061 Alternative Heating

About this Episode

Growing up in Idaho with two business
owning parents, Gordon Olson learned the value of hard work early on. He's always been fixated on technology and how people interact with it. And his problem solving nature led him to found Tory industries. Tory offers tankless water heaters through a subscription based model. Their unique service aims to reimagine what as utility through high efficiency technology, and a focus on the circular economy. Gordon is passionate about the water heater industry as it relates to construction, plumbing, and energy production. He's also mindful of the environment and how technology can enable us to live lives of abundance.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Gordon, welcome to where it is.

Gordon Olson 1:23

I appreciate you having me here. Catherine.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:25

It's wonderful to have you. And what sparked your interest in water heating?

Gordon Olson 1:31

You know, I've lived in multiple apartments and lived with, you know, roommates, so forth. And it's always you always run out of hot water eventually, you know, and so, it really got to me, you know, I'm a tinkerer. I like to think about things and problem solve. And so became a, well, why isn't why doesn't everywhere have a tankless water heater? Like, it'd be so great. So we never had to run out of hot water. And, you know, it found out that well, tankless water heaters have a high use of power. And so, you know, that's really where I got my first steps into it. And from there, it really just kind of grew into being a passion for the industry, you know, seeing what other problems are in the industry? And how can I solve those as well? And so I've been on this journey for just about five years now, you know, and on having this passion for the industry and following it really closely seeing what's going on.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:39

So how did you solve the problem of the amount of energy it uses? Tell me Tell me more.

Gordon Olson 2:46

Yeah, so we decided to use induction heating vs convection heating, like most of them. And if you use just induction heating regularly, and you're heating a pipe up, it doesn't really actually work, because you know, conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics and so forth, that you don't get all that energy into your water, like convection wood. And so we knew we had to maximise surface area to be able to take advantage of that. And so the search really began for finding a material that was porous, that we could maximize surface area that we could also heat using induction heating. And so we came across that which is a specialised manufacturer, porous carbon foam that you can heat inductively and actually has better thermal characteristics than aluminium. And so we're maximising that surface area 100x. But we're able to heat it with very little power using the induction heating. And that's where we get our high energy efficiencies.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:00

Wow, that is a big problem solving thing that you've just done is really impressive. And tell me how your parents influence the intrapreneur in you.

Gordon Olson 4:10

You know, a lot of it was, I guess they're, you know, own and small businesses, it's a lot of day to day different problem solving. You know, a lot of things come up and, you know, managing, managing the budget and so forth. You don't have a lot of time, sometimes you don't have a lot to work with. And so it's What can I use this little amount of money with to maximise for the ultimate best scenario. And, you know, watching it really, really built that out and made me appreciate it what a small business owners go through. And, you know, being able to, to create something and put it out there for people and have I have an overall benefit for people who really, really inspired me, I should say,

Katherine Ann Byam 5:06

Yeah, that's great. And tell me a little bit about why you wanted to get into sort of the Sustainable Development Goals, like what sparked that interest.

Gordon Olson 5:19

You know, a lot of it is, so I guess the, let's say 2020, and everything going on with 2020, it's, you could actually see a lot more of the environmental impacts of things. So I'm, I'm in Montana, and, you know, the weather's changing, and a lot more fires and so forth. And it really became a we don't need, we can't just build this unit and follow traditional routes, it became a we need to actually build sustainability into our company, so we can have this impact. And, you know, there's a big cultural shift with it as well. And I'm, I've, I've been big, I guess, in my whole life with, hey, you know, let's, let's keep sustainable and so forth. You know, but it's all in how we do it, and how we do it the right way. And are we actually being sustainable? Or are we just saying that we are, so that's where it really began, hey, we need to actually be sustainable not walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:35

This is what I love about sort of subsidy, so green startups today, they start with the blank sheet, right, they start with, let's design this thing into the first product that we bring on to market, which I think is it's so it's so inspiring, it's, it's the right way to do it. You know, it's just the best format that we can have to kind of solve some of these problems. I want to ask a little bit about your challenges so far in getting started. So I think I can imagine that the challenges could have come from first the technology itself, then the backing, and then the launching etc. So tell me a little bit about the journey.

Gordon Olson 7:17

Yeah, so you know, it's, we're actually, in this process of raising capital right now, which is a whole, you know, big thing in itself. And, you know, you're right, a bit of a lot of it was in the beginning, let's, we had to find the right technology. And so one of the best things that we decided to do was not just recreate the will, but let's find out what is already out there that we can take advantage of. And so that's what we actually did. And so we have patents that were actually licensed and have exclusive licensing. for that. One of them is from a national laboratory. And, you know, so that, that really helped and helped speed up the process of our development.

And, you know, from there, it was, okay, now we have, we have the technology, we know what we can do, we have the, you know, secured the licences and so forth. And now we need to go out and raise capital and so forth. And so that's kind of our stage that we're at now is raising capital. And, you know, along this, I would say, challenges, a lot of challenges come with building a product. You know, some people expect, especially hardware, they'll build it out. And they might build it to where some parts are 3d printed. Well, if you're, you know, wanton like our product like ours, that we plan on mass producing, you can't really 3d print parts, specialised parts, and so forth. And actually, you know, mass produce it. And so that has been a lot since the very beginning in the prototype stage, and all the way up into making sure that we're designing for mass production, so we can have the best and greater impact.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:10

So I have a question for you. And this is going to be a tough question. I didn't give it to you before. So be prepared, you may need to take some time to think about it. I know that in order to get the financing and the backing, you need to have that patent protection, so that we need to look forward into the future of how this whole thing could be monetized and, and give a return to the shareholder and investor. But at the same time, when you come up with a solution, that's something that can save the world as part of many solutions that can save the world. What would you say is your responsibility to sort of share some of that technology?

Gordon Olson 9:51

You know, I would say so, for example, like for us, you know, our big thing is having the greater impact and we know that Just being being a startup, we can't have as great of an impact. And so with our technology, the hot water heating industry is a massive industry from, you know, steam power to just your boilers and hospitals and schools and in manufacturing, like Pulp Paper plants, and so forth. So, you know, it's, it's a large industry, and we know, we can't cover the whole thing. And so with that, you know, to be able to share that it is being able to actually sublicense some of the technology out, and, you know, to key partners and so forth. So that is able to actually expand, and that it's not just, you know, closed in with it. So we can have that greater impact and actually, you know, I would say, benefiting, benefiting everyone.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:56

Yeah, good response, I'll leave it there. It's always a debate that I have with people who have designed new solutions, because there's a lot more pressure now to come up with things and scale them quickly. And it's always interesting to see how people approach it as they navigate between two worlds. And that's essentially where we went between an old system that works in a certain way, we want to move to a new system, we don't know what the new system is yet. So it's always an interesting conversation.

Gordon Olson 11:28

Yeah, you know, I definitely, definitely agree with that. It's the old way of things and transitioning, and how that will actually come out in the end, you know, it's, it's big.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:41

Yeah. So we can shift now to cop 26? And what are your thoughts on how important cup 26 agreements are going to be, first of all? And what do you expect to see, especially the impact in the US?

Gordon Olson 11:57

You know, so I like, for me individually, I, I like the these initiatives, and, you know, to try to have this greater impact. And, you know, to go back in my background a little bit, I've actually worked in the oil fields in out in North Dakota, and I was a roughneck for however long and so, you know, I've, I've experienced that life, and then around, I guess, you could say, that culture of people, as well as the culture of people that are, you know, more suited for sustainability and green energy.

And, you know, there's, there's a good things can start at the top, but at the end of the day, you know, we have to be able to bring technology to the masses, at an affordable price, to be able to, to re adopt new technologies. And, you know, so that's, that's what I like to see with all these initiatives and so forth is, you know, how, how much are they helping, you know, not just, I guess, top level, at the top level, and, you know, talking the talk, but let's say, are we going to be able to walk the walk right, and bringing that down onto an individual level? And, you know, a lot of a lot of education goes into that as well. It's not just to the masses, right? It's not just a, I guess, plans and solutions aren't always black and white.

There's many variables that go into things. And, you know, I like the the overall plan, I think it'll, you know, have have a good impact. And, you know, the only thing that we can do is kind of try it. And let's, let's find out, let's find out how good of an impact it has. And, you know, as, as we're trying it, and moving through that, then, you know, if some things aren't, aren't working, you know, it's kind of like, like running a startup, you got to be able to be, you know, limber enough to be able to switch your direction relatively fast, to pick a new solution to drive it that direction that will have the greater impact.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:23

So Gordon, how can people support your mission?

Gordon Olson 14:27

They can go to Tory way.com. That's t o r II iway.com. And follow us on social media. We're on LinkedIn, as well as Twitter. And, you know, share with your friends and all as well, as you know, we're always looking for collaborations for licence agreements and partnerships with companies as well as different individuals. So

Katherine Ann Byam 14:52

and you're looking in the US as well as outside of the US for collaborations or you just stay in us for now?

Gordon Olson 14:59

Yeah, both Yeah. Okay, worldwide

Katherine Ann Byam 15:01

Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. It's been lovely to chat with you. Thank you so much for joining the show. Season Four of where radius launch was brought to you today by Katherine Ann Byam business resilience and strategy consulting services. Katherine provides business assessments and strategic support to help guide your business toward a NetZero future. Get in touch with Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn.

060 Full Power - Energy Transition

About this Episode

Today, my guest is Mark Wheatley, head of channel sales, that full power utilities and energy consultancy
focused on helping SMEs reduce their energy costs, and begin their journey to net zero. Mark has been involved in the energy industry since 2014, and has led the development of full power future net zero service offerings.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Mark, welcome to where it is lunch.

Marc Wheatley 1:05

Katherine, thank you very much for having me. Great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:07

Wonderful to have you is there seems to be an urgency building around net zero and actions to speed up or transition across the UK. What prompted this in your view.

Marc Wheatley 1:19

So I think there's a number of things in play here. And, you know, I talked to my friends and colleagues about this topic quite often. And I was referred to as the David Attenborough effect. So you know, there have been a number of documentaries, put outs, or mainstream media on, you know, on TV that we're all consuming now. And it's really sad to hit home to the general public, what we're doing to the planet, and the fact that we need to take action and do our bit to preserve our future, essentially.

So I think that, you know, these documentaries, bringing it to the fore, in general public is really having an impact. So first of all, I would say that, and by the way, if you haven't already checked out the documentary breaking boundaries, I certainly would watch it. It's, it's quite scary. In addition to those severe global weather events, of course, there's been a lot of them happening over the last couple of years. I've actually got a couple of friends that live out in Australia, and they were caught up in the huge wildfires that happened just over 18 months ago.

So I think that's really starting to hit home as well, bringing it into sort of my domain within the energy sector. I think the advent of or development of technology within the energy sector is actually making the ability for us to make a change a lot, lot easier. So to give you an idea, the cost of solar energy generation has fallen by about 75% in the last 10 years. And for wind generation, it's fallen by about 25%. So that sort of old conversation of renewable energy costs too much that's disappearing. So I think we no longer have that excuse in certain areas. So that's forcing change as well. And then, of course, the report that was recently put out by the IPCC, I think that really hit home for a lot of people as to how we're warming the planet, much faster than we realise. And action is absolutely needed.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:14

Yeah, absolutely. And I think these are really critical points. and wanted to kind of explore or what the UK government is doing to fuel the change for energy providers?

Marc Wheatley 3:25

Yes. So I mean, first of all, we'll probably start with the energy white paper that was published late last year. So that's the government's sort of plan. That's them setting out what they plan to do within the energy industry over the next couple of decades. And there's some big commitments in there that the government has put out. So first of all, you know, they've committed to creating over 200,000 jobs in what they've called a greener economy. So and that's over the next decade. So that's to do with areas such as power generation, so you know, how we produce the electricity that we consume.

And hydrogen technology is a big, big topic, which I'll come into in a bit more detail in just a minute. And things like green retrofits, so looking at the old buildings that we live in, and that we use for work and retrofitting them to make them more energy efficient. And so yeah, lots of stuff in the energy white paper, also to do with, you know, electrifying transports, so changing public transport moving away from the ice vehicles in internal combustion engine vehicles, as they're known to electric vehicles, we started to see that happen across the country.

But within all of this, the government also had to make sure that the cost of energy for consumers is kept as low as possible. So one of the things that they're focusing on is that they want to make it easier for consumers, be it commercial consumers or domestic consumers, to find the best deal available on the market and switch more effectively.

And within the industry, we've seen off j making plans for this. So they're looking at forcing policy and regulation onto suppliers to allow customers to switch energy supplies a lot quicker. And that's the government's attempt and options to try and get around this concern that a switch to a renewable energy product is going to cost more. So there's sort of plans outlined within the white paper around that as well. Big, big plans into all commitments with regard to electricity generation. So the UK Government has committed that by 2050, electricity generation will be emission free. Now, that's a big, big task.

Now, as you mentioned, at the beginning, I've been in the industry since 2014. And I remember when I first entered into the energy game, I was helping small business owners with their energy procurements. And I would say, most probably about 80-90% of the products that were being quoted by the energy suppliers were what I termed brown energy. So this is energy products from fossil fuels. And occasionally, back then, you know, a few years back, I'd be asked by a prospect or a client, you know, can we take a look at renewable products, you know, what's the price differential there, and there was a big price difference, you know, if you wanted a green or renewable energy products, you were paying a premium and quite a substantial one. Now, that has changed completely. So most of the energy suppliers that we work with, they quote electricity products from a renewable source of standard, so we no longer have to ask for it.

And there is no price difference between a brand energy product as I called it and a green energy product. So there's been a big, big shift. And whilst that is a big commitment from the UK Government to be, you know, to have electricity completely emission free by 2050. It is possible, especially with the investment in solar and wind generation. And yeah, I mean, to add on to that might continue without really continued investment, offshore wind generation is a big, big thing and the government is to set aside a lot of money for that. Also investment in financing options for nuclear energy.

You know, there's discussions with EDF at the moment to develop new nuclear power plants, which would generate a lot of power for the UK population. So in addition to that, some suppliers have been reacting already to some of these commitments. So to give you an example, SSE, one of the UK's biggest energy suppliers, sold off its domestic energy arm a couple of years ago to focus on renewable products. So SSE as a company, they saw the writing on the wall, they knew that this policy was coming in. And they made a move pretty early, and they are investing a lot of their time and money into renewable products and projects. So yeah, we're already seeing big moves by some of the big energy suppliers. In the UK.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:56

I have two questions. One is around other sources. So I think there's still a lot of risk to people with nuclear and the management of nuclear plants, etc. and some of the other methods still create waste, right? So when we look into the whole scheme of things, curious about things like geothermal, and hydroelectric, like are these at all possible? Where we are?

Marc Wheatley 8:23

Yeah, so it's an interesting topic, actually. Because when I talk to clients, I talk to prospects and stakeholders, I talk about green energy and renewable energy, and I see them as two different things. Now, the definitions are open to opinions. So people have different opinions on what they mean, that a renewable product or nubile energy products or source is not necessarily great for the environment. So you could argue that hydro power is a very clean source of electricity. But in order to create it, you have to build, you have to flood happy habitats and so on across the world. And that seems quite detrimental to the natural world. So there are opinions on that. Within the UK, I'll be completely honest, I'm not too sure of the scope of hydropower projects, very much the UK Government is focused on offshore winds. That's where they see the future of electricity generation coming from?

Katherine Ann Byam 9:19

Yeah, no, it's interesting to see how all of this will shape up because I think that the biggest challenge that we face right now is that it's so complex, we've waited so long, that actually the decision making has become even more complex. It's not like we can go in small stages, we kind of have to rethink everything all at once. But when you want to rethink everything all at once you need everyone to be coordinated. And that doesn't necessarily work.

Marc Wheatley 9:43

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the net zero time put in place by the UK government are very, very challenging. You know, 2050 seems a long way off. It's not really and the 2030 interim target is actually the crucial one. Is this. The next Nine, what, eight and a half years now, that really is the crucial time. And there needs to be huge, huge changes in the way that we consume and produce electricity and gas, of course, which is going to be phased out in certain areas in the coming years.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:15

Great. But tell me tell me a little bit about what full power is doing at the moment to help SMEs with better energy management because they think that, you know, this is something that where we've become more aware of we want to get our teeth into, but we don't necessarily know what's the best tap to take?

Marc Wheatley 10:32

Yeah, absolutely. Our focus is on the SME space in the UK. So full power has been going since 1997. That's when the UK energy market began deregulation. And we've been completely focused on the SME space, because we feel it's those business owners that need advice. They're the ones that are busy running their businesses, trying to, you know, they wear many hats, right? an SME owner is the marketing manager, finance manager, the HR manager, everything else, so we're there to hold their hand and help them through the maze.

That is the UK energy market. And whilst at the moment UK legislation around net zero is only really focused on larger companies. So for example, sccr, the streamline energy comm reporting, legislation only impacts the larger companies, we are starting to see and hear the impacts of that flowing down the food chain, and affecting SMEs. So to give you an example, we work with a company that produces chicken feed of all things. Now, their product is supplied into a supply chain. And the products work their way up through these large companies. So household names like test guys, and so on, and so on.

Now, those large companies are bound by legislation, and they're being told to report on their carbon emissions. And they're going as far as reporting on their scope three emissions, which then looks to their supply chain. So these SMEs now are being asked by their customers, what are you doing about your carbon emissions? What action Are you taking, and of course, unfortunately, most SMEs are not overly sure they're doing at this point and not taking action. And in fact, a recent report suggested that only one in 10 SMEs actually have a carbon reporting plan. So they're actually focusing on their emissions, and even 22% of SMEs don't even understand the meaning of net zero. So there's a huge amount of work to be done.

And what we're trying to do is to educate SMEs about net zero and what it means, how it impacts them, how it impacts their stakeholders, and to get them started on their journey. Because it's a completely overwhelming area. as a small business owner. As I said, You're wearing many, many hats, this is a new hurdle that's been thrown at you and you've got to educate yourself about what it means and how it impacts you. So we're there to try and demystify all of that and make it much more simple.

Okay, so as I said, SMEs can be affected by the net zero targets in many, many ways. So first of all, your customers as we've just touched on, maybe requiring you to take action. And if you're not going to take action, you may face the threat of losing customers. So that's immediately going to impact your bottom line and your revenue. So that and there's always this, there seems to be this assumption that to take action, and to reduce your carbon emissions, it's going to cost a business money, they're gonna have to invest to reduce their carbon emissions. Well, actually, if you don't take action, it's going to cost you a bit potentially in another way, you're going to lose revenue. So there's that there's also the

Marc Wheatley 13:52

impact or pressure, sorry, pressure from your employees. So if you are a company that's trying to attract new talent, entering into the marketplace. The younger talent that's out there, leaving education going into the marketplace for work, there are a lot more attuned to sustainability topics and our impact on the environment. And I think it's fair to say that certain individuals will look at companies and what they're doing with regards to their carbon emissions and that strategy before they choose to work for a company.

So it's going to impact your ability to attract talents. And then finally, there's the topic of obtaining finance. So let's say you're a small business owner, you're looking to grow your company, perhaps invest in some machinery or some new, new resource. You go to the bank and you ask for a 30,000 pound loan.

The banking institutions are now asking small businesses what they're doing with regards to a carbon reporting plan for their emissions, but Before they offer financial products now, it's not necessarily at this stage stopping businesses from accessing those financial products, but it is impacting the rates they pay.

So if you can prove to your bank that you have an action plan you're reporting on your activities, chances are, you're going to get a more favourable rate on your business finance, which is having a big impact. And that's where we can help businesses through our carbon reporting platform start to report their carbon emissions through their activities. And what we suggest is we say, let's start with scope one and scope two emissions. Let's keep it quite simple to begin with. So for those listeners that aren't aware, scope, one, emissions, focus on your direct carbon emissions based on your direct activities.

So that includes, for example, your fleet of company vehicles if you have them. So how much carbon Am I emitting through my company travel, you've then got scope two emissions, which is essentially your energy consumption. So your carbon emissions related to your electricity and gas consumption, and how much of that is greatly affected by whether you want renewable products or not. S

o we say keep it simple. Start with scope one, scope two, and as you find your feet, then start to look into scope three, and through our carbon reporting platform, we make that process very, very easy. Now, Katherine, I wasn't sure if we've touched on this before, but there is a second stage, which is two stages, two extra stages to this process. So it's all very good, and we're recording your carbon emissions. But there is nothing stopping you as a small business owner from manipulating that data, and making it look as if you're doing something better than what you actually are.

That's a phrase we know is greenwashing. So what we encourage business owners to do is to then report their carbon data to a third party. Now, we work with an organisation called the future net zero standard. They are a third party audit embody, that takes the carbon data from the small business owner, once a year, or they sit and make sure that it's actually true and fair, so that there's no greenwashing going on. Now, we think that is one of those crucial stages in this because it just sort of justifies what you're doing as a small business, and it recognises your progress. So what the future zero standard does is, they reward you or recognise your carbon reduction through a series of accreditations.

And you can take that accreditation, and then use that in your marketing or PR work and tell your stakeholders that you're taking action and you're making progress. So we think that's a very crucial step in the process. And then finally, so you've reported your carbon emissions, so you've recorded your carbon emissions, you've reported it, you now need to reduce it. And that's where we come in. As for power utilities, We help business owners reduce their carbon emissions through green energy procurements through energy efficiency measures, such as solar installations, LED lighting retrofits, and also we help with Eb fleet migration. So we've kind of put together the entire package. And we think that it simplifies the whole process for SMEs.

Katherine Ann Byam 18:32

It sounds really, really wonderful, and like a great opportunity for SMEs to jump on this. What are your thoughts, though, on possible outcomes of cop 26? And how this might impact current plans? I mean, if we're not doing anything now, we still have to start somewhere. So I think whatever we're doing is great. But I do get the sense that cop 26 might bring an even more aggressive timeline. What are your thoughts?

Marc Wheatley 18:57

I absolutely agree. I think that as an event, there's gonna be the most radical changes in policy that we've seen to date, I think, coming off the back of the IPCC reports, and some of the weather events we've had recently, pressure is growing from the global community. And I think there's going to be some radical policy changes. So I'm going to be watching it with a keen eye. In terms of actual outcomes, so you know, specific policies, I'm not entirely sure.

But I do believe that there's going to be additional pressure placed on larger companies. So those that are currently affected by the SEC legislation, I think that's going to be tightened up. And I think there's going to be more requirements placed on those companies to take action. So they're currently required to report but I think there might be some additional pressure applied to them to actually take action on their carbon reduction strategies. In addition to that, I think that that's requirement of reporting things is going to move down the food chain. So I think perhaps that medium sized companies will be asked to report on their carbon emissions soon. So it won't be a case of, we'll do it because our stakeholders are pressurised.

And as is the case, we've got to do it because we're being told by the UK Government. So I think that's potentially going to happen as well. And finally, I think there might be some kind of some form of carbon tax introduced, so that this has been mooted a few times in the past. And I think perhaps a carbon tax is going to be levied on certain products and services. So perhaps any even more tax applied to your energy consumption. So I'm not sure if you're aware, Catherine. But when you consume electricity at home, you automatically have and businesses you automatically have a charge applied called CCL, which is the climate change levy. Now that it increases year on year, I buy very small amounts.

So I think at the moment it is about point eight and a penny for each unit of electricity. You can see that will continue to increase Nope, no question. But I think perhaps they might be additional levies brought into consumption just to encourage you to consider a consumption less and go to renewable products.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:16

Yeah. scary but at the same time important, so it's in a way exciting, but we do need to be mindful of how we how we execute. Tell me listeners how they can get in touch with full power.

Marc Wheatley 21:32

The easiest way of course, is our website, which is full pay utilities.com. And be careful how to spell utilities. Most people always leave that one of the eyes there. I'm also very, very active on LinkedIn. So on LinkedIn, I've published a number of articles around the topic of net zero. So please find these Mark really, and that spelt with a C. So Mark with the C. Please do connect with me and they're happy to start a conversation.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:57

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining the show, Mark.

Marc Wheatley 22:01

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam 22:05

Season Four of where radius launch was brought to you today by Katherine Ann Byam business resilience and strategy consulting services. Katherine provides business assessments and strategic support to help guide your business toward a netzero future. Get in touch with Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn

059 Communicating For Impact

About this Episode

Melissa Hobson is a communications consultant with a love for nature and the ocean. Melissa is passionate about making a positive difference to our planet and to people's lives. Combining her passion for the ocean with her extensive PR communications and copywriting experience. She helps charities B Corps and mission driven organisations achieve tangible results. Melissa has worked with companies and charities big and small, both in house and agency for around 11 years, helping them achieve their communication goals. And her brand experiences include just giving Go Fund Me, Cancer Research UK British Deaf Association, marine megafauna Foundation, Madagascar, whale shark project, and more recently guide dogs.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Melissa, thank you so much for joining the show. It's incredibly my pleasure to have you and to have someone with your experience coming to talk to us about this topic of PR in the space of sustainability.

Melissa Hobson 1:40

Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:42

Yeah, it's really awesome. So what inspired your choice of career in communicating for positive impact? Tell me a little bit about your backstory.

Melissa Hobson 1:51

So I'll go back some way. And I think actually, one of the key things that's inspired me, I didn't realise at the time was going to end up being to do with my career. So when I was at university, I went on holiday to Australia, and my travel agent talked me into learning to scuba dive. And I absolutely hated every second of the training in the pool. And I was just like, I need to just get this done. And then I never dive again. Because what is this? Why am I doing this? And then we went out on the boat to the Great Barrier Reef. And just as soon as I got into the open water, everything was just a complete other world. It was amazing. And I just switched and did a complete 180. And I was like This is incredible.

Like, you know, I saw sharks, we saw turtles, they were just fish everywhere, these beautiful corals. And at the time, I kind of thought, well, this is cool, but I was living in Bristol at the time. So that's a shame, I won't be able to do that again. And then over the years, I went on holiday by the coast, I managed to go diving. Then I started planning my holidays to go diving.

Then I started writing for a scuba diving magazine, kind of on the side around my PR work. All this time I was doing PR originally for a big consumer agency and then moving kind of towards the charity space. So I work for Cancer Research UK. And then I worked agency side with as you mentioned JustGiving Funmi, various other cause based organisations.

And then I got to the point that I’d been in London for about a decade, I needed a break, and I quit my job with nothing to go to at the time. An amazing opportunity came up after I'd quit or while I was working my notice period to move to Mozambique and help a marine conservation charity. So that's the marine megafauna foundation. Mmm. And I spent about eight months volunteering with them out in Mozambique. And that was kind of the big step I guess into marine conservation specifically and sustainability, which is my core niche kind of around other charity stuff that I do as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:15

Yeah. Now that's a really powerful story. And I think reefs do have this effect on people definitely as a child. You know, the twin island of the republic that I come from Australia and Tobago and Tobago has used to have really beautiful reefs, and we would travel there as kids and stuff and even as a little kid you can get out there not with any snorkelling device because it was so easy to access, and eventually has been bleached, like a lot of other coral reefs around the world. So it's incredibly powerful to witness that in your lifetime. Something that you'd never expect.

Melissa Hobson 4:51

It's such a shame, isn't it to see you know, within a few years the landscape completely changing for for the negative yeah

Katherine Ann Byam 5:00

Yeah, so it's definitely a cause that we all support. I think anyone who lives near an ocean, I definitely am an island girl myself. So it's definitely a cause I support. And you've worked in some really amazing campaigns with some great brands. Can you tell us a little bit about your favourite impact campaign and why it was so important to you?

Melissa Hobson 5:20

Yeah. So we were chatting before and you said, Oh, this is going to be a really easy question. And actually, this is probably the hardest of all the questions you've given me. I've worked on some amazing campaigns and with various kinds of charities and organisations and I've been thinking about this for a few days. And everyday, I changed my mind about which campaign I'm going to tell you about. So there was one, originally I was going to talk about, which I just touched on briefly, because when I was at Cancer Research UK, I was involved in the no makeup selfie campaign, which I don't know if you remember, people were taking photos of themselves, or then without any makeup on and tweeting it, basically.

And what was really amazing about that was, it wasn't actually our campaign, people were just doing it to raise awareness of cancer research, small C, small R. And our social media manager at the time, was, I think, in the evening at home on call because we had a rotor of covering out of ours. And he jumped on it and just sent out a tweet saying, you know, by the way, this isn't us. But if you would like to support Cancer Research UK, the charity, then you can do so. And the next day, the team scrambled around, and we actually had an unused Text to Donate number.

So we tweeted out the text to donate numbers. And that was it. The phones just didn't stop ringing from that point. And I think what was amazing about that campaign, apart from the fact that we raised something like 8 million and in about a week. And it just kept going. But from a PR perspective, I was playing just a very small part in the team kind of managing the press response to that. It was so measurable, which usually NPR, you know, we talk about it being such an important piece of the puzzle.

But you know, digital marketers will have stats around, you know, social media and retweets and how many views and all that kind of thing, which PR can be really unmeasurable. So this was a campaign that was really exciting to see a communications campaign that had a direct tangible impact. And we knew every penny that came into that number was because of the no makeup selfie, because it just kind of sitting dormant, the number otherwise. So. Yeah, so that was one that was kind of exciting to be involved in, even though I was Yeah, just a very tiny piece of that puzzle.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:50

It's such important work as well, I can't, can you describe what it feels like to have been involved in something so game-changing.

Melissa Hobson 8:01

I mean, at the time, it was just hectic. We had Cancer Research UK, a brilliant organisation, and they have a fantastic comms team. And we probably had 10, or more than 10 members of the team kind of working on comms at that point. And it was just tools down on everything else. You know, it was completely overwhelming. The social media team were just flooded with tweets that were, you know, responding to engaging with sharing, but from a PR point of view, obviously, news organisations were picking up on it.

So they wanted the press release, they wanted the latest figures every morning, we were trying to check, you know, what's the donation gone up to now and it might have raised an extra million or a couple of million. Obviously, also being conservative that with Text to Donate campaigns, the figures are slightly in flux, because people might then decide not to pay that donation when their phone bill comes through.

So there's a little bit of that as well, but also getting, you know, finding which aspects people were free getting them onto TV onto radio doing comment pieces. So it was literally I mean, yeah, working in a bit of a call centre at that point, as soon as you put the phone down, it was ringing with another journalist. So it was just everyone really working together and just powering through to try and spread the word even further as much as we could. So it was exciting. But it was exhausting. Once that couple of weeks wrapped up and we suddenly realised your to do list had been on hold for probably a good two weeks. We didn't really, you know, have the time to focus on anything else. It was a lot but it was incredible, as you say,

Katherine Ann Byam 9:48

and I guess it's probably the reverse of what happens normally when you're trying to book that spot. You know, you're trying to get the news media to take the story, but now it's really them coming To you, and I guess this is the beauty of a fantastic campaign.

Melissa Hobson 10:04

Absolutely. And I think also one of the things with that campaign was, the reason I think it worked really well is that we didn't create it. I know after that happened, and there was another there was the Ice Bucket Challenge, there's been a couple that have gone really big. And the ones that do really well have come from real people and just taken off. And I know for, you know, when I left Cancer Research UK, and I went to my next agency, there was often you know, clients would say, Okay, how do we do the next no makeup selfie. And there are things that you can try to do. And there are ways you can try to create a really strong story. But I think sometimes the ones that just really take off are the stories, they're already, it's already happening. And it's how you engage with it. And, you know, don't force your way in, because I don't think that works. But if you can make yourself a relevant part of that story and use that as a way to tell your own story. And I think that can be, you know, a really successful campaign.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:02

Yeah. And just going more into the whole topic of PR. So we had a conversation actually recently, sort of by text inside my group and my community because I realise that a lot of people in the sustainability space or at least as small businesses, in women in sustainable business at the moment, they're not necessarily aware of the power of PR. And maybe there's a perception about greenwashing about PR. Do you want to speak to that a bit about why people may have that perception and how to use PR for good?

Melissa Hobson 11:41

Yeah. So I think the first thing that I find when I'm working with new clients who haven't done any PR before, and often that's a small startup or a solo business owner who's kind of launching their company, and they might come to me for a Power Hour. So you know, 60 minutes delving into, what's their issue that we want to overcome from a PR perspective, and often with those people is not so much necessarily what is PR, they probably have a bit of an understanding and awareness of it. But people feel really, really nervous about it. And I think part of it, I think, is in the sustainability space.

The greenwashing point that you mentioned, I think people are really nervous about any clap back, you know, what if I say the wrong thing, or, you know, do the wrong thing. And I think also, there's, as soon as you're speaking to a journalist, a lot of people just get really nervous, you know, they're happy to I've seen clients who will have a long conversation with you telling you all about their company, and what they do, and they're really eloquent and passionate.

And then, you know, say in their head, even in a mock interview situation, you're saying, Okay, so now I'm a journalist, and we're going to practice running through these questions, and they just freeze. And I think there is something that people, yeah, and nervous about the media, they sometimes forget that journalists or people do. And I can say that because, you know, on the side, I do have put my journalist hat on now. And again, even if it's mainly writing about fish and things underwater.

But I think it's kind of getting people comfortable with the human element of PR, it's, you know, sharing your story with other people in a way that, really, a lot of the time, your goal is thinking about the type of story that if you come down to the pub, or the coffee shop, or wherever you meet your mates, and they say, oh, did you see that thing where, you know, and it might be an amazing fundraising challenge.

Or it might be some epic photos of marine life that they've never seen before, whatever it might be. That's kind of the end result that you're really working towards. So thinking about it, like that, and then working back and thinking, you know, what do I have to tell that I'm passionate about and that people are going to be really interested in. And I think that makes it more, more manageable. You're just trying to tell your story rather than kind of do PR in, you know, quote, unquote, that intimidating way.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:27

Exactly. And that's the thing you can do really organic forms of PR, just on your social media, and then it's a matter of it being picked up by the press. Sometimes it's just as simple as that as well.

Melissa Hobson 14:40

Absolutely. And social media is a great tool, particularly if you're new to PR. And there are things like the hashtag Chennai request, you can put that into your, you know, Tweet Deck or just search it on Twitter, and you'll see what journalists are looking for. So you don't necessarily need to have the big two databases and all those kinds of things that maybe a consultant or an agency might have access to, you know, you can keep an eye on little things like that.

And it might be that a journalist is, you know, at the moment, we've got the budget coming up. So journalists might be looking for people to talk about how changes in the budget are affecting them. And there's going to be a lot of stuff that's not relevant to you. But it might be that they're talking about green energy, they're talking about, you know, some of the things that are happening at COP 26, when that comes up next week, and you might have a really pertinent point on there. And yeah, you know, drop them a tweet back, give them a little introduction to you and what you do, and that can be a really great way to kind of start getting in touch with the media and putting yourself out there. Yeah,

Katherine Ann Byam 15:48

no, absolutely. And I wanted to ask you the next question as a positive question. But unfortunately, we've had some actually really crap news, literally crap news about what's happening with the voids and, and putting sewage into the wards in the UK and stuff like this. I guess what I want to ask is maybe I'll make it a two part question. What are your thoughts on what's kind of happening at the moment? But what are sort of the positive signs that you're getting about how we're going to care for the oceans in the future? What, what, what do you think gives us a reason to be encouraged?

Melissa Hobson 16:23

Yes. So to the first part of your question, to the first part of your question, in terms of the way things stand at the moment, I think it's very much a sliding scale, you know, when you turn on the news, or you listen to the radio off, and we're hearing more about the bad things that are happening, the ways that we're destroying the planet, which is a huge concern. And I think there is a lot of change that needs to be done. And I think it's going to be really hard work.

That said, I do think we're starting to see a groundswell in terms of people that care, people that want to make a change, whether that be some of the amazing business owners that you work with, who are starting, you know, with sustainability at their core, trying to change the system, and you know, the cultures that we've been brought up in, or whether that be a family that are thinking a little bit more carefully about their waste, they've, you know, planted a vegetable patch in their garden, or whatever it might be all the small steps are really important as well.

From a communications perspective, I've definitely seen lots more companies thinking about sustainability. Some of that, if I'm being cynical is probably from a, you know, there is greenwashing out there, and potentially people thinking, this is going to be good for our brand for us to look good. So that's why we need to do it. But if that is why they're doing it, I think it's important that they are still doing it right. You know, even if their motivations aren't necessarily pure, we are seeing more people trying to make a change. So I do think we've got a really big challenge ahead of us. And I don't know exactly where we're going to end up. But hopefully, I think, you know, there's some really positive things going on. And I hope that that continues.

Katherine Ann Byam 18:29

Are there any things that you want to highlight that are really going well, for the ocean in particular?

Melissa Hobson 18:34

Yeah, I think I told you before, Catherine, if you asked me about fish, I just go off, so he might have to cut me off if I get too excited. But there are some really amazing campaigns going on. So as I mentioned, I'm working with or used to work with mmf and with the Madagascar whale shark project as well who do incredible work into the ocean giants megafauna in our ocean, you know, looking at populations and also looking at how, you know, how is tourism behaviours affecting these populations.

Stella, who's a good friend of mine who runs the Madagascar Wireshark project, is doing a lot of work into codes of conduct in the area. So making sure that boats don't go too fast. Don't go too close, you know, you're not having loads of people jumping on the animals getting all excited to see the sharks because it's a great way to raise awareness. Like, you know, seeing these enormous creatures in front of you in the ocean is absolutely spectacular, but we do need to do it in a responsible way. So charities like that are doing some amazing work. The Manta trust as well I know is doing some amazing work around responsible tourism. And then there's also things closer to home in the UK.

There's a big seagrass planting project that's been going on. Seagrass is a really important carbon sink. And it's often overlooked, because people are talking about coral and coral reefs. And so lots of great seagrass projects are going on. And then there's also and this, I promise, I'll stop after this.

There's also lots of citizen science projects that people can get involved with. So, again, thinking about the UK, if you're on the coast, and you're having a little beach walk with your dog or with your kids or whatever, you might spot mermaid purses, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, Katherine. So mermaids' purses, their little black look almost like packets. And they are the egg casings of sharks and rays. And they're called mermaid purses, I presume, because they look like a teeny tiny pass. And the shark trust is doing some amazing citizen science work around those.

So if you see one, you can take a photo of it, and upload it to their database, and basically help them work out which sharks and rays are laying eggs in the area, which obviously helps them with things like population studies, and all that kind of thing. Just by uploading a photo. So something like that is something that, you know, anyone by the coast can do. You just need to keep your eyes peeled, maybe pop your phone away while you're working and walking and you know, have a little look at the pebbles or the sand and see what you can find.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:25

Oh, that's a really powerful story. So my last question, or second to last question, actually is what's next for you?

Melissa Hobson 21:34

Good question. So it's been a really busy time for me. And I'm actually, from a professional point of view, I'm booked up until 2022, which is a bit scary, and also quite exciting. So I'm continuing to do some work with guide dogs, they've got some incredible campaigns coming up. And I'm also going to be starting some work in the coming weeks with another marine conservation charity, I'm sure there will be other things popping up. There's always exciting projects on the horizon.

And then from a personal point of view, I'm heading up to Glasgow, on the train next week for cop 26. So hopefully going to meet some really exciting environmentalists and activists kind of during those couple of weeks, and then into 2022. I'm not sure if I mentioned but when the pandemic hit, I was living abroad. I hadn't been living in the UK for quite a few years at that point. So I was brought back to the landlocked town of Redding. Initially, obviously, thinking it would be temporary. But that's rolled on for a little while. So I think next year, I'm going to be trying to find my way back to the coast as well

Katherine Ann Byam 22:50

As I live on the coast, but it's not the world's best coast, I get to see container-ships.

Melissa Hobson

Whereabouts are you?

Katherine Ann Byam

I'm in Southampton. So there's an entire side of the coast that we don't actually get to access at all. Because there's a marina. And then there's the area that the boats that cruise ships come in, and there's the area that sort of passenger ships come in for the wide. And then there are lots of containers, you really have to work hard to find the actual ocean. Which is amazing. So the last question that I wanted to ask is, is it to give advice and advice for people who are budding copywriters, who are bloggers and who really want to get that impact message across? Because I think what we struggle within this space? No, my guess is what we struggle within this space is that we're all very passionate, that's for certain, but we struggle to be able to communicate to get the people who are not as passionate to convert. So what advice or tips would you give?

Melissa Hobson 23:56

Yeah, good question. So I'd say and I think for me, this is probably relevant. across the different comms disciplines, whether you're a PR person or a copywriter or marketer of some description, is to really come from the point of view of your audience. So that might be your customers or, you know, a specific target target group that you want to, you know, engage and maybe kind of try and start changing their behaviours. And to be able to do that you really need to understand who they are and what makes them tick.

So, first of all, thinking about, who are you talking to? Because if you don't know, and if you're still at the point that you've got a great message to share. That's amazing. And, you know, there's some really passionate people doing some brilliant stuff. But who do you want to tell that message to? And maybe you know, why that specific group of people because it might be that you mentioned, Katherine, you know, it might be a group of people who aren't at Actually not involved yet in sustainability.

So telling them that it's better for the planet, and you know, this, that and the other, it's gonna save the turtles like, they might not care. You know, there are people, unfortunately, that don't care or that they have other pressing matters that are priorities for them. But, you know, if you're thinking about what actually makes them tick, it might be, for example, thinking about the energy crisis and insulation and green energy and all of that. Maybe, for them, protecting the planet isn't going to be a big influencer. But saving money on their bills, so that they have a bit more to spend looking after their family might be a really big influencer. So I think coming from their point of view, and trying to understand what makes them tick is then going to help you really work out how to weave your message in a way that resonates with them.

Katherine Ann Byam 26:00

Yeah, that's really great advice. I think, when I started this podcast, my mission was to take organisations, leaders and organisations who weren't even thinking about sustainability yet, and try to take them along a journey. So that was the reason that I started and that I had so much business focus on the message I was carrying as well. And now I think, you know, I've moved people a lot in three seasons. And I feel as if people are ready to be on any journey that I'm on, which is, which is great, that's exciting. But I can feel like I've done that, at least with the few people who stayed with me.

Melissa Hobson 26:40

And it's funny, because as well, I think one of the reasons I've been quite busy recently is because, you know, we had the IPCC report, we've got cop 26, coming up, everyone suddenly talking about sustainability. And so they come to you, as you know, a PR person copywriter with experience in conservation and sustainability. And often one of the first questions is, okay, so you've got great contacts with the sustainability press, right? And I'm like, Well, what actually, we maybe should be asking is, you know, why do you want to contact the sustainability press? Like, that's maybe an element of what you want to do.

But if you're a sustainable beauty brand, we need to look at the beauty press, if you're working, I'm working with a sustainable lingerie brand at the moment called Confident Tiger. And they're brilliant. But our focus there is with fashion titles with women's titles with entrepreneur titles, you know about the founder herself? And obviously, yes, you know, there is a sustainability element to it. But it's really important not to get stuck in that echo chamber of, you know, I love all my echo buddies, and we can all chat about the planet. But actually, you know, we need to break out of that and start to get this message seeping through all the other types of media as well, because that's when it starts to affect wider change.

Katherine Ann Byam 28:01

Absolutely. We need to nudge and we need to nudge with a shelf. Thank you so much, Melissa. This has been a fantastic conversation. Thanks for joining the show.

Melissa Hobson 28:11

Thank you for having me.

058 Activism Through Stories

About this Episode

Sally Giblin is an Eco Founder, Climate Reality Leader, and Environmentalist. Her purpose is to inspire others to take dramatic action on our climate and biodiversity crisis - the most important issue of our lifetime. She’s the CoFounder of Be The Future, which inspires parents of young children to raise heroic leaders for environmental change, drawing on storytelling, behavioural science and positivity. She’s spreading the word about environmental action through writing for media publications such as Climate Conscious, Pebble Magazine, and The Grace Tales, and speaking at events such as It’s Time: A Festival Of Climate Action.

She’s also a startup mentor for Founder Institute, the world's largest early-stage accelerator. She has also been at the forefront of many social impact initiatives over the years, with organizations such as Young UN Women and Social Good Summit. She previously Co-Founded Pure Bundle, an award-winning startup that was transforming the experience of Re Loving children’s clothing.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Sally, it's such a pleasure to have you on where it is lunch. Welcome to the show.

Sally Giblin 1:46

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:49

I'd like to start with a story I found about you on your LinkedIn profile about a trip you made to Sydney in early 2020. Tell us about what that experience was like for you.

Sally Giblin 2:00

Yeah, sure. So I'm an Australian living in London. And back before the pandemic, my family was going to visit everyone back in Sydney. And you know, usually going back in the summer, it's all about the beaches and blue skies, beautiful weather. But Sydney was gripped at the time by these catastrophic bushfires. And they're the worst bushfires Australia has ever had. And it was just, I think, incredibly humbling and, and really quite shocking to really kind of realise, just the fear, the loss that was happening in the country at the time, and, you know, 19 million hectares burnt 1.2 5 billion animals perished. About 33 human lives are lost. And so it was, you know, an incredibly difficult time. And I think, for me, that was really the moment that I realised that climate change is not in the future. It's happening here. And now. And you know, weather events, extreme weather events are getting more intense, more frequent around the globe. And I think, you know, many, many more people are sort of having these climate moments where they're really realising how much we do need to step up and keep taking more action and hold our leaders to account.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:15

Yeah, what was it like to sort of experience that from the eyes of people who live there?

Sally Giblin 3:22

I think I mean, growing up in Australia, I was incredibly fortunate, because it's this beautiful country with a lot of natural nature, and, you know, beautiful waterways and beaches, and I think my childhood was was very much about, you know, growing up in the outdoors, and really enjoying a lot of that beautiful space. And I think, you know, there's a, there's a term called Sal Australia, and I think it was an Australian, who coined the term and all about basically people mourning, kind of the nature and the environment that used to be that is disappearing. And so I think, you know, it really made me feel incredibly upset, it made me feel incredibly guilty as well, because we were back there to see family and friends, you know, have a wonderful time and enjoy ourselves. And I remember I kept having these conversations with people saying, I feel guilty, you know, trying to go out and kind of do those normal everyday things when something so devastating is happening to so many people around the country. So I think it's, you know, a real, real wake-up moment. Yeah,

Katherine Ann Byam 4:26

Absolutely. I know that children are central to all the activism work that you do as well. So tell me about how your son is sort of helping you navigate to this complexity?

Sally Giblin 4:37

Yeah, sure. It's a good question. So I think like many parents, you know, when I had my son, it was very much you know, something that made me step back and go, what kind of future Am I creating for him? What, how can I create that best life and, and I guess, in the context of the climate emergency, you know, there's really this, this whole challenge around, what kind of future, you know, will be there for our kids. And you know what that next generation is stepping into. And so I've very much decided to focus on how we can help inspire and nurture that next generation of children to really care for the environment and want to be leaders for environmental change. And so there's some really simple things you can do with young children.

And one of the first things is very much to inspire them to love nature. And you know, that can be as simple as playing outdoors quite a bit, having nature play activities, talking about, you know, animals and the environment. Because studies have shown that when children learn to love nature, as they're young, they often grow up to want to protect nature. And I think a second thing is, it is very much about inspiring them with stories, and games and puzzles, and all sorts of things that, you know, help them to learn about how they can care for the planet, but in a really fun engaging way. And, you know, as we all know, I think we all get drawn in as humans to storytelling. And it's such a powerful learning tool for young kids as well. And I think the third thing I'd say is around role modelling. Because, you know, children very much learn from what people around them and what the adults around them are doing. So as people start to, you know, make some changes in their own lives and understand more about this space. That's one of the best things you can do. You know, and one of the most visible things for kids is single use plastics. And so you know, things like explaining to your children if you're trying to make choices that are moving a bit more towards Reusables, and how we can do some things differently, you know, doing that with them and explaining why you're doing it. And it's quite surprising to see how that can then solidify in your child's mind. And I know during one of the many lockdowns here in the UK, I remember my son just deciding he wanted to start at about four. And he wanted to start making his little mini posters about trying to tell people about not using single use plastics and how they can hurt the fish. And I remember he listed me to make about 150, these tiny little posters he wanted to hand out. And that wasn't me, you know, telling him to do anything, he just decided, you know, after this conversation, so it's quite interesting to see where some of these very small things can actually plant something your child's mind where they can lead,

Katherine Ann Byam 7:29

oh, my goodness, four years old, and an activist already. He's gonna give Greta a run for it. So let's talk a little bit about social impact and change and what the stories that you've written. What would you like to share with my listeners about some of the journeys that you've been on through your storytelling and through your writing, that have created an impact in the work that you do?

Sally Giblin 7:56

So I think one of the things that has really stood out to me, as I've immersed myself more and more in this space, is this thrill need to try and transition from getting lost in all the doom and gloom and despair of a lot of the headlines that are out there, and really trying to immerse yourself in the positivity and the solutions and the optimism. And someone who is incredible in this space is Christina Figueiras, who led the whole effort around the Paris Agreement in 2015, you know, getting nearly every country in the world to sign up to try to catch the 1.5 degree temperature increase or two degrees at the most. And I think for her, when she first got put into that position of leadership, she remembers, you know, going to a conference and saying something, when asked a question about how are you going to do this, you said something about, well, we're not going to do it in my lifetime. And I think, you know, that was a response. She didn't even mean to say but she put it out there into the world. And I think she did a lot of soul searching after that and realised, you know, what, if I'm going to lead this effort, I need to be what she calls a stubborn optimist. And I need to be, you know, really believing and truly believing that this is possible to make this real change. And she shifted her mindset and was able to bring so many people along to do something that no one really did think possible at the time. And so I really hold that idea of, you know, not digging our heads in the sand, not pretending everything's okay at all. But really having hope and believing that, you know, we really can still do this, and project drawdown which is the world's most comprehensive view of solutions for the climate emergency. You know, really tacking on to that and and taking the view that if we, you know, people who kind of rise up for change and are able to help facilitate and take action to, you know, get our world leaders, businesses, individuals to do everything they can to To implement the solutions we already do have, we really can, you know, slam the brakes on this crisis and turn things around?

Katherine Ann Byam 10:06

Yeah, no, I like that. And what made you yourself decide to become such an activist? What moment made you drunk?

Sally Giblin 10:16

So I think I'd always been searching ever since I was a teenager, for what, something to really get behind. And it's always been so important to me to try and make something better in the world. And I think it started with a trip, I was very fortunate to take over to the Philippines when I was a teenager. And it was actually a geography tour. And, you know, I remember saying, you know, a lot of very difficult things over there, one of the things was visiting this orphanage and seeing these kids as young four or five, who'd been sniffing glue and being, you know, trapped into these terrible circumstances. And I remember just thinking, I just want to be able to do something to help. And, you know, I did a lot of volunteer work, a lot of social impact things. I did a master's in international development. It was reaching and exploring for a long time. But then I think the reason I think I've really landed on the environment, and the whole climate movement is because it is the biggest issue of our lifetime. And I think there is such an immense need to create change there. And there's so many ways people can get involved. And I think, you know, I just find such meaning in trying to be one small part of helping to try and turn the tide on this immense, you know, crisis in our lives.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:34

Yeah, it's incredible, because there's so much at stake at the moment. And there's so much that's changing at the moment across a number of different spheres, you know, and whilst, like, I'm not a scientist and not an ecologist, but for me, it's like, it's equally as an unimportant part of the story about people and what you talk, what you spoke about with people in the Philippines, and etc, and your experiences when you were growing up. And it's so important for us to recognise as well, that we need to share the wealth of this planet in a way that it's sustainable for the planet and for us. So there's so much going on, at the moment that it feels sometimes it could get scary and overwhelming. I don't know if you feel that at times.

Sally Giblin 12:20

Look, I absolutely still do. And I think it's just constantly trying to navigate these different feelings and emotions and try and, you know, keep bringing it back to where you can try and take action and where you can try and find community and do these things to sort of keep on this path. But I think it's only natural, and a lot of the climate psychologists out there do definitely say that it is a completely normal reaction, to feel some of these emotions of fear or despair or loss or overwhelm. And then it's about trying to navigate through that, and, and trying to find your path in your way. And I think, you know, taking action in a way that resonates for you, personally, is a really, really valuable way of not only trying to navigate those emotions, but also making an impact and trying to change things. And back to something you said about just the intertwining of the social and environmental issues here. Absolutely. And I was very fortunate to be part of Al Gore's Climate Reality leader programme earlier this year. And, you know, in terms of basically what the Climate Reality Project is all about, is trying to empower people to rise up and be voices for climate action and talking to the reality of the climate crisis and try and help more and more people make ripples of change. And their approach there is very much about how the climate justice and social justice movements are completely intertwined. And, you know, disproportionately the climate emergency is affecting people who are already more disadvantaged. And so there's just so much need there to address this, you know, the whole the whole thing together. And the intersexual environmentalist, they're a wonderful community on Instagram, and they, you know, really go into a lot of face issues and really doing a fabulous job of trying to pull that apart and help to kind of advance there.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:18

Yeah, absolutely. Let's kind of move our attention to cop 26. So this is coming up. There's a lot at stake. What do you expect in terms of outcomes? And what would you like to see?

Sally Giblin 14:31

Yeah, it's a great question. So, I mean, I think John Kerry, the US climate invoice, you know, he sums that up quite well when he says that the COP 26 UN summit in Glasgow in November is the last best chance to take action on the environmental crisis. And so I think there's really three main things that I really want to see happen there. Firstly, to see big, hairy audacious, you know, tar bits that are going to be followed through on by countries around the world. And I think it's all about going deeper and wider on action, as well as you know, pulling forward the time frames to really be slamming the brakes on emissions, and, you know, putting emissions into emissions into reverse in terms of, you know, carbon sinks and really pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as well. The second thing would be around helping countries that are already feeling climate impacts to adapt, because, like we were saying earlier, you know, there're many countries already feeling devastating impacts, who need, you know, support and planning to really try and address that for their people. And I think the third thing is that the richer countries of the world committed some time ago to providing $100 billion in funding a year to poorer countries to deal with the climate crisis. And that funding hasn't eventuated as yet. So it's imperative that that happens to to help those countries, you know, who are going to be feeling more of the impacts, and less able to deal with it, get that funding to them to make sure that those people are able to have the best chance,

Katherine Ann Byam 16:10

slightly geopolitical questions, you don't have to answer if you don't want to. But do you think that we can make change happen with our current nation state sort of process and mentality?

Sally Giblin 16:24

So look, it's a really good question. And I think, you know, there's such a need for systemic change to happen on so many levels, and and throughout how, you know, our societies are built, and I was listening to a fabulous podcast on this actually on force of nature the other day. And I think, you know, the nation state model can be quite troublesome in terms of that. And I think, you know, one of the things that I foresee as a real path forward is more localised mesh methods of production and consumption in terms of energy in terms of food. And so whether the nation state model is the best fit model, you know, for going forward. It's not my area of expertise. But I'm incredibly interested to see you know, whether that is something that can be evolved and changed. I'd love to know what you think about that, Katherine?

Katherine Ann Byam 17:21

I also think that it's something I would like to see evolve and change. I think localization is a big part of the story. And a lot of what digitalization has brought is this feeling that we could be everywhere, but actually, I don't think it's the right solution. So it's learning how to use the tools that we have, within the context of the constraints we have. And we haven't quite navigated that yet. And I think there's a book called tools and weapons. And it's not, it's about digitalization in general. But it made me reflect on sort of the kind of parameters that we need to have in place, you know, so where doctors have Hippocratic Oath, so whatever, you know, we need to have the same thing for people coding the systems, we need to have people taking certain sorts of decisions that are different than we did before. Knowing what we know, now knowing the constraints that we never thought we had before. So yes, I think there's a need for change. But i i Also, I'm not qualified to speak on June 4, geopolitical issues. So what's next on the agenda for you? And how can my listeners support your mission?

Sally Giblin 18:33

Yeah, sure. So I think there's probably two big things. So firstly, my co founder, Helen and I, so we're working on building up our business called be the future. And essentially, this movement is just all about trying to inspire guardians of our next generation, whether that's parents, grandparents, teachers, family members, to, I guess, nurture heroic leaders for environmental change. And there's just such a possibility with how we can help shape that future generation to really care for the planet and do things in a better, greener, fairer way for everyone. And so at the moment, we have our community, we're building up on Instagram, where we, you know, are really trying to inspire people to take action to have hope, and your leaders share real tips for real change. We are starting to record a podcast which is exciting called Hope at thrive. And that is, is really again, about you know, bringing in all sorts of different voices to help inspire people. And in the background, we were building up a collection of storybooks and puzzles and games that were released through different themes. Because I think we're big believers in storytelling and immersing ourselves and things that inspire us to really try and help kids and their guardians to really learn about this space and be inspired to make change. So that's sort of the first thing that would be the future. And then the second thing is around the Climate Reality Project. I'm involved in some stuff with cop 26. And also, you know, doing quite a bit of writing around trying to spread the word about climate optimism, and about actions people can take. And I guess, trying to help be part of changing that conversation from the doom and the gloom that that can really, you know, fair enough, encourage people to just want to switch off and try and really build in the inspiration of what the world could be and try and get more and more people involved in, you know, this incredibly important shift in society.

Katherine Ann Byam 20:38

Thank you so much for sharing that. I think this has been a really fantastic conversation. Can you tell my listeners how they can follow you and get in touch with you? Yes, sure. So

Sally Giblin 20:47

The best place is probably on Instagram, and our account is called be the future Earth.

Katherine Ann Byam 20:53

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining me, Sally.

Sally Giblin 20:55

Thank you so much for having me, Catherine. It's wonderful.

057 COP 26 WATCH PRE AND POST

About this Episode

Katherine Ann Byam (MBA, FCCA) is the wing-woman to your genius, and a business resilience / organic growth consultant. As a strategic partner to leaders, she helps businesses design and embed effective strategies for responsible brand stewardship, to deliver outcomes that favour a wider stakeholder view.

In consulting she supports sustainable business development, resilience and business transformation projects. She is also a specialist in using Linkedin to generate organic growth and impact.

As a leadership coach, she works one to one with you as you go through any critical leadership changes; career transitions, starting businesses or scaling.

Her aim is to address solutions that consider society and environmental resiliency at their core so that her clients preserve their longevity and a fair return for innovation and ingenuity.

Her brands include Dieple Virtual Services Hub, Where Ideas Launch, Women in Sustainable Business, The Eco-Business Growth Club, Diep Linked Agency Services, the Courageous Career Club and the WW Executive business club.

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Episode Transcript

My inner voice to me: Kathy, you're supposed to have hope, be an activist for change, advocate for better ways of living with the flora and fauna and other humans on the planet. You have to believe new futures are possible, instead of being on track to hit 2.7 degrees of warming.

As much as I'm a hopeful optimist, I am nagged by the pessimism of doubt, understandably, because we've known about the coming crisis since the Club of Rome report in the 1970s. That's 50 years we had to start doing something. And now we leave a lot of work to get done in a really short space of time.

What fills me with hope is that our young people are learning things we didn't learn. Yes, there's a bit of carbon tunnel vision in all that learning, but it still beats denial, which seems to have finally left the building.

Cop 26 takes place in Scotland over the next few weeks and opinions are mixed on whether or not you will make enough meaningful change.

There are also many activists doing something from creating business models that combine a positive social impact to volunteering, designing carbon sinks and carbon sequestration projects, and creating non plastic, plastic, renewable energy and circular economy principles.

There is hope. We're still a long, long way from reforming the economic model. However, the cuckoo in the nest of the last 50 years has been the successful efforts at treating and teaching economics as if it were a scientific discipline. Until we realised we haven't been successful at all.

Milton Friedman is seen often as the father of shareholder capitalism, and perhaps will have a lot to account for in another life. But it wasn't only him. Many economists and leaders got this wrong. I started listening to Kate Raworth’s TED talk, and then reading her book about the revolutionary Donut Principles of Economics, and it's the first time in my entire life, I heard something from an economist that sounded sensible to me, sorry, economists.

I'll never forget my first economics class, where the teacher explained what Ceteris Paribus meant, all things being equal. It came after almost every statement in economics and I was like, but all things aren't equal. This doesn't make any sense.

Troublemaker! That was my label.

In brief Kate's theory is this, there are two bands, a social foundation beneath which no one on our planet should slip, and an outer band or ecological ceiling beyond which we should not exceed. Inside the donut is a safe and just space for humanity, Flora, Fauna, and where we are thought to be happiest. Beyond the donut's outer ring, we are in for a whole heap of sadness.

The nine things that trigger planetary boundaries on the outer ring of climate change, ozone layer depletion, air pollution, biodiversity loss, land conversion, freshwater withdrawals, nitrogen and phosphorus loading, chemical pollution and ocean acidification.

The core social foundations we need to have in place for everyone are as follows: water, food, health, education, income and work peace and justice, political voice, social equity, gender equality, housing, networks and energy. So how do we live and act meaningfully within the green band of this donut?

As business leaders adjust, the goal for the foreseeable future is to find ways to bring this green ring to life without tipping off the edges on either side. There are many ways to do this:

With your vote, what groups are supporting the donut as an ideology for the way we think about growth in the future? And how can we make sure that those groups are facilitating our future?

Your pockets - which organisations are giving back to bolster the communities in which they live and thrive?

Your advocacy: what groups are you interested in supporting to help raise their status and position?

Your charity: CSR donations and support? Who are you giving to and how are they helping Your business models? What can you do with your business models to be of more direct service to people who need a helping hand?

Your inclusion, how can you make it so that more diverse people are included in the work you do and the problems you solve?

Season Four is all about the before and after a cop 26 Thanks for listening and joining me on this programme.

Season Four of Where Ideas launch was brought to you today by Katherine Ann Byam business resilience and strategy consulting services. Katherine provides business assessments and strategic support to help guide your business toward a netzero future.

Get in touch with Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn

056 The Founder's Mental Health

About this Episode

Miriam Dorsett is a serial entrepreneur and fulltime artist and community activator. Her passions are the arts, community technology and sustainability. In 2016, She founded the connection company Chibur. In 2018, they launched their first product, and she's working toward launching a few new products as well this year.

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Episode Transcript

Shownotes

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Miriam, thank you so much for joining me on where ideas launch.

Miriam Dorsett 0:53

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. It's an honour. I'm a big fan of your work and being a part of your community. It's great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:01

Thanks so much. It's a great compliment. I wanted to talk to you about serial entrepreneurship because you are the absolute definition of a serial entrepreneur. Tell me what inspires your creativity on this side? And what inspires you to create so many movements?

Miriam Dorsett 1:20

Yeah, I definitely am a member of the do too much club. And that is why I identify as an artist, because I wake up and you know, it's taken me time to get to this place. But I truly when people ask me, like, what do you do? My answer is, I do whatever I want to do, right? So my purpose in my life is very clear. I want to bring more good to our world. And so every day when I wake up, I'm doing the things that I'm called to do around that. So that's where my drive comes from, I guess it's just my purpose.

So right now my main focus is quokka. It's an anonymous messaging exchange designed to increase the mental health of founders. I just completed my first official boot camp, which was at first startups, like it's a business style boot camp. So for an artist going to a traditional programme like that, you have to make compromises with how you see things. It was very good for me. I was able to narrow in my niche market and develop my customer persona and launch this product, which I have been working on since 2018.

As a way to kind of scale synchronicity and challenge the status quo when it comes to how technology is incorporated in our lives. I believe that technology today is not always built to support our humanity and quokka is here to change that and to support founders who are so important to innovation in our communities driving the changes that I believe in, but are extremely under pressure to perform and pack that on top of it being very taboo to talk about your mental health. Um, it's just a problem that I'm really excited to tackle and support my fellow founder community. So that's my main focus at the moment.

I also have bootstrap publications, which has been going on for a while. We publish books for artists that focus on writing as their primary medium. And we also have Zen's in Miami with a talented group of artists and community people here in Miami, Florida. It's an art gallery. It's a place for events, workshops. And we just support

Katherine Ann Byam 3:50

Miami is in the sort of climate Jeopardy zone. How What are you doing? or How are you supporting the whole sustainability initiative in the area that you live because I know that you're really big on community activation,

Miriam Dorsett 4:05

Thank you for bringing that up. Miami is ground zero, or the climate crisis and being from California and being someone who was raised very holistically and it's kind of innate for me to do things and appreciate nature. I've realised that a lot of people want to help, they don't want to do things to harm the environment, but they just don't know how to, to help or to stop doing things that are harmful to the earth. So I became a certified climate crisis speaker through the Clio Institute, which allows me to go out there and talk about the climate crisis to educate people.

My specific talk track is for youth. And I use my story of entrepreneurs to empower the future generation to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses, but do it sustained To play and think about how your work can impact our world. I also have a mentor, she is an amazing woman rella bagay. She was our chief Bay officer here in Miami Dade County, which I'm very proud to have her as my mentor. Because she's doing amazing work to make sure that our waterways stay beautiful.

And I'd like to support the organisations that are existing here, by amplifying their voices and supporting the events that they do spreading the word and the message we have everything from beach cleanups to political organisations to just food swaps and places that you can go like community gardens, my home space, I also structure in a way that's very sustainably minded, we have no plastic policy here in the home. And anyone who comes here, in like an Airbnb, they learn about different small things that they could do to help make a difference.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:11

That's so great. I think that's such an important and relevant way to talk about how we're travelling and how we're managing ourselves in travel. As an intrapreneur, myself, I know that it's really difficult managing all the additional workload that sustainability brings to your business. And what I mean is that because we're in a stage now, in the world, where Yes, sustainability is getting more popular, and there's definitely more solutions being offered.

But there's still a lot of decision fatigue around, you know, when you go into the grocery or you shop online, or whatever, you know, you have to make a decision, is this, is this packaging, the right packaging? You know, is this going to make a huge difference to my recycling, you know, you have all these decisions that you need to make, and it wears on you when sustainability is your first priority, but it isn't yet the global norm. So how do you manage that sort of, you know, decision fatigue, alongside all of the community work that you're doing? How do you manage your own mental health?

Miriam Dorsett 7:19

I mean, I'm not the best, I definitely have had low moments with my mental health journey. But I am lucky to have been taught the tools of gratitude and nature and breathing from a very young age, these things were put in place like I remember when I didn't feel good. My mom would say, Well, do you need to take a mental health day, like I did as a child?'' She acknowledged that there are times in your life where you just can't do it, you're just like, Look, I'm not prepared to function outside of my little bubble today. And that's okay. And so I think people are afraid to talk about it. It's taboo to speak about struggles and vulnerability. And especially in entrepreneurship, we are under pressure to feel like we have it all together at all times.

And we know everything and, and it really prevents us from learning. It prevents us from growing and getting help and allowing others to help us which, as entrepreneurs, we so badly want to help each other. That's why we do what we do problem solvers. We want to fix things, right? So it's this awful cycle. And when we look at female founders and people of colour founders, which I belong to both of those groups, it's even worse because there's this other layer of unfairness in the systems that exist that you're trying to fight through as well.

So that's why Coco's anonymous, if you know, is there to structure and support but for me, mental health is just every day self care type of breathing, stretching, and having a few hours to my day that are just dedicated to me before going out and working with others. I'm not perfect. I get very stressed out. I snap on my team. I have to apologise you know, constantly always trying to improve myself and get better. You know, it's all part of the journey. I know that sounds cliche, but I just tried to get a little bit better

Katherine Ann Byam 9:32

every day that it makes complete sense. How can people experience qualquer like, tell us a little bit about the app and what it's like to use it?

Miriam Dorsett 9:42

Yes, thank you. quokka is really easy to use all messaging you don't have to download a thing. We are on a private beta testing of our MVP. Unfortunately, with this test, it's available in the US only. Our test group before that was open to everyone internationally because we were using WhatsApp for that test group. But now we're using a more scalable system that's here in the US. And to join, you go to our, our blog page and our like about landing page and you just sign up as a member $7 A month. course, if you are struggling with depression, or if you're a veteran, we are open, you know, you're eligible for a free membership, then you get to get messages from all of the members at random, and you can send them and they go out at random, you can ask questions to quokka.

Quoka will send you inspirational quotes, the way that it works is members send in messages, they go to coca, coca analyses the message and routes it appropriately to other members of the club. And that's the simplest way that I can explain some of the questions as well, how do you make sure that negative messages don't get through, right? Because sometimes as a founder, you get upset, you're angry, and you maybe want to express that in poker is a safe place for that expression to happen. So I hope people sign up and give me feedback. I'm really looking forward to hearing how people like using it. And so far, the feedback has been really good. Members really like it.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:25

Thanks so much, Marian, for sharing quokka. with us. I'm looking forward to trying it out myself. And any closing advice that you would like to give to people who are just beginning on their sustainability or entrepreneurship journey? And what kind of things should they kind of look out for Be mindful of?

Miriam Dorsett 11:48

Yeah, absolutely. I would say first of all, anyone who is going on this journey, listening to this podcast, thank you for choosing to do this hard work. Being a sustainable entrepreneur is not the easiest path. Easy to just set up like an Amazon shop, start making money, things of that nature. But I don't think we'd be properly preparing ourselves for the journey ahead. If we thought that brands who aren't going to change their business models to be more sustainable aren't going to fight us tooth and nail. So I would just ask that you think very strategically, think long term, take a rest, team up with other people, join communities like Katherine's, you know, don't let your passion consume us like passion and anger, it's a very fine line for me. I'm like, I get angry when people don't recycle or sometimes even and it's like, anger is not going to get me to the places that I want to be. So just try to amplify the good stories. Let's drown out the bad things by just shining the light on the good things. Don't get caught up on being perfect. Speak to our youth. They're the real change makers, run for office if you can use your powers, which are your voice, your wallet and your vote. And those are my words of advice. I know that's kind of a lot. But thank you so much.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:20

This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business group Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas launch, the Eco business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.

055 - Green Finance

About this Episode

Mairead Taylor is an active supporter and advocate of businesses, across the Dorset and Solent area, Having been part of NatWest for over 30 years and working with small, medium and large Businesses for the past 20 years Mairead brings experience, knowledge and has built a strong internal and external network that helps deliver a better customer experience.

She’s an active member of the Bank’s South West Regional Board and Chair of the Regional Sub Board, Sponsor of the SW Gender network, Governor and Chair of the Audit Committee for Eastleigh College, and invests time in learning and developing herself and others.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Welcome to Where Ideas Launch

Mairead Taylor 1:03

Thank you very much, Katherine, it's very nice to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:06

Really wonderful to have you. I think I've been in the space of Finance, actually, most of my listeners probably don't know. But I started as an accountant, and I became disillusioned with it and moved out of the field around 2012. But ESG is the first time I've actually gotten excited about the field of finance in general, again, because I think it brings a lot of hope, it presents a new way to look at finance. And I'm really excited to have this conversation because I think green finance is going to be all of the noise very soon, it already is.

Absolutely.

So we are now on the sort of recovery side of the global pandemic. I say that generously because I know that at the end of this month, things are going to go a little bit crazy again, as we see the furloughs disappear, etc. First off, how his banking then permanently changed by the pandemic,

Mairead Taylor 1:55

Banking has definitely been permanently changed. And I would say significantly for the better. What it's bought in is an immense amount of confidence in our ability to be agile. And our ability to be flexible, known from the sometimes myth of people not being able to work from home or work from home effectively, were absolutely blown out of the water to our ability to set something up in days that would normally possibly take 18 months to two years. So a new product or solution, but we had to get money out our door to customers as safely and responsibly as we could. But really quickly, it was really important that money gots businesses to help our clients and their families and their staff. So we were able to do that. We did that by taking teams off projects, we took teams that were doing roles in the back, which were absolutely important. But suddenly, we had to divert an awful lot of staff and upskill them, teach them the new systems, new processes, what we did was transformational.

What was good was we were experiencing that along with all of our clients, because, you know, our clients have very, very similar issues. I mean, yes, we were responsible for providing funding, but you know, our customers were responsible, providing food and you know, all different services. So we were going through it together, we were learning, I think the bank have become much more agile in testing and learning. Things don't have to be perfect

But we needed to get it out there we needed to be able to support our clients. And then as things evolved as the government schemes evolved, and we fed into that, to try and help more clients, our team's had to learn and keep updated on changes all the time. And we did it. And he said in my introduction, I've been in the bank for 30 plus years. And I'm very proud of some of the things we've done. But I don't think I could be more proud of what we achieved in supporting our customers and providing funding that was absolutely critical to them.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:00

Now this is a really important part of the story. I think there's been a toll on everyone. There's been a huge toll on everyone. Everyone's had to pivot to make adjustments from the entrepreneurs to the big corporations as well. And as we look at the comeback now, it's interesting to see how much adjustment people are willing to continue to make as we move into sort of Cop 26. And you know this, this is a sustainability podcast. So we're going to talk about get into the green finance topic. But as we move into cop 26, what do you see as the bank's role in sort of supporting the netzero agenda, first of all, and also looking wider at the Sustainable Development Goals and how banks enable sort of progress to happen across the plane.

Mairead Taylor 4:47

All financial institutions our role is vital. If we don't do this, and if we don't do this right, it could be severely damaging to the world's economy. So us Doing nothing or us doing a bit is just not enough. We have to be leading on this, we have to be providing support. And our biggest mission is supporting our customers to help them transition to a carbon reduced world. And we want to take our client with us. That's absolutely imperative. And therefore, shrinking to those targets is not a sustainable world. So we need to really support customers as they transition, and some customers are way ahead in that. And some customers are still wondering, you know what, what to do and how to do it. But we have to take all our customers, we also have to get our own house in order. And we've made that commitment by 2030, we will have all our financing activity by having the climate impact, sorry, of our financing activity by 2030. So I think that's absolutely key, because that's where we have the biggest responsibility, the biggest challenge, but also the biggest opportunity.

So I think, yeah, really key being part of all the, you know, we've joined a coalition of organisations in the race to net zero, we signed up to the science based target initiatives, there's so many organisations that we've we've been founders of or, you know, at the start of that journey, and I think that is key, because going to the sort of broader SDGs we need to do this in a fair and balanced way. And we need to be supportive, that customers won't be able to get there on day one. So we're actually what that transition journey is, is a key risk for businesses. And that's when we need to be at our most supportive of how we help them to get there. So I think banks have a really vital well, and part of that is through education, education of our colleagues and education with our customers, US learning from them being brave, being courageous, this is transformational for the whole world. No one's been here before. So we will make mistakes, our customers will make mistakes. But actually, it's to bring back that agility.

And that learning fast, it's okay not to get things right. And I think one of the big things is that we won't have all the answers on day one, and all the solutions will keep evolving and changing. But that doesn't mean let's wait until we've got this nice gold plate framework to go through, we actually all need to start doing it now.

And then as we learn, things will evolve more technology will come in more technology changes in the way that consumers want to buy things, our own behaviours, what our own expectations are, how we invest our money, and pensions, all of that will help to make a really systematic change in what our customers expect from us, and what we expect from us as individuals on planet earth really.

So I think that's really important. And I think, you know, from a bank's perspective, we are particularly focused on three Sustainable Development Goals, affordable and clean energy SDG, number seven, climate action number 13, and partnership for goals number 17. But it's really key that we look at all of the SDGs because you could make some short and medium term decisions, but if it's at the cost of some of those other critical SDGs, we're not building a sustainable economy, we're not building a sustainable world, it's not going to address the unfairness and the imbalance that we have. I think, you know, that's really important. And that's why climate sustainability ESG has to be at the core of our strategic thinking, not like this is what we want to do. Okay, now let's put an SDG lens on it, or let's put a climate focus lens on, we can't make those decisions without that being our overall decision tool.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:00

Absolutely agree. What do you anticipate will change for SMEs as a result of the new ESG guidelines. And I focus on SMEs in particular, because the means to do things differently is different for smaller businesses, and there is a sense that a lot of smaller businesses may not even be able to operate in the same way once we really start to make changes to these rules. So what are your thoughts on that?

Mairead Taylor 9:27

So if I take a little step back, I was given some interesting information. Well, it just shows you how critical it is that we get this SMEs right, and according to the World Economic Forum, they represent 99% of the world's 125 million companies. They contribute more than 50% of the global GDP. And in the UK, SMEs have been responsible for 70% of all job creation since 2010. There are 6 million UK SMEs accounting for 99.9% of them. Is 61% of employment and 52% of turnover, you have to focus on SMEs. Doing anything else is just nonsensical. And also history tells us SMEs, yes, they can have restrictions because of resource, and maybe not the wider networks that some, some bigger organisations can benefit from. But they’re agile, they are innovative, they often are very brave, very courageous. And actually, they can see things and how we can either create new things, or reapply existing technologies and automation and systems and use it in a totally different sector or a totally different way.

I think it's fundamental that we do work and support SMEs, I think the changes that will come in the 20 2050. net zero target is legally binding. But we're yet to see significant legislation or regulation that is forcing or encouraging incentivizing all businesses, but particularly SMEs. So I think that will evolve. And I think that's really important that on the lead up to cop 26, and particularly after 26, I think it's really important that SMEs do engage, because there will be changes and therefore being ahead of those. And having made some progress on areas that we're focusing on clean transport, clean energy, green finance, carbon tracking, and behaviours, clean buildings, and I've got a top 10 sort of help guide for SMEs that I can happily share afterwards.

And it's not covering everything, but actually it shows us the knees, the things that they can do, that's within their control that they don't need in house expertise, that number of them don't need money, it's actually just a change of how you might do something or approach something. So I think there will definitely be changes, I think there will be a lot of incentives. But ultimately, there will be tax implications for not doing things you know, higher tax, carbon tax and that kind of thing. I think it's how we can work with big corporations, and government and grants maximising what we can do in order to then help provide it for people that are unable to help themselves. Currently, if we change our mindset, there's an awful lot we can do with what we've got. And I think that can make a big difference.

But an example of one that's currently in is the measuring of the carbon footprint. So I think it's very hard for an SME to make changes until they know where they are, what's their base point, and so bringing out tools that will help them so you know, we've partnered with Cogo and Microsoft Cogo for SMEs up to six and a half million in Microsoft for six and a half million more, just in order to start actually to help businesses know exactly where they are, I think also is using the resource, the capability and the knowledge that large corporates and non government organisations have to help those SMEs that supply chain up and down Intel flowing and support I think is key.

So SMEs can help corporations be much better, and corporations will be able to help SMEs by taking people with us, big corporations taking SMEs on their supply journey, not leaving them behind. And banks, absolutely supporting all of those. So I don't know if that really answered your question. But I think there are more changes afoot. And it's better to try and be ahead of what the way you can be so that you're more leading the way rather than having to be told, well, now you have to do this. And you've got to do it by then, you know, the the diesel, the diesel cars in it, you know, an example of that,

Katherine Ann Byam 13:49

That brings me to a topic that I probably didn't tell you about beforehand, but it's really around stranded assets. Right? So we're going to be facing a lot of that. Definitely. It's been a topic of conversation. Before the pandemic, the pandemic actually accelerated the conversation in many ways. What are your thoughts on how people deal with that?

Mairead Taylor 14:09

Big question, and I think this is where it's fundamental. So the insurance companies produced a report quite a few years ago on this that insurance will, you know, there will be assets that will be uninsurable in our lifetimes, if we do nothing, or if we get to a 4% to four degree rise. And that's obviously unsustainably worldwide that you just know, the implications of not being able to insure an asset.

So, insurance companies and banks absolutely have to be doing something here, stranded assets help nobody. So, I guess if you're talking about bigger assets that suddenly you know, if you're moving from oil to hydrogen, or actually it's not having that transition plan as to how are you going to do it and in the smaller SME space, it's being aware that's all of our incentives to do something. So I'd like to think, you know, everybody cares about the planet and everything. But if you just look at it purely from an economic viewpoint, you think about all the hard work and everything that you've built your business up for, and why you've done it to suddenly, then being told that you can't sell it, or it's not insurable is unimaginable.

And therefore, that's the reason you know, the reason that everybody needs to start taking action and doing and doing something will never move away from not having some stranded assets that but actually, if you've if you're well on a journey to pivot what you do to an order that your reliance on that stranded asset has actually changed. and the value of that is no longer there. Because the demand for it isn't, but actually, you've created a new asset in what you do, or how you do something, I think is key. But yeah, it's a big, big, big topic.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:55

into just massive, I mean, some bolts involving from your car to the building that you live in, I live in an apartment building. And you know, when I think about the complexity of all of this change, I know it's not, it's not necessarily the most suitable of buildings. So what happens to this building in a few years, you know, these things do create a lot of anxiety, actually.

Mairead Taylor 16:15

Depending on where you're living. And now, you know, I was listening to a call yesterday where they said, Sicily we're recording heat up to 50 degrees, you think of all the natural hazards that can happen as a result of that. So it's, you know, North Africa, not it's not just in the Middle East. Now, it's spreading all over the world, that the physical risks, and the transition risks of climate change are huge, and both mitigating and adapting for those is what we all have to do. But we all can do something and that I had the benefit of going on a course with a bank at Edinborough University, and absolutely the best course. And I didn't really know anything before that. I still declare myself a real novice now. But actually, it's amazing. The different things that you can just do in your household, the different things of how you can do things at work. And if you're, you know, I will say to staff, you don't need your employer to be the one to lead you, you can lead your employer, if you're very good at what you do bring that to your workplace and demand, more demand better.

Getting it right, definitely attracts talent, it retains talent, benefits, both from a well being fulfilment, and from an economic viewpoint of you know, while absolutely proven so I think Yeah,

Katherine Ann Byam 17:44

I have another question, because we've talked a bit about the potential for there to be sort of penalties/taxes coming on stream for your carbon output. We've also talked about the sort of natural, intrinsic incentive for us to do something about the problem. But are there also some sort of positive incentives that are being put in place to encourage SMEs who are greener than others? Who aren't who are net positive? For example? Are there things that we're putting in place to sort of reinforce that as a behaviour?

Mairead Taylor 18:17

Absolutely, so I think there will be Why do I think there will be tax benefits and there'll be things that you know, outside of the bank, but I can talk about NatWest and I know that, you know, green mortgages we've had our green mortgage product is going really well. All those clients that have got the green mortgage, are benefiting from a lower lower rates because they're generating less carbon and recognised for that we've got green bonds, and both the issuer of the bond and the benefits of the bond are benefiting from that the proceeds are being used to support the Sustainable Development Goals.

We've got a green loan coming out later this year, which we specifically for SMEs, which will again, they'll benefit from reduced rates because proceeds have been used to reduce their carbon footprint there will be more it will continue to evolve with partnership with Octopus customers are benefiting from getting EV points and charging points in at a lower cost than it would normally cost. We've got an app we've just launched EV, eight switch thinking it just helps you monitor what you're using, when you will say your diesel car and to work out then how beneficial it would be to have an electric car. And so that you can actually see the financial and economic benefits to you over a period of time. And there's loads of different tools, some of the some are products, some are solutions, and some are just tools that will actually help make decisions and of course, as we all change our behaviours then the benefits and the costs of these things will will reduce and it will become easier for everyone to To make Yeah, make the biggest changes.

Katherine Ann Byam 20:02

Absolutely. So I'm going to change tack a little bit now because I don't usually get bankers to come onto my show. So I'm really curious about some other things. And the main one is around digital acceleration and the growth of sort of alternative currencies, etc. What further changes can we sort of expect in banking in light of the sort of modernisation of financial tech.

Mairead Taylor 20:28

A lot? succinctly, so I think technology will continue to evolve digital automation, the way that you make your ecommerce payments, how you use your bank and other financial institutions will continue to evolve and change in some respects to a way that we can't, you know, potentially picture at the moment. But I think what's really important is knowing, keeping the balance between technology, digital and automation, with relationships, I think that's the key to to lose sight of relationships, to not be their customers in their moments of truth, and have that ability to have face to face and be able to talk to somebody, you lose that at your peril. And I think so it's that happy ability to have multi channels for customers to choose how, when, and why they interact with you at different moments of time, it's banks using data to really make sure that we don't just generalise offers of support, but we actually really do make that fun, that personalization, so that anything that we are sharing is really relevant for you at that particular moment in time

So there's lots of great ways we can use technology and automation and AI to really transform a customer's experience and improve it, but balanced with human relationships. And that is important, our CEO calls it sort of marriage that both are really important. And knowing that as an example so I think I haven't suppose he's got the exact percentage, but our over 70s that used, our online app in the last 18 months was huge increase, and possibly some of them never would have done that. If we hadn't had the past 18 months that we've all experienced, a number of them wouldn't ever go back. And we'll continue to see demand and change as technology and how things become more simple and safe. You know, because you've always got that convenience versus privacy concern.

But I think the main thing is knowing that it's being able to offer all of the options, all of the solutions at the right time in the right place. I think, you know, if you take crypto currencies and think if they become regulated, then that will bring further changes in. And there's words in our language now that probably weren't there a few years ago, and there'll be words in our language in a few years time that aren't here now, that ongoing focus on what our customers want, what can we do to improve their experiences? And how can we add value? If there's a lot of services that we currently do that can be done differently without involving banks and other financial institutions? So what value are we going to add? How are we going to make a difference to create that value for our customers?

Katherine Ann Byam 23:31

Now, I'm totally with you on that. So I want to ask you one last question, which is, what are you telling your children

Mairead Taylor 23:38

My youngest is 22, nearly 23. And then I've got a 34 and a 30 year old and I've got three amazing grand daughters. So one of the things I did is that when I signed up to the cogo app, I obviously reduced as much carbon as I could in house. I'm still on a journey because Rome wasn't built in a day. But I've used Cogo app to help me do some positive offsetting through critical offsetters. And I've just used that and then you get a certificate. So I've put my granddaughter's names on, I've given it to them for birthdays and Christmases. And now they're young, but the idea is actually just that the eldest will be three in December, but they're always seen that it's something that's really important to me.

And interestingly, there's a couple of books out now that are really good that you can actually bring alive. So I'm learning all the time, you know, you've got a mixture of friendship groups and family and you talk to people and it's important not to lecture and it's taking people with you, but it is something that is very close to my heart and I am passionate about it. We put climate in all our money sense programmes, which we've been doing for over 30 years. As we've added time to modules, we bought into what's called our business builder, which is a free digital online for entrepreneurs. Anyone can sign up to it. That's all we've got a lot of Climate modules in it. So it's about education, keeping on the agenda, a customer and a banker, and neither might have the answer at the moment. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, or try to connect people to who can help. So

Katherine Ann Byam 25:15

Thank you so much for joining me, my readers and I think it's, it's a conversation that we're probably going to have again, there's going to be a lot coming out of cop 26. So I really look forward to continuing to engage with you. And thank you for joining us on the show.

Mairead Taylor 25:31

Oh, thank you very much for having us, Katherine. And as you say, I think the cop 26 it's the actions and what we do afterwards is going to be the real key. Thank you.

Katherine Ann Byam 25:41

Thank you so much. This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business group Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas long, the Eco business group club supports positive impacts. SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.

054 Go Big Or Go Home

About this Episode

Today's guest is Austin Kasso. He's originally from Oregon, and he moved to Indiana from New York after graduating high school in 2009. To pursue his passion for agriculture, with a vision set on revolutionising local food systems. Through his campaigns and contributions, he was named top 10 local food hero in the state of Indiana. In 2014. He created the first sustainable living group on Facebook, which has grown to be the most popular group on the subject with almost 100,000 members sustainable living was featured by Facebook and Austin was voted one of the top 50 sexiest environmentalists in 2021. Last year, he founded a new digital media platform exclusively for sustainability called stryver, which has already listed over 100 sustainable businesses in over 40 categories with a goal to populate the world's largest oil in one repository for green brands and campaigns. He believes in cultivating purposeful connections that empower people to shape a sustainable future.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Austin welcome, finally, to where ideas launch.

Austin Kasso 1:30

Thank you so much for inviting me to your show. I appreciate it.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:34

Yeah, it's been almost a year now that I've been in your community. And I first joined because I wanted to get the word out about what I was doing. But the community was was so active, it was so passionate, so convicted in what they were doing, and it was really impressive. It was already over 50,000 people at that time, and it's just been growing astronomically ever since I guess my first question is what really sparked your passion for sustainability? What got you into this?

Austin Kasso 1:59

I remember back in high school and around ninth or 10th grade, is when I started to really develop an understanding for what I wanted to pursue after high school I was already thinking about my future and what really what I wanted to contribute to society and it was based on just all what I was observing and what you know, I wanted to help alleviate poverty, I wanted to really support the pursuit for social and civil and environmental justice to but put it in a nutshell.

So you know, I've read a lot of books about a lot of different things from you know, philosophy to Buddhism to to economics, and even cognitive science. And so, you know, I've kind of developed a a worldly perspective as I was growing up, and then around that time in high school, I decided that I want to go to my cousin's farm in North Carolina, and experience what it was like to actually live and work on a homestead. I'd say that's what they had. I mean, they had 100 chickens, cows, they had a whole fish pond, they had goats fit, huge acre vegetable garden, you know, all sorts of vegetables, very bio diverse, I mean, they would unload the whole pickup truck first of manure, and we would shovel it we'd stand knee deep in the manure and shovel it into the garden and spread it around and I mean it was worked out from from morning to night and I you know, I grew up on Long Island, where I spent most of my time playing video games on the computer after school and then but it just wasn't you know, it was it was something that made me happy but it just wasn't totally fulfilling.

And what I discovered from working on the farm was that it was fulfilling in such a way that it changed my life in such a way that it actually when I came back, my grades improved radically. I went from being a cnd student to straight A student so and then it just continued on into college and that's when I had decided I was gonna move to Indiana to study agriculture and be more involved with urban farming. And I had such an energy and passion that ignited from that time that time in North Carolina that making headlines in Indiana right away just my second year of college I already had made the the college magazine

Katherine Ann Byam 4:33

Well it's it's an incredible story. I think I shared a little bit the snippet of that I used to be in the farm with my with my grandfather, and it's something that I took for granted because I was very young at the time. He had what I consider to be a huge forest. You know, when I think about it, no and I go back and visit home. No, it doesn't look as big as I remember. But he would spend his entire day there so he was already retired. He'd wake up in the morning very early at six am, he'd do his prayers, then he goes straight to the garden, you'd come up for lunch, then he finished off, and then he'd rest.

And that was the cycle every day, you know, this is part of the thing. And what was nice about it is that the neighbours would bring food as well. So they would always be this food swap going on, you know, if the neighbours were doing chickens or having some type of vegetable, and my grandfather was doing fruits and avocados and stuff like that, and it's really different the kind of the quality of the life that you live, when you have such a community when you have such a spirit. And you could never be like just quietly in your home and alone, where that's what I feel now that we sit quietly, no homes struggling all alone, in March 2020 year group was still at about 3000 people. What happened

Austin Kasso 5:46

in? Yeah, in 2020, it's, you know, I'd stagnated for years. Since I started in 2014. It was, I think it was more along the lines of 6000 people actually, in 2020. But either way, it had rapidly started growing to 20,000 people in just a couple months at the beginning of 2020. And I think mainly, it was due to the pandemic, I'm not sure it's just it seems that it correlated directly with that. And then, and then, you know, every time there was like, another, you know, climate event, you know, like a hurricane or snow storm, you know, like what happened in Texas, there's a huge correlation between what happened in Texas, and huge growth in our group at that time, as well. And then the recent hurricane, we also had a huge spurt that brought us from, you know, another 10,000 members, you know, in addition, so it seems to correlate a lot with existential crises.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:51

Yeah, definitely. And as sustainable intrapreneurs, you know, I know, we're all about sustainable living, but at the same time being an intrepid it, you have to have some sort of relationship with money as well. And we struggle with this. I think, in general, a lot of the sustainable businesses that I meet, struggle with converting their idea into something that sustains them. And it's not just about, you know, making the capitalist stream, it's about making a sustainable living, from what you're doing, what are your thoughts on how you can create more value and monetize value for your incredible community?

Austin Kasso 7:34

Yeah, so I think that was the one thing that I tried to avoid for the longest time, because it made me sort of uncomfortable, you know, I was very, I pursued the business of urban farming in Indiana, so I wasn't unfamiliar with business or pursuing a campaign or, you know, doing things for profit. But really, you know, it came to the group, I just, you know, I didn't think of it as a way to create a monetizing scheme, or, you know, I just didn't, you know, didn't really understand how I could use it in that way.

But I understood that the group itself was becoming more and more impactful, and I wanted to figure out a way to actually leverage the impact that we can make as a group. And that's what led me, you know, I was observing, you know, well, how, what is it about this group that I can actually, you know, serve people that's useful in a way that can also help build the momentum, and leverage or impact together, so it comes more so from that perspective of less, it's, it's more about the people than it is about the profit, and but you still have to make money to drive it forward. So that's, that's when I was starting to see that, you know, the most common thing in our group is that people are asking, Where is it all in one source for tangible products or crowdfunders, or, you know, blogs that I can find in support?

Because, you know, people are always saying that they're looking for looking on Google, and they're having no luck. And then they're also, you know, trying to understand, you know, what are people's, you know, what are people's businesses in the group that they can support, you know, they, you know, they want to, they're part of a bigger community, and they want to support smaller businesses, and, you know, sure they can, there's a way to do that on Amazon. But at the same time, a lot of people in our group are just not a fan of Amazon. And it's a growing trend that, you know, well, Amazon's just not the, you know, all in one answer.

So, and we're trying to come at this from a less bigger corporate agenda perspective. You know, it's, we're coming at this, you know, we're the smaller guys, we're the underdogs, so it's more meaningful to us and it allows us to also give back more so we have a niche market that we can really Focus on. And so that's where I got the idea to create strivers to collect submissions for businesses and then you know also to promote them in our group because that was also a big thing that people wanted to do was promote their business in our group, since it's so popular and it's such a niche market, it's there's a huge incentive there for sustainable brands, you know, to post their content,

Katherine Ann Byam 10:24

what has been some of the challenges in managing such a large community? Have you had any challenges?

Austin Kasso 10:29

Oh, yeah, from the very beginning, it wasn't so bad. But then as it grew rapidly, we had more and more people involved. And so we had more diverse views involved. And so there's a lot of clashing between different perspectives on what is considered to be sustainable. And I can understand that, you know, I'm sympathetic to everybody's cause, and, but I still want to create a space that was inclusive for everybody, and sort of that sometimes the aggression can turn a lot of people away.

So we had to really focus on moderating the group, you know, from a sensitivity, you know, enforcing our rules, which are, you know, respect everyone's views, and be kind and civil in your comments. And I had to develop a team, and our team is actually, you know, largely responsible for helping to maintain the positive environment that it is, and people are really appreciative of that. And, you know, it's something that also people say that they can't find another groups because, you know, they say, other groups, admins don't care as much about the conflict. And, you know, a little bit of controversy and such can can drive engagement, but you know, has to be respectable controversy.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:50

It's, it's an interesting one, it's something it's the one thing that kicks off in my group, my group is usually just really businesses trying to help each other. But then there are some times maybe just a few people who would come in and say, Well, you know, you can't call your business sustainable. If you haven't done everything, like don't call it sustainable, it's greenwashing. And in some way, I kind of empathise with that, like, I can identify with what they're saying, because we do call out the big corporations for their little slip ups.

So as we progress in our journey, you know, it's it is a journey, it's a journey at the end of the day, and none of us will be perfect. But at the same time, it seems to black and white. So this is some of the things that spark up definitely for people. And I think the other thing I would say, that I see in my community is a bit of, I would call it decision fatigue, and a bit of climate anxiety and decision fatigue, of always having to check everything, that everything, you can't find the right suppliers, you can't find the suppliers who are ethical enough? And how do you how do you sort of support that side of it? If it comes up?

Austin Kasso 12:58

Yeah, so you know, I think giving everybody an equal say, or an equal Avenue, it allows for just, you know, humanity to be the final Judge of what is sustainable. Because I mean, what is sustainable is just what's going to sustain, you know, and what's going to carry forward. So if it's, and there's a number of ways you can do that. So if people are learning, and I think the biggest thing about our group is that it exposes all those different perspectives and exposes, you know, the facts behind them the experiences, and it kind of helps people understand what, what the reality of sustainability is what that conversation looks like, on a more worldly basis.

And so, you know, as we're, you know, for instance, with our platform, and I have, you know, similarly multiple businesses who, you know, may look at each other differently, but they're all one where one way or the other, they're trying to pursue a positive impact and they're, what they're doing might not be 100% perfect compared to someone else. But, you know, if we all help support, and direct resources, and channel, you know, our support through, you know, these avenues to, you know, support all these businesses together, you know, on a platform like ours can help everyone else achieve their goals and strengthen their own sustainability goals.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:27

Absolutely. What's next for Striver? And how can others get involved with what you're doing?

Austin Kasso14:33

You know, there's a lot next for stryver I want to say but right now, you know, we have some exciting recent updates that you know, are soon to be published where, you know, members can now create single listings, and if they want to be discovered on our platform, but you know, they're they're not really ready to promote or they don't have a budget for marketing campaign, you know, they now have an opposite opportunity to create us. listing. And then later on, I don't know how soon we can achieve this, but it is the next stage of things is where we're going to create more interactive features for free members on our website to, for example, follow businesses on our platform and get notifications when they submit new content.

So it's kind of another way for people to get noticed on our platform and then we're going to continue to find more ways that we can create interactions on our website between members and businesses and create add, you know, avenues and opportunities for businesses to actually help improve their marketing campaigns, you know, through through our platform, you know, they can, we're looking at building in more services later on, like a more one on one consulting till very affordable. And the goal is to really just help small businesses improve their campaigns to get better results when you know, when they're promoting on our platform.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:58

That's great. I have one final question for you. Yeah. Are you fulfilled?

Austin Kasso 16:03

Absolutely. I am more than fulfilled. I'd like you know, I guess I'm so happy about this platform being successful. Because a year ago when I first started it, it was it was like a, an arts and crafts project, you know, where I was just, it felt like a scrapbook of things that I was trying to put together and I was just like, is really gonna work. But now it's like the concept of it. I just kept building at it and building at it, and it's finally shaped into something really, really fantastic.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:33

Congratulations and all your success. I'm really in awe of you and really admire what you're doing. And I wish you the best of luck as we continue on.

Austin Kasso 16:41

Well, thank you so much.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:45

This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business growth Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas launch, the Eco business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.

053 Uplevel Devils

About this Episode

Kate Davis is a leadership coach for business founders. She believes passionately that everyone should be able to do work that makes them happy, in an environment that makes them feel valued and heard. Happy people are motivated, energised, more efficient, and more profitable. Happy people make for better, more sustainable businesses. Kate is an ICF accredited and giant certified coach. She has 20+ years experience in growing, developing and mentoring teams in high pressure operational businesses. And as an experienced corporate Change Manager. Kate, welcome to where ideas lunch.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam

Kate, welcome to where ideas lunch.

Kate Davis 1:02

Thank you so much for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:04

It's such a pleasure to host you. So Kate, I'd like to start with how did you get into leadership coaching in the first place?

Kate Davis 1:12

So I'm going to give you the abridged version because it's a bit of a long story. Apparently everybody has at least three careers in them. And I'm definitely like that cat. I'm on my ninth life, I think. So I started out as a solicitor I worked in the city and property litigation, I hated it. I love working with people. I hated being the bad guy. I hated working with people when they didn't want this thing to be happening to them. They didn't want to be changing, they didn't want to change. And so I rebelled.

I worked in live events management for nearly 20 years. I was the director of operations. And I loved being able to work in environments with people, where the idea was to actually go out there to inspire, innovate, amaze and, wow, people. And seeing teams that were under enormous pressure, a lot of the time event management, one of the most stressful jobs along with being an ambulance driver, But because people loved what they did, and because they were, they were energised and motivated by what they did. Then it was very easy to put teams together and keep them motivated, then I had two wonderful children and flying off all over the place wasn't wasn't sustainable with mum-life. So I moved into transformational change management and business architecture, again, helping people to navigate change, helping people to understand themselves and the processes that they work under better.

But I came to the conclusion that I'm not very good at working for anybody else. And I wanted to really develop this side of the mentoring and the coaching. So hence where I am now. And having seen leadership at its best and its worst over the last 30 years, it's really important for me to be able to develop people into being great leaders. So you know, as you said in the intro, enabling leaders to create environments where people feel valued and heard, and that their work is important, is really important to me.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:13

I hear that. What do you see as the biggest challenges for startups today, when it comes to moving from early stage to maturity, so I'm talking about, stepping into the shoes of the CEO,

Kate Davis 3:25

The challenges that are normally brought to people are obviously heightened at the moment, because hopefully post coming out post pandemic, the same problems are still there, but they're just, you know, the data has been turned up. So in terms of competition, especially with business founders, there are an awful lot of people who started their own business over the last couple of years. And you know, the online space is a very noisy place. There. Obviously, the global challenges, pandemics, Brexit, climate change, you know, all of those different global issues, national and global, global issues. But I also see in all of this and trying to grow a business, especially one that has grown well, where I can see people struggling is where their businesses almost outgrown them, and they're finding themselves overwhelmed. They want to be a good leader, they want to be able to grow their business, they want to be the boss that they never had, perhaps, but they find it very overwhelming. And that's where I think people like you and I are best able to step in and say, right, let's take a breath. Let's see what's important. Let's see, do we need to move things around? But also understanding that idea of self leadership and self management, so that you can be the leader that you need to be as well as the needs of everybody else needs you to be? And I'm always going to go back to how to fix it by being clear about your mission and your vision. You know, you and I are big Simon Sinek fans, understanding why you do what you do, keeping that at the core of everything you do and how you're doing what you do around that, but really staying true to the mission. And the vision, the purpose behind your businesses is definitely the way to help people to move from startup to CEO, should we say,

Katherine Ann Byam 5:09

Yeah, my podcast addresses sustainable businesses. And I think that we have an additional challenge to the normal business. And I say this in quotations, because we have three bottom lines to take care of. So we constantly have to be thinking about what we are doing to take care of the business and the people in it. So making sure that it's sustainable for us, making sure that we're relevant to the people around us in our communities, and making sure that we're fit for the planet? And what are your thoughts on ways that sustainable businesses can sort of enhance their reach and impact while balancing the sort of three things that they're juggling? It's a complicated question, I guess, but

Kate Davis 5:57

Well, it's, it's not a complicated question, your questions, there are many possible answers. I think in terms of trying to elevate your reach on your impact. Networking is incredibly important in business anyway. But I think it's even more important when you have when you are able to find people or other businesses who share common values, being able to network so that you can actually help it to support one another, you can collaborate together, that actually anything where we are effectively fighting against a common enemy at you know, we're trying to educate and, and inform, we're trying to spread that, that that wider message, whilst also running, running a business that supports that having people around you who who get that and where you can help them. And they can help you as I say, collaborations, or whether it's simply another, you know, another sounding board to go, you know, am I on the right track, am I banging my head against a brick wall, that's really important from from the business perspective, but also the business owners perspective, because it can feel very lonely doing it on your own.

The other really important thing is to get really clear on your message, being able to translate something that you feel really passionately about into language that the people you're trying to impact will understand, being able to have that, that that line of communication, where, you know, you may be talking about concepts they don't understand, but you really want them to be able to understand and you need them to buy into that message, getting that line of communication and getting that message really clear, I think is paramount

And get used to banging that drum, you know, the online and even bricks and mortar business everywhere is very busy. And we often think well, I can't keep talking about that same thing again, surely everybody's bored. No, most people are not hearing things. You know, how many times have we said that in terms of social media posts, how many times you have to post for somebody to actually be able to see it get used to banging the drum get used to keep saying the same message over and over again, you may be bored hearing yourself, but other people need to hear what you have to say.

Yeah, and I think that the same that I would say with any business customer service, making sure that the customers that you that you're bringing in feel in the same way that I'd like your employees to fill this out in the same way of being feeling valued and heard and that they understand you and you understand them. If you are delivering exceptional customer service, they will bang your drum for you, they will help to spread your message, they will help to elevate your impact.

Katherine Ann Byam 8:28

What are your top tips for growing and shaping great teams?

Kate Davis 8:32

That's a good one. Um, I think first of all, I'm going to get back to mission and mission and purpose. If your values and your mission are clear, and people are on board with that, then you are a long way down the line to building a great team. If you're operating in different directions, it doesn't matter how good everybody is at their job, if everybody is working towards the same aim that's really important. And being able to paint that picture for people. You know, as I was saying before, getting really clear on your message outwardly, it's just as important to have that message clear inward as well.

And then get really clear on what you need. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We all have natural talents and the things that are learned behaviours that do not sit very well with us. And that's absolutely fine. really understanding where you have gaps. I, for example, are not very good at being in the here and now. Give me a spreadsheet with lots of data on it and I'm really falling asleep but I know it's important so I know I need somebody on my team you can do that. Whilst I go, hey, let's go and create some stuff. Understanding where your skills and talents are, where other people's skills and talents are and so so that you're matching each other's gaps so that you've got a really strong foundation on which to build.

And being able to communicate properly with them. If you're bringing different people who have different skills and qualifications, different natural talents, they will communicate in different ways to you. Understanding yourself and how you communicate what it's like to be on the other side of you is really important. So that you can communicate properly making people feel, as I say, valued and heard, and people will therefore be able to work better with you, and be able to pull better together to be able to form a great team and a great business.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:21

Yeah, absolutely. great tips. What are the mindset shifts that a new leader of teams needs to make in order to make that transition? And that leap? Let's call it the up-level?

Kate Davis 10:33

A really good question. And again, I could go on forever, but I'm not going to, I think the key thing is, it is about self-leadership is understanding yourself, being able to see how you are as I was just saying about being able to hear what other people hear from you, being able to check in with yourself, seeing your limits, but just seeing them as not as you know, I'm failing at this. But actually, okay, that's something I need to work on. Or that's something that I'm never going to be great at, can I get somebody else to come in to support me in that area,

Understanding that you are actually a piece in the puzzle rather than it being all on you owning those feelings as well, allowing yourself to say, you know what, I've got a bit of imposter syndrome here, I can't believe I'm in this situation. And these people are now listening to me and, and looking to me for answers, call yourself up on things. Don't call yourself out. This isn't it isn't a blame thing. But call yourself up on things and recognise things, own that reaction, own the way that you're behaving. And therefore, you'll know how to respond, bringing the support in when you need to.

And making sure that you're looking at after your mental and physical health, you will be going through all sorts of changes, you'll be working hours or working in different ways that you're not expecting to making sure that you those old adages about how you can't pour from an empty cup, empty jug, and all those things are more or more important than ever, making sure that you are fit and healthy mind and body is really important to be able to lead people because they need you to be helpful and healthy,

Katherine Ann Byam 12:04

Absolutely could not agree more. What role would you hire first?

Kate Davis 12:08

Oh, that's a really good one that depends on what you need.

So you need to do that skills gap, you need to work out where your skills and strengths are.

And where you know that you're not very good at. So say, Don't ask me to look at numbers because I can't do them. And I'm totally cool with that. The first person that I would always bring in is somebody who's comfortable with the numbers because I'm not, you need to do that skills analysis, which sounds very formal, but it's basically what am I not very good at? But what do I know I need? That's where I would go first?

Katherine Ann Byam 12:43

Yeah. What about the things that you can't outsource?

Kate Davis 12:47

What are your thoughts on what those are the things that you can't outsource? I would always say, just go easy on yourself. If you know that you need to do them and you know that they're not within your zone of genius. You know, they're YouTube has an answer for everything Google has an answer for you know that there aren't the answers out there. Take it easy on yourself. If you're learning something that is not something that is in you know, within your within your natural talents, but you know, you need to do it. Just be kind to yourself, because you'll do it, you'll manage to do it. But you'll it'll take you twice as long as if you're telling yourself off about it as well.

Kate Davis 13:21

Absolutely. Kate, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your advice with us. And thanks for joining the show.

Unknown Speaker 13:29

Thanks so much. It's been lovely to talk to you.

Kate Davis 13:33

052 Becoming The CEO

About this Episode

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Becoming the CEO.

It really fascinates me how much reference we place in titles, it seems they are woven into the fabric of the story, we tell ourselves every day about our accomplishments, or what is what we're entitled to. But the titles truly serve us, or more importantly, help us to become better servant leaders?

This is the question that I put to myself today on this episode. Servant leadership came into my vernacular in 2016. When I returned to regular work, after my sabbatical year, it was all the rage, and certainly everyone talked about it. But quickly, it was clear that too many artefacts to an old world existed in our structures, which made servant leadership hard to digest.

For example, the parking privilege of the heads of function, or the titles that they have stored, or the frameworks that we had for decision making. Most of the artefacts supported a pre-existing world, as much as we tried to become better servant leaders to our teams. When I started my business, I immediately promoted myself to the CEO, I was the only employee on record. But I immediately wanted to step up into my role of shaping the business in the likeness of a strong and connected thought leader. I'll tell you what, though, the trouble is that although it's not impossible, it's very, very difficult to step into a true place of leadership, when you are also the lady simultaneously driving the bus, handing out the flyers, serving the drinks, checking the tab, and trying to figure out the best way to minimise waste, recycle, or build a circular business model from your business. There's a lot that we have to digest and figure out when we're leading businesses that offer a modern age, when you're trying to operate within the heart of the doughnut, or let's say the green ring of the donut that keeps rearward speaks about in her work on donut economics, you have a lot to consider beyond just the team, the business fundamentals, but you also have to consider your impact. And the doughnut philosophy is, is pretty much this, that there's a sort of social foundation that we can't drop beneath. So we can't get into the hole of the middle of the doughnut, because that's where the social foundation doesn't exist. They're basic necessities that don't exist for some people. And then we have an ecological ceiling, a boundary to the donut that we kind of go beyond. So this is where you have climate change, ozone layer depletion, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrogen, freshwater withdrawals, land conversion, biodiversity loss, and air pollution, among other things. So the idea when you're designing your business is to design to stay within this lovely green band, which is considered the social ingest space for humanity. But taking that on as a single intrapreneur, trying to create that framework while trying to save yourself. So often pretty difficult, right. And the essential thing that we need to do first is make sure that our business stands on good foundation of itself, almost before we can pull anyone else from outside of that ring. Or we can design our business models to simultaneously pull ourselves and others out of the middle of that circle. So this is a lot to think about. And definitely it's a challenge for many of us building our businesses today. The CEO mindset therefore starts with building a great support team. And nowadays I'm calling it a hybrid team, with people automation and great slick systems, as well as building a fit for purpose business model. Now, when you're building a team, it seems scary at first. What if I have a poor month and then another poor month? What responsibility Am I taking for someone else's income? If you're thinking like that, this is a good thing. It means you understand the stakes, it means you understand what it means to be inside that circle. But the B track to that soundtrack in your head is how do you hire so that the additional headcount that you bring in so the people you decide to lift up or expense that you take on unlocks more capacity to expand the reach of your business? If you're a solopreneur, your first hire can be among perhaps three key roles, or possibly all of them, if you are able to afford it. So the first is an operations expert to help you set up the right automated and technical solutions in your business. If these are not already in place, then you have virtual assistant, so someone to help manage your time and your diary. And then you can choose from another three sets. Depending on your ability to afford them, perhaps you can do all of them, or perhaps just one. But the three that I'm talking about are a social media manager, who takes the load off the organic lead generation and your business, an ads manager if you prefer to use ads, rather than organic traction. And that person can also take some weight off the lead generation activity, or a PR manager or a team who writes content for you to be featured in press and other media. So all of these are all of these activities are needed to help grow and scale your business. It's up to you to decide what balance you want to inject into your team, and what fits with your business best, what fits the interest and the need and the design of your business model best as well. Other hires would considering an associate or an understudy, who can start delivering some of the more routine aspects of what you do. And this can potentially overlap with your operations manager depending on the skills required. You may also want to consider an accountant. That's a hugely for many business owners, knowing that someone competent is looking after their books, and preparing financial statements, things that you're going to rely on in your business. You can also think about a business development manager to look at bigger contracts, collaborations and partnerships going out there to strategically make connections for you and your business. If you're scaling, you need to be mindful of the bandwidth you have for your business. And as such, you may need to look at your service model. For example, perhaps you might need to add more group services rather than one to one services. Or you need to bring up that team of understudies to be able to provide some of that one to one basis so that you only provide the absolute bit that you need to provide it giving some of the more routine aspects to that understudy.

Price also becomes a consideration if you only have so much capacity to scale your service in terms of hours. But most of all, as you scale, you need to consider that your impact is becoming more we talk about growth. And we know that cannot be infinite growth in a finite world. However, when we talk about growth, sustainable businesses, we're really talking about untapped capacity, untapped demand, we're also talking about sort of head on competition with businesses that are operating in a less sustainable way. So in a way, your untapped demand is a latent demand in the market for things that are more sustainable. So if people find things that are more sustainable, they're going to reallocate funds, and allocate them to your product. There is some competition, there is some head on competition that you will be taking on in order to grow. And you need to be aware of that too. That part of your game is going to be competing with businesses that haven't made the transition that haven't made the commitment to lifting people to the right place and to and supporting initiatives for the planet. As you scale and grow your impact. Your advocacy work becomes even more important. The funds you can contribute to helping people escape, the doughnut expands and management of that impact becomes even more important ensuring it's reaching the right people, the contributions you were making to reduce your impact on the outer limits of the doughnut also become more important. And ensuring your growth is neutral or positive for the planet will be essential. In the next episode, we go into the mindset of becoming the leader of your business, and some of the things that can derail you. Before we close However, there are two more important things that we do need to cover when you're building out your scale and your business to grow for the future. And they are legal, and HR. Please don't underestimate the importance of having good legal contracts in place for looking at the right ways to put those contracts in place so that they are fair to both parties. And also looking at the employment law as the employment rules, especially as we move towards more remote working more flexible working employees living in different countries and different jurisdictions from where your business is based. So you do need to get expert support to do those kinds of roles. But the good news is you don't have to hire them full time anymore. So tune in to the next episode to understand the kind of leader you need to become in order to really be able to deliver On these goals that you've set yourself, I'm looking forward to supporting you through this in the next episode with my guest. See you soon. This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business growth Club by Katherine Ann Byam. And by the space where ideas launch. The eco-business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.