re talking about a ‘put a man on the moon’ level goal here”) that it almost feels impossible. Indeed, Collins and Porras say that “it will have perhaps only a 50% to 70% probability of success”. 

Some BHAG examples for vegan or ethical businesses:

• “Create a vegan alternative for every mainstream grocery product in Europe by 2040”
• “End the use of animals in pharmaceutical testing in the UK by 2035”
• “Support 10,000 communities worldwide to transition to plant-based living”

A good BHAG should feel a little scary but also thrilling. It should be tangible enough to measure, yet big enough to inspire.

Fun fact: Microsoft’s original BHAG in the 1980s was, “A computer on every desk and in every home.” At the time, it seemed laughably ambitious, but it changed the world.

Vivid description

A BHAG is powerful, but to make it stick, you need a vivid description, i.e. a compelling, emotive picture of what success looks like.

This isn’t just about metrics that you can track. It’s about painting a world people can see, feel, and believe in; a future that speaks to their values, stirs their imagination, and gives them a reason to care. 

When your vision is vivid and tangible, it invites others to step into it with you, not just as customers or supporters, but as co-creators of change.

For example:

“A world where our animal kin are no longer bred into existence for profit. Where sanctuaries replace slaughterhouses, and school canteens serve familiar, affordable plant-based meals by default.”

The more vividly you describe your envisioned future, the more people will want to help you build it because they will understand what you are working towards.

Strategy and Tactics: The Path and the Steps

Collins and Porras make a clear distinction between strategy and tactics. Understanding the difference can help you stay grounded while adapting to change:

• Strategy is your roadmap for how you will achieve your current BHAG (‘mission’). It outlines the broad route you’ll take with each strategy having a 3-5 year timeframe.
• Tactics are the steps you take along that path. They’re the manoeuvres, tools, and decisions you make day-to-day to keep moving forward with executing your current strategy.

This distinction matters because tactics often have to change. A campaign might flop. A platform might lose traction. A partnership might fall through. But if your strategy is clear and your purpose strong, you can adapt your tactics without losing your way.

Collins puts it this way: stay firm on your core, but flexible on your means. That’s what allows vision-driven organisations to weather change without compromising who they are.

For example:

• Strategy: Build grassroots power through community organising and education
• Tactics: Host vegan cooking workshops, partner with schools, create explainer videos

The danger comes when organisations plough headfirst into tactics without a strategy and a BHAG anchored with purpose and core values.

The genius of ‘and’

Collins warns against what he calls the “tyranny of the ‘or’”, the idea that we must choose between two seemingly opposing forces. 

In a values-led business, this might sound like: “We can either stay true to our ethics or grow,” or “We can either be mission-driven or financially sustainable.” 

Instead, Collins invites us to embrace the “genius of the ‘and’”. That means believing we can be deeply ideological and still adaptable, grounded in purpose and still strategic, idealistic and practical. 

It’s about refusing to shrink our vision to fit what Collins calls “false trade-offs” and instead finding creative ways to move forward with both integrity and impact.

What might the genius of the ‘and’ look like?

• It could look like a vegan food brand that refuses to compromise on ingredients and finds inventive ways to scale distribution.
• It might be a sanctuary that offers lifelong care for our animal kin and runs educational programmes to create systemic change.
• It could be a solo campaigner who sticks to their core values and experiments with new digital tools to reach wider audiences.
• It might even be you, choosing to build a business that’s both compassionate and commercially viable, both rooted in activism and open to innovation.

The point is, we don’t have to dilute our mission to grow or abandon practical realities to stay “pure.” The most powerful, lasting change often comes from people and organisations willing to hold complexity and build a bridge between ideals and action.

Why the Collins-Porras Vision Framework is so potentially powerful for vegan and ethical businesses

We live in a time of urgency. Species extinction, ecological collapse, rising authoritarianism – there’s no shortage of battles to fight. And for those of us running ethical businesses or campaigns, the weight of the world can feel especially heavy. 

We’re trying to make good decisions in a system that often isn’t good and trying to challenge the status quo while still needing to survive within it.

In that environment, it’s easy to get swept up in reacting to the latest outrage or trend; to feel disoriented, overwhelmed, or unsure where to focus.

But building something that lasts, something rooted in your values and capable of long-term impact, requires intention. It means choosing proactivity over reactivity, and vision over noise. 

That way, you can approach every decision with these questions: Does this take us closer to our BHAG or further away from it? Is this aligned with our purpose? Are we being true to our values?

If we want a world that treats our animal kin with the respect they deserve, we need businesses, campaigns, and communities that are grounded, visionary, and resilient.

The Collins-Porras framework helps you to be those things.

And while it comes from the business world, its essence is very human. It offers a map for traversing difficult terrain with clarity and purpose. It invites us to slow down and ask:

• Who are we?
• Why do we exist?
• What are we trying to build?

The answers to these questions are movement-building.

Rooted and reaching: How the Collins-Porras Vision Framework brings it all together

To recap, within the Collins-Porras Vision Framework:

• Your core values, beliefs and guiding principles are your compass; they never change.
• Your purpose is your reason for being. It may or may not be attainable. It may change, but usually not for at least 100 years. You can think of it as a guiding star in the sky that you are trying to reach. You may or may not reach it. If you do reach it, your organisation will then need a new star (purpose).
• Your BHAG is your current 10-30 year mission. You can think of each BHAG as a mountain to climb along your journey towards your guiding star (purpose).
• Your strategy is the route to achieve your current BHAG, typically in 3-5 year chunks. You can think of each strategy as a basecamp along the path as you climb the current mountain (BHAG).
• Your tactics are the steps to execute your current strategy. You can think of tactics as how you move from one basecamp to the next.

By making time to define and revisit these, you can give your organisation the roots and framework it needs to stay true to its ethics and reach to grow with impact.

So, here’s your invitation: Take an hour this week to sit with these concepts and ask what they mean for your business. You don’t need all the answers. Just start where you are and see where it could take you.