In 2023, the Princess of Wales launched her Business Taskforce on Early Childhood, all part of her “life’s work” on the Early Years. The work has been insubstantial, to say the least. The purpose is less about making tangible progress benefitting children and more about giving Kate some cutesy busywork with kids. Somewhat hilariously, in the past year, Kate’s Early Years keenery had been all but abandoned in favor of Kate’s new thing, being keen about nature and making patronizing videos celebrating the seasons. Well, the nature videos landed poorly last week, so the Early Years are being dusted off in a crisis. Amazingly, the Business Taskforce on Business, Keenery and Early Years has produced some actual results. I’m being serious – against all odds, the taskforce can actually be credited with something:
Kate Middleton’s mission to elevate early childhood as a national priority is making meaningful strides — with the business world increasingly on board. Through a series of new initiatives, Princess Kate’s Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood has inspired major companies — from IKEA to leading banks and supermarkets — to roll out programs designed to better support parents and help children thrive.
According to the Princess of Wales’ office, LEGO has donated LEGO® Education Build Me “Emotions” sets — designed to help children identify and understand their feelings — to early years providers throughout the U.K.
IKEA has partnered with local baby banks to provide essential items to families in need and launched a product line that raised funds for the Baby Bank Alliance.
NatWest bank expanded its lending capacity for early years care settings and created tools to help nurseries operate more sustainably.
Supermarket chain Iceland has trained 30,000 staff to better support young families and collaborated with online forum Mumsnet to launch a range of toddler meals — a project that raised funds for Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital and encourages healthy eating.
Meanwhile, local grocery store Co-Op, inspired by Kate’s Shaping Us Framework, is now working to help parents and carers better understand and foster children’s social and emotional development.
Most of these businesses would have actually done all of these things without the Keen Business Taskforce, but I imagine it looks good at board meetings to announce that they’re working in partnership with the Princess of Wales’s Business Taskforce. The thing about Kate and her taskforce taking credit for it is that they have NEVER actually approached businesses to explicitly make these changes or donations – please, I have NEVER heard Kate state firm goals like “more donations to baby banks” or “introduce toddler-specific nutritional meals.”
Additionally, the Keen Business Taskforce is taking credit for Deloitte’s new announcement: Deloitte will now provide six months of family leave to new fathers as well as new mothers.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
