070 Growing a Successful ESG Consulting Practice

070 Growing a Successful ESG Consulting Practice

About this Episode

Heather Burns is an independent ESG and sustainability consultant who for the past 15 years has helped global companies and NGOs find ways to improve and report on their social, environmental, and corporate governance performance. She has also helped to develop global ESG certifications and standards, and is the founder of a nonprofit business association focused on scaling business solutions to climate change. Her work in sustainable development (an initiative called Haiti Onward) was recognized as a semi-finalist in the 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.  

 Her interest in sustainability was sparked in 1998 while traveling and working as a Divemaster on a small island in Thailand, where the waters she dived every day were in rapid decline due to two local economies (tourism and fishing) battling over the same fragile ecosystem. Working with local residents, dive shop owners, and local fishermen, she and other divers formed an island conservation organization still in operation today.

 Her latest adventure involves teaching consultants of all types how to start and grow a successful ESG Consulting practice.

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Episode Transcript

Heather, welcome to Where Ideas Launch!

Heather Burns  1:29  

Thank you, Katherine. I'm so happy to be here. I love your podcast.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:33  

Thank you so much for joining us and for shedding some light on this whole idea of ESG. And I think that's going to be my first question to you, actually. I talk about it at times, but I think that not everyone understands what ESG is. Why don't you share with us what exactly this means and where came from?

Heather Burns  1:51  

Yeah, so I think I love a good definition. And it's really important, particularly in sustainability, because there are so many of them flying around. So ESG is the practice of measuring, monitoring and reporting on environmental, social and governance performance. So the environment can include operational impacts, like wastewater energy, or those related to climate change, such as carbon emissions. And then social impacts can include how a company treats its employees, how it engages with the communities in which it operates and whether or not it prioritises diversity, equity and inclusion. And then governance addresses decision making and transparency and the distribution of rights and responsibilities. But it's important to keep in mind that the goal of ESG is actually sustainability, which is defined as our ability to meet the demands of the present without jeopardising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Katherine Ann Byam  2:52  

How do you think we're doing?

Heather Burns  2:55  

Well, we could always be doing better. You know, I definitely think we could be doing better. But I think that and as I'll get into a little bit later, it really has reached the tipping point that many of us have been hoping for for the last decade, and has hit the mainstream. So I think we're on a good trajectory.

Katherine Ann Byam  3:15  

That's a good answer. I want to get back a bit and talk about how you came to this in the first place. Because when I meet consultants now in the space; Environmental Consultants who've been around, or that's what it was called in the old days, environmental consultancy. How did you come to this? And where did you come from to bring those skills to this space?

Heather Burns  3:35  

Have you ever watched a movie that changed your life? Yeah, right? And so that's happened to me twice. And the first time and both are related. The first time was back in the late 90s. And I was feeling a little bit lost, you know, all my friends are settling down, getting married, doing that whole, you know, kid thing. And I was like, still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. And I remember watching Seven Years in Tibet, and I was just so enthralled by the idea of getting out of the United States, and seeing the world. So I sold or gave away all my stuff. I bought a one way ticket and I spent the next three years living and working in Asia. And while I was there, I lived on this tiny island in Thailand called Koh Tao and I became a scuba dive master and I was diving the same waters every day for hundreds of dives. And I really witnessed human impacts causing the coral reef to die. And when I stopped to think about it, I realised that it was because commercial fishing and tourism, you know, two main economies of this community were at odds over the same ecosystem, and that really sort of planted a seed. So fast forward. 

A handful of years later, I'm back in the United States, and I'm doing that whole thing of getting married and having kids and I sit down to watch Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth which is a doctor's memory about climate change, as you probably know. And what I learned watching that movie really became the sort of before and after period in my life, right? It was like before I knew about climate change, and after I learned about climate change, and let me tell you, it's not an easy movie to watch. And I almost turned it off. But there's this part, you know, where he looks at the audience, you know, and he's looking you dead in the eye. And he's like, before you jump from denial to despair, like, stop in the middle and do something. And I was like, Okay, I'm going to figure this out. 

So at first, I thought about going to work for an NGO, like Greenpeace for Sierra Club, because they were doing really cool things. But that seed that has been planted back in Thailand, around economies, you know, really kind of needle me and it told me that working with business was one of the things that not a lot of people were doing at the time. And perhaps it was actually one thing that can have a great impact. You know, the problem was that the industry at that point was incredibly nascent. And everyone was like, still trying to figure out what sustainability and ESG actually even were. 

So I started with what I knew how to do, which was research and right. And so shortly after watching the movie, I created this blog called CT Green Scene, which was basically like a round up of all things green and environmental that were happening in my state, and I focused as much as I could on business and entrepreneurs. And, you know, I learned as much as I could from watching companies like Seventh generation and Patagonia and seeing what they were doing. And after a few months, I started hosting these networking events, which took off because we were, we ended up in the New York Times, somehow, I don't know. I don't know who called them, it was not me. But before I knew it, like companies were asking me to consult them back then it was called going green. So, you know, getting my first paying client, of course, is a bit more of a story. Because it's always easy to do free work as a consultant. But eventually, I think, yeah, it was a colleague who told me about an association that her company or company was a member in, and they ended up hiring me to write a sustainability report. Well, of course, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And it was definitely like flying a plane by Well, you know, trying to build it. But they renewed for a second term of the contract. So I couldn't have done such a bad job. And that was kind of how I got started.

Katherine Ann Byam  7:31  

That's an incredible story. And I think that a lot of us think like this. So we have this, this moment where things become clearer, like my clarity moment was actually reading a book called Jugaad Innovation to get innovation stories of India and how they innovate solutions from cheap from from the natural environment to make things work, like building incubators for kids, or building fridges so that they can keep their food fresher for longer from clean water and stuff like this. And there's always a moment when there's cognition, you know, something sparks, something opens up. And then the next question is, how do you do something? It's, it's kind of like, you know, you listen to the knees and something happens, and you're like, how do I get involved? How do I participate? How do I make an impact? And I think what's great about your story is that you didn't come from a traditional environmental background, if you want to talk a little bit about the kind of skills you brought to the table, and you started.

Heather Burns  8:29  

So at the time, I was working in the publishing industry, I was working as an editor and a freelance writer. So my skills were basically you know, revolved around research and interviewing questions, asking really good questions, thinking deeply about a topic and kind of being able to peel away the layers to get to what's really going on behind that I think was sort of, and then being able to communicate in a compelling, you know, way that made people want to get involved. I think those were sort of the core skills that I started with. And I'd add to that of deep interest and passion for learning, and really just wanting to, you know, expand my skill set.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:17  

That's really interesting. And I want to take us a little bit now to what are some of the shifts that you've seen happen in your tenure in this space? So you've kind of been doing this work now for more than 10 years? What sort of shifts have happened? And how do you sort of compare this to what's happening right now? And what's really made the big difference in your view?

Heather Burns  9:42  

Yeah, so I think there have been two significant shifts that have shaped the industry and created what is now this unprecedented demand for ESG and sustainability consulting services. And the first was the shift from thinking about everything In terms of green, right, which really means all things environmental, to the idea that people, planet and profit, which was referred to as the triple bottom line, are actually connected. And that really led to this idea that sustainability is the goal, and that you have to have those three pieces in order to achieve true sustainability and business. So that was the shift that was really the precursor to ESG. And to companies understanding, you know, this idea that triple bottom line meant that they could actually, you know, prosper as a company. So around that same time, seventh generation, which makes non toxic consumer products was acquired by Unilever for $700 million.

Heather Burns  10:53  

And that was like that made people kind of pause like, whoa, Unilever's interested in a company like that, because until that point, those types of companies have really been in this very specialty type of market, right. And of course today, Unilever's sustainable living brands has a 50% faster growth than the rest of their portfolio. So certainly proven now. 

But the second trend is more recent. And this is that critical move from, you know, the sidelines to mainstream. And people ask me all the time, you know, how do you know that this is shifted to the mainstream when so many companies are still oblivious, or in denial or whatever it is? And you know, how do we know that things won't just go back to business as usual, when there's a next change in government leadership or something. And I tell them that, you know, it's because it's at this point, it's coming from all directions, and every stakeholder group, right? So it really started with this consumer demand, there was the emergence of what was called a low hos sector, which was lifestyles of health and sustainability. And these were folks that were, you know, vocal about the fact that they were willing to pay more for environmentally or sustainable products environmentally friendly. And today course that Mark is on track to hit 150 billion in the US alone, and 90% of millennials are willing to 90% of millennials are willing to pay more for products that are environmentally friendly, or sustainable. So those people actually happen to work, right, they have jobs, so their employees.

 So then you have this shift into the employee stakeholder group, where you've got 80% of millennials wanting to work for a company that's strong on ESG. So companies obviously want top talent. And their top talent is telling them this is what we're looking for. So they're getting it now from employees, and then you layer on the supply chain. And you've got all these disruptions that are, you know, started off kind of in the fashion industry and saw a lot of terrible fires in Bangladesh, and people died. And, you know, this led to really like, you know, this outcry around the supply chain, right. And now you've got COVID and a pandemic, which just elevated everything and really put a microscope on and the fact that our supply chains are completely broken. 

So all of this uncertainty is really seen as risk, particularly when you're looking at it from the perspective of investors. So, you know, last but certainly not least, are a stakeholder group of investors. Right? And so, last year, in his annual letter to CEOs, Larry Fink, who's the CEO of Blackrock, which is an investment firm with over $9 trillion of assets under their management, proclaimed CEOs, right, that climate risk is investment risk, and that companies need to get serious about it. Well, everyone thought, well, that's really interesting, right? Well, and then the pandemic hit, and they thought, ah, that is just, you know, that will kind of fizzle. Well, instead, it didn't fizzle. In fact, it took hold. And then in his next year, which was this year, a letter to CEOs, not only did he reiterate that, but he basically said that companies that are not Net Zero, by 2050, are going to be, you know, ops become obsolete. So this is really now sending complete shockwaves through the global markets. And not to mention, it's led to companies like Amazon and Unilever and Microsoft are now making these netzero claims. And they can't get there without their suppliers because 80% of a company's greenhouse gas emissions is actually embedded in their supply chain. So now you've finally got this pressure that's being put on more of the midsize companies and so that's why I say it's here to stay

Katherine Ann Byam  15:00  

Yeah, no, I totally hear you with that. And I want to slightly shift and challenge you a little bit. And it is, is ESG the same as CSR? And therefore, is it just another form of greenwashing. Now, I think I understand a bit more about it than that. But for my listeners, they want you to debunk this idea that the ESG sort of framework is not just another effort of companies to cleanse their past?

Heather Burns  15:31  

It's a fantastic question. And, you know, I'd say that the answer is quite complicated, really. And there are certainly experts out there who I respect, and who are actually very vocal right now and criticising ESG. And they're not wrong. But my pushback really is always that we need to do what we can when we can. And, you know, I will directly address that in just a minute. But I think, you know, everything about this industry is evolving. And we really need to evolve very, very quickly. And we need to keep that in mind. Companies are not designed to be able to evolve quickly. They're designed to get really good at their core deliverables and what they do and what they provide, right. And so, change is difficult, even on the individual level, you try to take that to the whole corporate culture level, and you're talking about it, it's going to take some time. 

So that's certainly not an excuse, by any stretch of the imagination for companies to take advantage of that. And I think what I really do like about ESG, is that it is, you know, what is measured gets managed, and along with ESG, is this component of reporting, and becoming very transparent, and publicly open about whatever your environmental, social and governance performance is. And then setting goals that you're comfortable with. And this is usually where the most criticism comes in is, you know, companies are setting goals that they're comfortable with. They're not necessarily setting goals that place planetary benefit at the core of that goal, or even what's called, you know, planetary context. So for example, you know, if a company makes a commitment to reduce its water usage by 10%, over the course of whatever, that could sound like a great or 20, even 20, or 50%, whatever that number is, because it sounds like an amazing number. 

But then if you really look at that particular company, you have to look at what watershed is it actually in? And what does that watershed require? Not the company what, but what does that actual watershed require to become more sustainable? So there's certainly some weak spots. And then as far as greenwashing goes, I mean, it's always a risk, and it and it will continue to be a risk. But I think that this idea that transparency, and supporting and backing up with data is becoming much, much more than expected, right, it's expected from investors. I mean, you can't really pull the wool over an investor size. I mean, if you do, there's serious consequences to that, you know, you're gonna be held to a much higher level of accountability around investors than you are consumers, unfortunately. But that's kind of just the truth. So I think that this idea that this newest kind of wave of investor involvement is, is critical to stem the spread of greenwashing.

Katherine Ann Byam  18:51  

Yeah, I, I really get this. And I think there's a lot of pushback also on how companies are solving the problems. So things like, you know, should we be doing offsets? Or should we be really innovating from within? Should we really be getting all the things out? And I think you've kind of answered that already, in terms of how difficult it is to make change happen. And we actually need the companies that are dedicated to the offsetting to kind of get something for their effort, right. So companies that are trying to build solutions that are specific to that, you know, you kind of want to support those even if they are interim solutions, but we need every solution. Right. But I don't know if you have a different thought than that.

Heather Burns  19:32  

No, I agree with that. 100%. We need our solution. And new solutions will also come online, right? I mean, we're not thank goodness, we're not operating in a bubble. And now the companies see a very strong business case for incorporating these things. I think that's going to lead to more R & D than it already is. It's leading to more R & D, more investments and more innovation, innovative solutions for the marketplace. So we'll continue to see more of those as we go along.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:07  

That's interesting. I want to tap into that, because what do you anticipate as the sort of future of the next five years of this ESG framework, etc. Because, for me, what I'd probably like to see is that it really becomes more integrated and embedded in everything in all the reporting that we do in everything that comes out of a company. But what are your thoughts on where you see this going in the next five years? Well, it's

Heather Burns  20:32  

definitely going to become more integrated. And I think that certainly has pros and cons to it. And the way that we get there is a little bit concerning because there's not a lot of standardisation, particularly when you're talking about, you know, consulting, and providing advice in this space. And in some ways, that's a good thing. Because I truly believe that there's a place for every single consultant who wants to get involved in this can have a positive impact doing so. But at the same time, there's very little, you know, academic programmes that are sort of all over the map, in terms of what they cover. Most of them are highly theoretical and methodology based or not practice based. So it's really a nascent industry sector that needs more. Yeah, more, you know, consistency across the board. But sort of from an industry wide perspective, I think one of the things that I see that's kind of exciting, actually, on the horizon is this idea of carbon pricing. And, you know, there are lots of different models out there and each other has pros and cons for sure, as far as climate change goes, but putting a price on carbon will really help us to realise the true cost of our emissions. And so for too long, you know, companies have externalised environmental costs, and basically borrowed from our future and future generations, to keep prices as low as possible for Chris consumers, you know, and we, as consumers have benefitted from that, so there's sort of no innocent bystanders here. But what's interesting is that many companies actually see carbon pricing as a necessary shift that they need to make to get to a carbon neutral economy. And many of them are already using an internal price on carbon to make really important business decisions. So yeah, I think, I think that's really exciting in terms of like, getting everyone on the same page, and starting to really understand the cost of the things that we use,

Katherine Ann Byam  23:03  

So true. And I also think that, you know, it's like your analogy about borrowing from the future, like, one of my guests once said, and I always remember it, that we have that we have this inheritance, right? It's like your great grandfather's left your big, big inheritance, and we decided to do it on the first party, right? Instead of sort of leaving it for What's tomorrow. And, and essentially, that's, that's where we're at in it's like, you know, what we see going on with Russia and Ukraine and all the situations that we have going on in the world at the moment, a lot of it is a land grab for resources, right? That's a land grab for things that are scarce. And I can't see that changing until we change until we start thinking about things differently. So it seems, and I don't want to see anything as inevitable because that's scary language. But if we don't, if we don't embrace this, we will have other consequences that we will need to embrace. So we need to, I really think we should choose the lesser of the evils. I don't know if it's,

Heather Burns  24:10  

yeah, I mean, Change is inevitable, and adaptation is necessary at this point, you know, and, and the science is evolving, right. So as we learn more about the impacts and the CO impacts, and the long tail impacts, you know, I mean, the things that we're missing today are not what we're experiencing today, right? It's what our kids will experience. So it's, this is a long game. And I think that's another sort of mindset shift that's necessary if we're so instant gratification, you know, programmed and we've really have to start to think more in seven generations, right? Like think about those seven generations. Yeah, I think that's an important mindset shift to have for sure.

Katherine Ann Byam  25:05  

I want to ask a few questions now for the people who are listening to this who may be interested in dipping into consulting in this space. And I know that many of my younger listeners, people in that sort of millennials, slash Gen Gen Z categories, are really thinking about what they can do to make an impact, and what advice would you give them?

Heather Burns  25:28  

Well, it's a super exciting time. And I said it before, but I'm gonna say it again, I honestly believe that there's a place for everyone. And it really is a blue ocean opportunity for consultants who want to help or people who want to help companies prepare for what's ahead and become a part of the solution. So I certainly think that that's, you know, the time is now if you've been thinking about it, like, dive in. Because when you think about it, and everything we've talked about today, right, there's just enormous, the floodgates have opened. And I actually have friends who own a company that helps pair companies looking for consultants and ESG consultants, and there's just such overwhelming demand, even the consultants, these firms that are out there that are doing this kind of work, they don't have enough people. So there's just this unprecedented demand. 

And I think that's first, the second thing is that there really is this myth, and it's starting to weaken, but it's still really very much there. And that is that, you know, you have to be science oriented or tech, not, you know, very technical in your expertise. But that's really not true. I mean, like you said earlier, I did not come from, you know, in a traditional environmental background, many of us don't. And in fact, companies certainly are utilising, you know, subject matter experts and technical experts for their, you know, their footprinting, or their life cycle analysis. But they also really need more of the overarching consultants who can help them navigate all of this change that's required to embed a strategy, you know, create a strategy and embed it, and then communicate it. And so you know, as for more specific skills, and experience, I think there's probably like three things to keep in mind. 

The first is that surveys have shown that the most sought after criteria that companies are looking for when they're hiring people, is that they have industry specific experience. So if you can find a way to start, within an industry that you already have experience in, you're definitely going to have a leg up. 

The second is that strong communication skills are very important, right. So the ability to make a compelling case for change. Whether that's through written internal kind of communications, or external branding, kind of communications, or verbal presentations, its communications is definitely something that everyone involved in ESG. And sustainability really needs to be good at. Because you're trying to get a lot of different people onto the same page and rowing in the same direction. So I'd also say, really close to that is that there's relationship building. And, you know, companies are really often very nervous about like, you know, pulling back the curtain, and, you know, they fear judgement. And let's face it, no company is doing everything. 100%, right. And lots of them have been contributors to the problem. But it's a learning curve. And so the ability to create trust and relationships and rapport with companies, I think is really important. 

And then third is kind of like a bonus, I'd call it and it's maybe a bit more of like a superpower. But it can certainly be learned. And that is whole system's thinking. So I really like the ability to draw connections to sustainability from all sorts of angles. And this helps you not only come up with innovative solutions for your clients, but it also makes it easier to see, kind of down the road, what's coming next in the industry. And that is something that companies will definitely like to pay a premium for.

Katherine Ann Byam  29:49  

That's really great and a slightly different tack on this question. And it's something that I've been kind of receiving and I want to validate if it's actually true, but I think this is probably The first corporate role maybe other than HR, that could be female? What are your thoughts on that?

Heather Burns  30:06  

Well, I think certainly there is a shift. However, you know, if you're looking at business and industry, I mean, it's predominantly male. Right? So I mean, we have that. But I think as far as the potential, it's, it's certainly there. And I would, I would definitely say that it's gotten better or a little bit easier to be female led, because, you know, in the early days, the denial was just so like, in your face, and I mean, I've had men really kind of get in my face about it, you know, back in the 2000 10s, kind of, you know, looking at me and like, Yeah, this is never going to be a thing. Like, we, you know, what are you even doing? This is just not even gonna be a thing. And it is a thing, to those of you who said that, to me, it is a thing. So, yeah, I do, I do think and I think women are also very well positioned in terms of like, they're typically good communicators. Right. So I think there's some, definitely some alignment there

Katherine Ann Byam  31:19  

any closing remarks that you want to share with my listeners, and maybe how they can connect with your work?

Heather Burns  31:26  

Well, I'd say there's two ways. First, is through a digital course that I developed called ESG, consulting foundations, and that teaches how to build a successful ESG and sustainability consulting practice. What makes it different is really, you know, we go well beyond theory into the practice of being an ESG, and sustainability consultant. And, you know, how do you find your first clients? How do you make a strong business case? And how do you build credibility quickly, things like that. And second, I don't even know if you know this yet, but you have inspired me to start a podcast. So it's called consulting 9.0. And we look at what it's like to build a successful consulting practice on a warming planet. Season One is going to be interviews with seven pioneers of sustainability business. I think six of those seven are actually meant. So there's some equity work necessary there. But the 9.0 really is a play off of the nine planetary boundaries that are required for humans to be supported on the planet. I love

Katherine Ann Byam  32:41  

This is because I love that word. You recommended it to me actually, you recommended that I read donut economics and, and get into that space and and I really like how she has sort of centred this idea that we need to live in balance with these nine boundaries. But we also need to make sure no one falls through the hole. And when we say no one, it's like, it's biodiversity, right? Life itself doesn't fall through that hole. So I really love that you've embraced that in your work. And I'm really looking forward to when you bring that podcast out. Thank you. So Heather, it's been really a pleasure to have you ever learn so much in the session, and I'm sure many listeners have to thank you so much for joining the show.

069 Waste to Wealth

069 Waste to Wealth


About this Episode

Roz Edwards has been a business owner now for 30 years, initially in African Art and now with a collection of thousands of mannequins rescued from landfill. 

Roz started Mannakin from nothing, not even the mannequins, but she was determined to use her business acumen and creativity to create a meaningful sustainable business. Whilst researching mannequins she found an opportunity to create a business out of hiring them, to provide for her children while freeing herself from the restrictions of poverty. 

Today, Mannakin Hall in Lincolnshire houses a vast collection of mannequins to hire, the majority of which has been diverted from landfill. The unusual scenery within the grounds has created a popular film location, and a major source of Roz’s wealth and business growth. Roz has also started Club Mannakin to help independent, creative business owners grow and scale.

We talked about:

Her growing youtube following of people inspired by her story (over 1mn views)

What it's like starting an idea (circular economy) way before it's time had come.

The challenges and successes in growing and scaling the business

Tips for sustainable business owners just getting started

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03
Roz, welcome to where Ideas Launch!

Roz Edwards 1:37
Hey, Katherine, thanks so much for having me on here. So exciting.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:40
Really great to have you. And great that your video on YouTube is absolutely blowing up, right? How many views are you up to today?

Roz Edwards 1:47
And I've not checked because I thought I'd just give it a bit of a break. Because I have been constantly checking. It's going up by about 3000 views a day, which is just a It's just incredible. So I think the last time I checked it was on 1,011,000 and something so oh

Katherine Ann Byam 2:06
my goodness, it's incredible. So what we're talking about listeners is that Roz had a film crew come up to her mannequin empire. And it's just been off the charts how people have been responding to what she's been doing. So So Roz, I'd like you to share with my listeners, the origin story of mannequin and how you got started.

Roz Edwards  2:27
And there's a deliberate misspelling of the word mannequin. And there's a little story behind that. And that is, I was going to be a retail consultant. I had no intention ever of working with mannequins, it never even entered my mind. But I was putting content on my website all about retail strategy. And I thought, well, mannequins are a big part of retail, but I've never worked with them. So let's start researching.

And I basically put a page on my website that said, I've got mannequins to hire, which I didn't have my telephone number, and then just some pictures of some mannequins that I knew well, I could buy some, you know, if it was just like, let's let's just put this out there on the internet and see what happens. within 24 hours, my phone started ringing with people wanting mannequins, like in London next week. And of course, I didn't have any, so I had to sort of lie and just say, Oh, I'm terribly sorry. They're all out on hire at the moment. So then, it basically carried on and you know, for the last was for nearly 14 years now.

The phones never stopped ringing. But in those early days, I was operating off of Roz Edwards, just my own website. But I thought, No, this is it needs its own name. So being a little bit of an expert with websites, and SEO and everything, my initial thing was, well, I should try to get mannequins, the correct spelling, you know .com.co.uk and all the rest of it. So of course, that domain name had gone. So I went for misspellings. And then when I saw that, I could do Mannakins spelt quite phonetically. And then I broke that word down into two, which was Manna Food from heaven. And kin - kindred spirit. And I just thought that this is perfect name is absolutely a perfect name for it. Because I was literally I had nothing. I was living in a council house on benefits. No job. I'd returned from Milan after living in Malawi for 10 years. And really low self esteem. But I had all this business experience. It's like, nope, we're going to, we're going to rebuild, we're going to do something. And it probably took me about two years before I believed that I could actually I can make money out of dummies. And but it's yeah, it's it's a wonderful gift from heaven. Basically,

Katherine Ann Byam 5:02
Congratulations on all your success, it's immense how you've managed to turn this into a mannequin empire, tell us a bit about the business model or models that your mannequin operation uses, and how your success has been over the years.

Roz Edwards  5:16
So I mean, obviously, in the early days, it was taking very, very little money. And the biggest turnover we've ever had in the year is just shy of half a million pounds, which is phenomenal, really, I mean, even I couldn't quite believe that. And but basically, the way that mannequin works is, it has a huge collection of mannequins, so they're all tidied up, you know, made to look beautiful. And then they're advertised on my website for hire.

And we do sell some but the, I'd say maybe 70% of the business is hiring. So they all look lovely, and they go out in boxes get delivered lead a much more exciting life than I do. And then when they come back in, of course, they've got fingerprints all over the maybe some of the joints that they've got a joint for example, that fits the the arm and the hand together, you know, maybe that's been busted, you know, whilst they're using it, they haven't quite taken good care of it. So then they come back in, and I've got what we call the, the fixing room, for want of a better name.

But in the early days, my children nicknamed it Dolby city, because I actually used to do this in my kitchen from home, fix the mannequins and get them all ready to go back out again. So in actual fact, on the doors to the fixing room, it doesn't say Dolby city because you know, my kids name that after the TV programme.

So they all get prepared. So that can involve Yep, putting bits back together again, sanding them down, cleaning them. And then I've got a spray Bay. So they go into the spray Bay, they're wheeled on, like clothing, Rails, those are, they're all hanging upside down.

And they go in front of the spray, they they have a new coat of paint, if they don't need all of it, they might just need a waft over some of the more than others. And then they get packed. And they go back into their boxes again, and they're ready to ready to go and have fun.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:17
What challenges have you faced or because it sounds like you haven't had challenges, what would you say has been responsible for your success.

Roz Edwards  7:25
So a really, really big challenge that I met. And I didn't find a huge amount of help out there for this either, was, you find that you get to a certain stage with a business. And you have got a certain amount of turnover, as well, and a certain amount of burnout. So you find yourself doing everything because you're, you know, you're a sole trader, but it was a limited company, but a sole person working within that business.

And so there was a point where I'm driving vans into London to deliver like big quantities of mannequins. But I've got my headset on with connected to my phone, because I'm also the receptionist. So then I would get to a lay by and if I couldn't answer the phone in time, I would obviously phone them back my little notepad and pen in the van, and writing all of that down, and then having to come back.

And obviously I've got to, you know, replenish the stock after it's been used. And it was quite exhausting. So my biggest challenge really was, I can't do any more myself, this can't go any bigger. But it can go bigger because the demand is there. So then it was a case of right and compartmentalising as the right word to use everything. So okay, let's have someone on the reception and doing know answering the phone, doing the sales doing all of the admin, right, that's one person's job.

Now let's get someone fixing the mannequins. Now let's get someone spraying the mannequins. And so at one point I had about 10 staff. But that is another thing, again, is bringing all of these people in because all of a sudden, you've changed from being this kind of really exciting times of running your own business and making money, too.

I've got to be like the staff police now. You know. So anyway, what I did is I went and took a course in management and that helped enormously. But I found my role had changed, you know, because I'm really I'm now properly the director, and I'm directing everything. So that that was a big challenge, but a huge amount of success and you know, massive amount of wealth came out of that just at the right time. So it all pays off. It all pays off. Nothing's easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:54
Absolutely. No. And I totally get that it's a big jump once you start bringing people on because as you say it's a completely different job. It's a completely different role. And not all of us want to do that role.

Roz Edwards 10:06
Yeah. And we don't have the experience, we don't have those skills. I mean, there were times where I really felt that How the hell am I going to do this? You know, because I don't know how to manage somebody. So I learned. That's what you do. So you've just quickly get on and you learn,

Katherine Ann Byam 10:22
Really outstanding. And I want to tap into the circular economy principle that you're running your business on, I can imagine that when you started, there wasn't a lot of talk about the circular economy, how did you influence clients choices in this way.

Roz Edwards  10:36
So it that is actually quite an ongoing battle, because it can come down to price. But it can also come down to almost like people's greed with things, they want to possess things. So they don't necessarily see until you know, I've spoken to them, how hiring can benefit them. And of course, as I've just explained that process, you know, the mannequin comes in, it goes here, here, here, and it goes out again. So they're constantly spinning round and round and round that there isn't more of a circular business model there, I think to show. But the whole mannequin industry is linear.

Let's go and get them all made in China quite often, somewhere in the Far East, there are other places that make them but that's, you know, the main manufacturing point, let's ship them all that way, right across the world. And then we'll have them in the shops. And then usually, maybe I think the cycle is gone longer now, but it used to sort of be every four years, right? Okay, we'll get rid of those mannequins now.

And then we'll go and get some more. So you've just got them, they're all doing this journey like this all the time. And what hiring does, is what we've already got the mannequins here, let's cut out all of that transport. We don't need it, because they are here. And getting that message across is easier with the smaller independent businesses. But when it comes to the big guys, they can't quite see it.

Some can some of you know someone now working with doing it. But generally, it's, you know, like I said, they they've been transported, they'll be used for however many years, and then crushed and go to landfill. So my job very much is persuading my clients that look, they're here. They're, they're beautiful. And in actual fact, because we're renovating them all the time, every time they you know, they've been out and they come back in, they're better than these ones that you can buy, you know, from from the Far East.

And then let me see what I can do about all of this waste and this rubbish. So I got a phone call from someone who said, Oh, I see what you're doing. We read this as quite a few years ago now. But I see what you're doing. We've got about 100 mannequins that are going to go in the bin. But the owner doesn't really want that to happen. They want them to be reused. Would you take them? So I said, Well, yeah, of course, how many again, he said, 100. And then over the space of the next four months, and this is what I was buying mannequin Hall as well at the time.

So thank goodness, because 25,000 of them turned up. There was one Arctic Chuck after another. And I remember phoning him and just saying, Are you having a laugh? And he said, Well, do you not want them because they are going to be crushed if you don't want them? And I said, Well, okay, send them. Because there's an issue here. There's a problem. And I want to fix it.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:36
It's so amazing. I just love this story. And I want to talk a little bit about mannequin mountain and and that location in Lincolnshire, can you tell my listeners what they can experience when they visit?

Roz Edwards  13:48
And we've had a couple of horror films made there. So you can imagine, really, it's it's most horror films, they start with maybe you know, two girls are in a car, and the car breaks down and it's raining, and it's dark. And they live too long. They find this place, I think, Oh, well go in there and use the phone because you know, it's out in the middle of nowhere, and there's no one there, their phones aren't working and all the rest of it. And then they obviously they wander in and discover that they've made the wrong you know, they've taken the wrong term, basically, it's very much that kind of vibe to it. So there's some beautiful big gates that you drive through.

And then you're just hit by which one of my friends said it's a visual assault, basically, that's what it is. You don't notice the mountain when you come in because like you come in and it's just to the left of you. So quite often people come in and then when they're driving out, they go, Oh my goodness. All of those may say Yeah, and so there are the buildings themselves that used to be a secret airbase for the Americans during the Second World War.

So that's all quiet exciting story as well, and but there are literally like, you know, mannequins all over some sorted some waiting to be sorted. And then yeah, there's all sorts of creepy looking buildings. fantastic views out the back when you get round to the back. Absolutely gorgeous views across the Lincolnshire ridge. And so it's a really beautiful location. And then yeah, and then you would wander around or drive around because you can drive all the way around. And then there's just the biggest pile of mannequins that you've that anybody has ever seen. I mean, I'm sure not many people have even seen a small pile. But this is it's colossal. I think someone recently told me you can see it from space

Katherine Ann Byam 15:42
for. And I know that you also have a Halloween feature as well.

Roz Edwards  15:47
Yeah. So we get people in and in the daytime, and, and almost everybody says it. And that is, I bet it's really scary here at night. And so I went, I went down to Somerset, and it was at the time it was 2015. And it was the time when Banksy had launched Disneyland. So I went in and had a look around there and totally fell in love with the whole thing. And I looked at the size of that site and thought, Well, that's about the same size as mine, I could do something like this.

 And then that would provide the solution, if you like for all of those people is that I bet it's scary here at night. So what I did is I followed banks his whole way that he promoted it as well with you know, there's trip hazards, there's no lighting, you know, there's no toilets, all of this kind of thing, come with a torch, you know, prepare a little survival bag, you know, in case you get abducted by mannequins, and people loved it. They absolutely loved it.

So that's, you know, gone on for several years, when it came to 2020, of course, and all the fun that we've had there. We were all in the tears at that time. And everyone had to still stay in the family bubbles. Somebody said to me, you're going to do the Halloween this year? And I said, Well, I can't. How can I do it? So we've got this road, which at the time, obviously had loads of mannequins in the way. So I said, right, let's go clear that because people can drive round.

And that's what we do. We had a really successful event that year. And so many people thanked us for it, because we'd all been shut in for such a long time. The whole feeling that they could come out and be safe as well. I mean, I made up a story that there are child mannequins on the loose with teeth, you know, and they're very dangerous. So do not get out of your vehicle. I mean, obviously, I had the environmental health people at the council phoned me obviously have concerns with an event going on during COVID.

And I had them in absolute fits of laughter. They just said, we've got nothing to worry about with you, Ross. Just go ahead with it. It sounds brilliant. And then last year, we people were able to walk around again. So good. It's good.

Katherine Ann Byam 18:02
I want to wrap up with a final question, which is there are a lot of people who want to start sustainable businesses or have started them, and they're struggling with their growth.

Do you have any advice from the journey you've been on? Bringing the circular principle to life?

Roz Edwards  18:18
Yeah, so one thing that I think we can all do, which perhaps we don't, is just constantly be on the look, if you haven't already got a product that could be circular. Just keep your eyes peeled, because there are things out there that nobody is actually doing yet. And what's been great about mannequin is, man, I remember when I started someone saying, Oh, you say you're going to do shop fittings now and counters for shops and things. And they said, No, I'm not going to get distracted by all of this.

 It's just going to be mannequins. Because I mean, even within that niche, there's no other film location, Halloween events, and people being able to stay over in the mannequin graveyard at night. That's one of my next things I'm about I'm about to launch. And then just establish that really sort of simple, easy brand, right from the beginning. I mean, when I started, I thought if this isn't going to go big, I'm going to know quite shortly. And so I can change the idea and start to do something else. So yes, I'd registered the domains. I registered it as a limited company.

And I also bought the trademark as well. So I own the word mannequin, because nobody on this earth was going to get in my way, you know, so I was very, very determined. And all of those things are just so important. I've seen that they you know, a few people that are they haven't taken those steps, which you know, and it because they didn't know they weren't advised that that's what they should do. And then they've got so far with their business.

I need to find that there's someone bigger out there doing it. They're not the same but very similar. And they've trademarked the name. So what do you do that You know, how can you move forward, you've got to change and rebuild. And that, you know, having to get to that point is, is devastating, actually. But also, the other thing is to, is to think big. So interestingly, with my business, I knew that there were other manikin companies turning over in excess of a million. So the numbers game for me was, it's open, there's no, I only need this amount of money or what have you.

But interestingly, what happened is, yes, the turnover hit, you know, half a million, I've got all of these staffed worry about, it turned into this other thing, and I could see it going into something that I didn't necessarily want. And so I have actually scaled it back now, you know, with lots of different processes in place, so that, like all the automation, or the website is automated for people to go and hire mannequins and everything. So it's so important that we don't just start something and, and just get carried away in the here. And now we have to have that vision, we definitely have to have that vision and those solid foundations of things like, yes, it's a limited company.

Even the VAT return, I've registered for VAT when I was turning over 100 pounds a month, you know, the VAT threshold is obviously it's 85,000 pounds or something. Most people wait until they get to there. But then you've got to either add 20% onto your prices, or you've got to absorb that, you know, because it's an extra cost. So all of these sorts of things, but there's got to be foresight in it. You know, there's got to be a vision there of actually why why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?

Katherine Ann Byam 21:40
And I guess if you're if you're selling to companies, or hiring to companies, etc, then having that fact charges negligible to them. So it all makes sense if you design it that way. So finally, tell my listeners how they can find you.

Roz Edwards  21:53
So mannakin.com, so that's MANNAKIN because everyone has a problem with spelling, even the correct word of mannequins. And I've got a really, really beautiful lead magnet that explains why the mannequins are sustainable and circular. And what kind of mannequin you would need for different situations. And then a reference to the extra bits and pieces that I've got going on including club mannequin as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 22:24
Wonderful. I'm going to leave all the links for them. Thank you so much Ross for gracing us with your presence today. I know you're a very important YouTube superstar. Thanks for joining me.

Roz Edwards  22:36
Thank you.

Katherine Ann Byam 22:40
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

068 Breaking Gender Bias Thread by Thread

068 Breaking Gender Bias Thread by Thread

About this Episode

Sally Dear is the founder of Ducky Zebra, a childrenswear brand that challenges the outdated gender stereotypes found in high-street kids’ clothing. 

She was frustrated by the impact of gender stereotypes on her children. The language they were hearing, TV they were watching, games they were playing, and the clothes they were wearing, so she decided to tackle one of these areas, clothing, as a means to changing the narrative. 

During her early research she discovered the negative impact of the fashion industry on the world around us. It accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and nearly 20% of wastewater. In the UK an estimated 350,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in landfill every year.

She decided to run a different sort of clothing brand. Ducky Zebra supports slow fashion; and are passionate about reducing their environmental impact, being ethical and transparent. 

She’s won competitions, and features, and is working to build this revolutionary brand into a household name.

We talked about:

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03
Sally, welcome to where Ideas Launch.

Sally Dear 1:33
Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:36
Really great to have you. I'm going to start with the big question, why gender stereotypes such a burning issue for you. Can you share that with our listeners today?

Sally Dear 1:45
Well, I think for me, it became a burning issue after I saw the negative impact it was having on my two children. And after that point, I did quite a lot of research. And I discovered that between the ages of two and five children become avid gender detectives. So they're looking for clues to make sense of the world around them. And they're like sponges, so they absorb things at lightning speed.

And that might include the colour code of pink for girls and blue for boys, the toy rules of dolls and parents for girls, and sports and cars for boys and the behaviour rules of kind, sweet and pretty girls, and strong, brave and confident boys. And research shows that by the time children are as young as six, they've already made sense of the world around them, and their place within it. And this can then go on to influence future choices and decisions, such as the subjects they choose their career paths, their salary, mental health, and behaviour.

 So not only do these stereotypes influence their decisions, and limit their opportunities, but also, for those children that don't fit within a stereotype, it can be very stressful. So as an example, if a boy really likes to colour pink, in our world of pink for girls, and blue for boys, that boy might feel very confused and isolated. And sadly, they might be teased by other children for not following the gender rules that they've learned. So with that research on top of the the impact I see it was having on my children, I became very passionate about trying to remove those restrictive stereotypes.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:37
It's incredible how powerful children develop these skills at such young ages. And you don't actually realise it until you hear something when they can actually verbalise what they were they're thinking and perceiving. And then you're like, Well, where did this come from?

Sally Dear 3:52
completely agree. Sometimes we're almost blind to it, because we've grown up without ourselves.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:59
Yeah, you're right. So you decided to start with clothing. But you don't necessarily have a background in fashion. So tell us a bit about Ducky Zebra, and the sort of conceptualization of the brand the products and why they matter.

Sally Dear 4:12
But you're right, so my background isn't in fashion. It's a marketing and predominantly for the automotive and rail sectors. Why Ducky Zebra? Well, at the age of four, my daughter mentioned she couldn't be a taxi driver when she was older because she was a girl. And it made me stop and see the world through her eyes. And I decided I wanted to do something about it.

 And originally, I wanted to do something that would help her and other girls be whoever and whatever they wanted to be. But during my research, I discovered things were just as bad if not worse for boys. And at that point, I decided I wanted to do something that would help girls and boys equally.

Why clothes? Well, clothes are often seen as an expression Have our identity. And yet from the point that we're born, our gender often dictates what we wear. With girls often wearing clothes that are pink, and pastel in colour with cute pretty images, magic, fairies focus on looks and beauty and messages of kindness but not necessarily confidence, while the clothes for boys are often blue sludgy, and colour with ferocious teeth bearing predators, messages of bravery and heroism.

And while there might be a focus on confidence, there's not necessarily a focus on kindness. So with Ducky Zebra, we've created unisex clothes that celebrate both kindness and confidence equally for girls and boys alike. And they're suitable for babies and children up to six years old. And we've had children involved with the designs themselves, which means they're really bright, colourful, and good fun. So we know the children wants to wear them. And we've also tried our very hardest to design the clothes and manufacture them in a way that is as sustainable as possible.

Katherine Ann Byam 6:11
That's great. I remember when I was three or four years old, my mom dressed me up in this pink outfit, and I was like, I do not want to wear this I cried, cried and cried and cried until she switched me to the blue one. lasting memory!

So we hear and speak a lot about business models on this podcast in particular, because I like to explore something that I like to call the parallel of the business model and the impact model. So I'd like to ask a bit about your impact model as well. How have you set up your business to touch on the various sustainability interests that you have?

Sally Dear 6:48
This is such a good question. And sustainability has been important for Ducky Zebra from the very start, and it's one of our six core values. And I think maybe in order to answer your question, it makes sense to first look at what the business models like for the fashion industry typically. So it's one of multiple seasons, regular new shiny collections, fast production and low prices. And this forces pressure down onto the factories, onto the workers and onto the quality of the clothes. And it also creates a throwaway culture.

This isn't kind and it's not sustainable for the planet. So for Ducky Zebra we wanted to set up our business model differently. We do, of course, want to make money because we need to survive, and we want to grow. But it doesn't take priority over being kind to the people that make our clothes or to the planets. For us, we use the rethink, reuse, recycle and reduce framework. And that has really helped us. So by way of example, when we were looking at the fabric we wanted to use, we decided to use certified organic cotton to reduce our carbon emissions and our water waste. So the grown organic cotton requires up to 91% Less water compared to conventional cotton, and it admits up to 46% less emissions.

We also took a long time to carefully select our manufacturing partner. Now they're based in the south of India, and our values are really closely aligned. And they're continually looking for ways to rethink their processes in order to reduce that impact. As an example, currently, 50% of their power comes from solar energy, and soon as will be 85%. They also do things like harvest rainwater, which helps to say save the groundwater levels, and they recycle all wastewater. And then in terms of the clothes themselves and the designs we've used, we've really tried to prioritise longevity. And so they meet they're made from high quality fabric, they're designed to last and pass on to siblings and friends for reuse. And deciding is generous.

 And we have little features like roll up and roll down cuffs so that they can grow as the child grows. And by ensuring that they're durable. Their lifecycle can be extended, which again helps us to reduce our carbon water and waste footprints. We've also tried to ensure that our designs are timeless and unisex. So rather than adopting the latest trends or seasonal gimmicks, we're rethinking fashion for children. So we create small volumes of colourful unisex designs that can be reused regardless of the season or the agenda. If you don't have anyone to pass your old stock is ever close onto.

We have a pre loved programme which allows you to recycle your clothes by returning them to us and We then pass them on to the Oxford baby bank where they can be reused. We also work with a fantastic organisation called rap Cline's, who help upcycle any clothes that perhaps we can't pass on to somebody else, or were unable to sell. And they upcycle those into small little drawstring gift bags, which we can either pass on to customers or sell. So there are so many things that I could talk about. But I genuinely believe by being sustainable and trying to reduce our waste and impact, it opens up so many opportunities, and so many possibilities for being creative.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:39
And this is cool. And I want to tap into that a little bit if you can share a bit about the opportunities you've had, because of this lens that you've taken, but also some of the challenges you've faced in growing this business.

Sally Dear 10:52
So I mean, in terms of the opportunities, I touched upon wrap kinds, who are fantastic organisation, but they could see that with every and fashion industry, there is fabric waste. And together, we've looked at how we can reduce that waste by turning something that is ready to go into the bin into something that someone's going to really enjoy and love. And actually, so I've got a little pop up shop at the moment, and I sell these wrap kind bags. And they're fantastic size to keep like little distractions, if you're going out for a meal with your child, and you want to put a few activities into the bag to keep the child entertained, they're a great size for that. And the kids loved them. So it could have ended up in the bin.

 But instead, it's been loved and enjoyed in terms of the challenges. Well, I developed and launched ducky zebra, during the pandemic. And I would say without a doubt, that's been one of the biggest challenges. So like working on the designs while freelancing to raise funds, while homeschooling my two kids, and I was the manufacturing was delayed by around six months. And I had a very good relationship with the factory, and I wanted to remain loyal to them.

But I would say the fact that we were on opposite sides of the world at that point was definitely a challenge. And when we were coming out of lockdowns, they were going into them, the pandemic has definitely thrown a few challenges away. And then I'd say since launching, I have two kind of key daily challenges, which is raising awareness on a limited budget. And then I'm sure you experienced this yourself the constant juggling of competing priorities, and wearing multiple hats from one minute to the next. And particularly because a purpose led brands was sustainability at the heart, there is always more that we could be doing.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:05
Well, that's definitely takes a toll on you emotionally as well, the decision fatigue, because we have to review so many details. And you know, sometimes you have to to compensate to sacrifice some things that you really care about other things that you care about more. And it takes its toll. Right.

Sally Dear 13:25
I completely agree with you. There is that emotional drain? And because we're passionate about what we do, sometimes it is hard to make those compromises like you said, as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:36
Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say have been the keys to your success in this venture so far?

Sally Dear 13:45
I'd say. At the very beginning, before I started to do anything, I conducted research, and I managed to speak to over 1000, carers and parents. And I think that was invaluable. It highlighted a number of common problems and themes, which I was then able to start to address with my clothing and with the business. And I think doing that research before I created a solution has really helped. And the research also helped to crystallise my six core values.

So before I did anything, I had a good idea of the problem and the themes and trends. And I also have my six values. And that's helps to guide the products, our content and articles, our marketing and social media, and also the audience that I'm trying to reach. So I'd say that's been really valuable. And then I would also say being flexible and adapting to change and being open to trying new things and collaborating with new people, especially during the pandemic when there have been so many unknowns has really helps with our success as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:02
And well done for persevering through through it all and getting to this point. Thank you. How has the journey impacted your children? Oh,

Sally Dear 15:10
well, sadly, my daughter is now too big for our clothes. So it took me too long to launch and when she's upset about, but I really hope that I'm being a positive role model to her. And as for my son, Eli, he loves the clothes, he proudly wears them. And inside each of the pockets, there's a little embroidered splash motif, which acts as a physical reminder for children to splash kindness and confidence.

And he loves rubbing the little embroidery and he doesn't have to wear a school uniform. So he loves to wear his duckies every trousers so that he can rub that at school. And I think he for him, the values of kindness and confidence really appeal. So aside from having a very busy and slightly stressed Mum, I'm hoping that it's had a positive impact on them.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:03
I get that, as a woman running a sustainable business, what advice do you have for people getting started today or thinking about it?

Sally Dear 16:11
I think it's great being a woman running and starting a sustainable business. I've been amazed at the fantastic network of people, yourself included that I've come across, and people are so open to collaborating and supporting one another. In terms of advice, I'd say Believe in yourself. Know what your purpose is, or the problem that you're solving.

 And stay true to that collaborate and connect with other like minded people, and in particular, other people that are at a similar stage in their business journey to you. And so I've been really fortunate and finding a number of people that I can speak to and share ideas with and learn from as well. Get used to working outside of your comfort zone because you can do it. And finally, have fun and enjoy yourself because you're going to be spending a lot of your day doing it. So you need to love it as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 17:12
Great advice. How can my listeners reach out and connect with your brand?

Unknown Speaker 17:17
Thank you so much for asking. I'd love to connect with you on our website, which is duckyzebra.com. Or through social media. Our handle is @duckyzebra. And we're active on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Katherine Ann Byam 17:34
Really lovely to have you here and best wishes for the rest of 2022.

Sally Dear 17:38
Thank you so much Katherine.

067 Systemic and Sustainable Mobility

067 Systemic and Sustainable Mobility

About this Episode

Today, my guest is Tillman Vahle. Before Joining SYSTEMIQ, Tilmann worked with EY sustainability consulting and auditing - working for several globally leading corporations, smaller companies, and the German Government to support better transparency and trust in sustainability reporting. 

Previously he worked at Volkswagen Corporate Foresight, where he developed a Master Thesis on autonomous mobility for his masters degree. He also had experiences with German Development Association GIZ supporting a review of national parks Management of the Philippines and the DESERTEC Foundation. He holds degrees with distinction from University College Maastricht and IIIEE, Lund University.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Where Ideas Launch. Tillman.

Tilmann Vahle  1:28  

Thank you, Katherine. Great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:30  

Great to have you.

So tell us a little bit about systemic and what you guys are doing to help us redesign and decarbonize?

Tilmann Vahle  1:38  

Yeah, so systemic was founded five years ago, after the Paris Accords, by the then leaders of the sustainability branch of McKinsey, Germany opened home and Martin stata and the original mission and still is, it's really to double down on environmental sustainability. And basically across the board, right, so we look really at high impact stuff. And across natural systems, the rain forest regeneration, for example, on materials management of the circular economy, through plastics, recycling, on our sustainable battery value chains, in the mobility system, and in the energy system as well, where we run especially work on harder to bed sectors.

So that is, you know, the foundational industries of our economy like chemicals, steel, concrete, aviation, shipping, the stuff that is very hard to decarbonize and more sustainable. And that's what systemics mission is, we work globally, we were now 300 peoples, and since we started 2015 16, and we work with, you know, governments, top corporates, innovators, banks, and you know, large organisations like the WWF, or the World Economic Forum to make that happen. Yeah, and that's, that's what we do.

We try to take assistance angles, not only advising one company, but we, when we advise work with companies, we want to look at how they can be part of a better future system? So the system is our client, if you will, and then we run a lot of consultant analytics to underpin these consults. Yeah. And then that is what where we think we are USP lies where you're putting the right players and the right brands together to really put the accelerate the decarbonisation fundamentally, 

Katherine Ann Byam  3:25  

How did you come to work in sustainability? And was it always in your role since you started working?

Tilmann Vahle  3:30  

Yeah, so I mean, ever since starting studies, basically, I had the goal to look at the largest challenge, large challenges of our time and decarbonisation are climate, climate change and the loss of biodiversity they appear to me like the big existential crisis of humanity. And so, you know, with all the modesty of the young student went right into that.

And the way that I that what caught my attention in the beginning, and what brought me on my path that I'm on now is, I read an amazing book by the founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which is called Natural Capitalism, which is all about, if you look at systems from a fundamental angle, I could go back to the physical principles go back to like a proper, deep dive refurbishment of the system. And you can make dramatic improvements with actual cost savings.

You know, when I started there was this belief that sustainability is always more expensive, right? It's a trade off between our wealth to our well being. And that book basically just says, now that's just not true, right? If you do it right, actually, things improved dramatically in all directions, including for economics and for social welfare. And the more I'm in this space, the more you know, we find it's true, right?

Like nowadays, electric cars are cheaper over their lifetime and conventional renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels in almost every place in the world. And so, this is what kind of excites me and which has brought me along over the years. It's like, well, the decade now. And yeah, so it was always in sustainability that I worked. And I think it's a great, great path now, right, and a great journey, because it's really accelerating all around, but you start looking.

Katherine Ann Byam  5:16  

Yeah, I don't know, if it's accelerating, you know, but it is definitely several years you worked with EY in sustainability, you know, what a thing.

What is the role of reporting to improve the whole corporate sustainability performance in your view?

Tilmann Vahle  5:31  

And so it was kind of two sided. For one, I think it's important to, you know, it kept coming back to this adage, that you what you can't measure you can't manage. I mean, that's the foundation that, of course, you need data, you need the transparency about what happens in industry, what happens in companies actions. And so corporate reporting on ESG topics is super important, like reporting on their financial matters is super important. So like, you know, you can invest into them and have transparency in and can make investment decisions the same for all sustainability topics.

And equally, like the data that you see, or the info that you get from corporates, in the sustainability reports, for example, they, we need to be looking out carefully for what's audited, and what is driving, I think that's, for me, the key takeaway from my time at EY auditing is so crucial. So you can trust the data that you get, right. At the same time, the ESG reports, you know, they have they came from ESG papers from a marketing. And so they aren't a reflection of the strategy of the company, right? So we need to also like, be careful on how to interpret them, and exactly is what you read is what you get.

But it doesn't change the impact of the company fundamentally, right? So there's a limit to what you get out of it. And it doesn't reflect the relative size of the impact to the problem, right? Like, if X amount of co2 is emitted by a company, what does that mean? It doesn't give you a rating, like a framing of it. And so what you need to do is using the data you need to go read and requesting the strategies and the business models fundamentally, like an oil company can never be fully sustainable, like, inherently. And so going back and going to the fundamentals goes way beyond reporting.

And that's where I'm so excited to work at systemic where, you know, we use reporting, but we go through and beyond it, to help these companies improve more and more fundamentally.

Katherine Ann Byam  7:31  

So you also worked for Volkswagen, can you share your thoughts and how that company has recovered from the diesel scandal and how it performs now, in terms of facing climate targets?

Tilmann Vahle  7:43  

Yeah, when I was at Fox learn, and it was in 2012, and 14 for say, one and a half years or so it was an interesting timing, because it was around the time of the IPO of Tesla. And back in the day, when I talked about Tesla and electric mobility, even with a relatively senior management, it was all Miami, they refurbish these, you know, small convertibles, but know that you could never scale.

This is not for volume, you know, who cares, basically. And I mean, of course, many people had realised that it's fundamentally luminous to where to go, but they didn't see a path for volume manufacture for autos, to actually go there. And so this has changed. So fundamentally, and so the diesel crisis in 2015, I think, was a catalytic event in a way, right, because for one focus on was was sentence in the US, for example, to invest heavily into electric charging infrastructure, which is now coming back as a boon to them, where they're rolling out electric cars, right, because now there's charges where you can actually use them. And so, for one, I think it's helped tilt the perspective and also, of course, unveil the corruption that had happened.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm, I don't want to talk more about that. I mean, it's all in the press and all that. But what's the fact is that folks that are in right now are the largest investor in electric mobility globally. It's like, I think half or something of all the investments that go it's like way beyond 100 billion euros that invest in electric and smart mobility. And so that's a huge, huge drive. And so after Tesla, they're probably runner up in that transition, and of course, being this huge, huge corporation, they have a huge leverage, also, right.

And so they're that strategy, I think right now is probably the most ambitious in the entire Old automotive industry, which is very plausible. It's going to be a hard one, but I think it's quite amazing what they do, and they have a very good comprehensive view. And so it's, it's good to see that, you know, even large incumbent companies can turn around and become really frontrunners in these kinds of talks.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:52  

Yeah, no, that's a positive story and I think I had not realised how big they were in that space at this moment. So thank you for sharing that. Sustainability by nature is complex. And there are many angles to examine before we can read something as sustainable. And for example, there has been a report showing that shared Micro Mobility solutions are not nearly as sustainable as we think. So can you share why that is? And what can we do?

Tilmann Vahle  10:19  

Yeah, that is a tricky topic, right? I mean, on the one hand, I'm, I'm all for moving away from like, a pure car based mobility system. I mean, it's quite well known, right? That cars have been, I mean, combustion cars particularly have a terrible environmental footprint, not only in the co2, right, I mean, also just a really, waste of space in a crowded city, right? And you move around like several tonnes of material to generally just move one person on average. And that's it.

I mean, we're gonna always use cars to an extent, right, and so electrifying, and I think that's to start off with, like, moving to electric cars is so so important. It must happen very, very fast. Yeah, they're a lot better and the only decarbonization option really on in the mobility system that we have. So that said, like, for cities, cars aren't really in most cities, not that not really the optimal solution, right. And so how to, to have an alternative is, of course, other modes of transport, like the so-called modal shift, moving away from cars to other modes.

And public transport is something that is very institutional and takes a long time to build, to operate, it also tends to have to be subsidised. And, and so there's always going to be gaps that can't be filled with conventional traditional public transit. And so there is this hope that micro mobility, like the scooters, and scooter, shares, and rentals can fill that gap. And so therefore, help people move away from cars to other modes, yeah, and get around cities without that. And so that's great.

The challenges empirically, that's not really what happens. But these scooters and micro mobility options, they tend to be used by people that don't have a car anyway, and would have taken the tram or something. And so it's not really shifting, yeah, it's just changing from a normal car mode to another mode. And that becomes problematic, because these micro scooters, I mean, they've not been around for variables. And they don't, you know, they're not perfect products. Yeah, so they don't last very long.

And I think one data point that I read from one of the large consultancies was that these kick scooters last on average two to three months. And so that's two months, and then you scrap them. And so you have a few kilometres that you take, and then you scrap them. And so that's a lot of battery materials, a lot of steel that you just like, they don't have a lot of use for a long time. And so all that footprint that you had in production, is just wasted after a very short time.

So that is bad. Secondly, to put them in a city, you know, they offer their suppliers and need to drive around and basically relocate, right, and sometimes you see them with a van coming, picking them up and charging them and putting them back out. And these vans around diesel, and you need quite a lot of these to drive around. And so right now, because they are not electrified, there's actually a massive co2 footprint attached to these just from making the system work. And so it's gonna take a while until they improve and actually become a sustainable quote-unquote, mobility option.

Katherine Ann Byam  13:24  

I want to challenge you and something, please. You said that we got to use cars, we have to use guys that have to move to electric cars. But do we really need cars?

Tilmann Vahle  13:37  

Very good. depends on the location where you're at. Right? Right now 70% of people in Europe live in cities. If you've tried to look at the definition of a city, it's very tricky, like what constitutes a city? Because it's basically always just a matter of local demarcation. Yeah, like what is the city boundary, there's, there's, like a city can just draw a boundary wherever they want, you know, historically.

And so that could be that, you know, a city contains regions where there's really just, you know, the odd dispersed house somewhere where it's really far distances, where you don't have a Buddhist connection. We don't have a tram, let alone a metro. Were really other options. But individual mobility doesn't work. Yeah. And then of course, if you have to say, I want to live in the city flat and generally bike everywhere, but if I need to go to IKEA, whatever, and buy a bookshelf, you know, I do need a car.

I can't put it on my bike. So there will have to be cars. Of course, we will have citizen urban centres, particularly right now. Our use of cars in the western world is obscene and like providing mobility in other parts of the world, like say, India or capital cities and an African in many African countries would just not be feasible. The amount of people putting them in cars like you would probably grow the city tenfold. So that wouldn't work. So yeah, we can use a lot of fewer cars in many, many locations.

And the great thing is that the EU has just passed a legislative package, where they will ask the top 450 cities in the EU to create sustainable urban mobility plans. So basically plans how they can improve their mobility. So everybody will have to reflect Okay, country, you know, improve road infrastructure, bike infrastructure, trams, and Reno improves the options to move away.

That said, we will still have cars all over the place, ultimately for in the long run. So yeah, electrification is priority number one, because you know, what happens now, but ultimately, it's, you know, think President Obama said, former President Obama is like, you know, isn't all of the above options like, yeah, we need to do everything at the same time. So that's not an either or.

Katherine Ann Byam  15:55  

So I interviewed Yanis production IQ earlier in this podcast, and one of the things he was talking about is that the minute you purchase a car, you have already spent, I don't know, roughly two thirds of the carbon outlay, just by purchasing it, because of the resources it takes to make it I know, electric cars will be slightly different, because they probably made in electric factories. So it's a little bit less in terms of the carbon way, but it's still extraction of resources.

 And that's still a problem. I guess why I'm pushing this is that it's really about, we should be embracing what's happened with the pandemic, and really encouraging less people going to work, which is already creating big savings and teams. I mean, I've used my car probably, I don't know, 12 times for the year 2021?

I don't know, it's not. Right. And I think that there's a real argument here for us to make our next transition. One that is, you know, really using more public transport, it could include things like Ubers, right, because they're just as efficient or, you know, other providers, it's just as efficient as having your own car, because you get them within two minutes, they take you where you want to go, you potentially have the entire coffee yourself. And it's, it's a solution, that means that the car isn't parked up, you know, just sitting around waiting for you. Right, which is one of the biggest problems that we have. So that's why I'm pushing it. I mean, what are your thoughts?

Tilmann Vahle  17:24  

Um, yes, no, I work closely with Ganesh and all behind the analyses and messages of the UN International resource panel, right, like half of global co2 emissions come from extraction and manufacturing of materials, and 90% of the biodiversity impacts, it's like immensely important that we lower our resource consumption, right. Doesn't matter if we decarbonize or not, we need to go down with our consumption.

So yeah, 100% and there's also a great opportunity in reducing our travel through I mean, you know, we're on a what is it zoom call now. And that means that the work world has changed fundamentally and permanently, because three years ago, barely a company was using Zoom, and all these hassles, who was allowed to use what and all that, and that's changed, and it's here for good. And so we don't need to travel quite as much anymore, we won't have to fly to work with clients so much anymore. And I mean, systemic has been operating virtually for, for the pandemic, of course, as so many have, and it's been going great.

We do need more people to contact, right. I mean, mentally, like for mental well being. And that's a huge, huge challenge everybody's having. And so we will have to see each other a little bit more right, again, but of course, it's a good change to travel less.

That said, there's these fun rebounds, like, well, then we're all sitting at home, right? And so basically, in the long run, We'll all meet in another room. Additionally, in our flats we have a home office, right? And then you have kids, maybe and your partner's also working.

So you need larger flats. So how do you do that? And then, like, is it really more sustainable, like generally looking at needing to be somewhere you need to heat your place and you have lighting and eating and I don't know, for myself, my heating bill has gone up by a third, just because I'm so much at home. And so I don't know whether that is in the long run really more sustainable that you know, it's going to have to be analysed. But that said, it's great to have better utilisation of spaces and have officers on our vehicles and we definitely need to go there. 

Katherine Ann Byam  19:32  

Yeah, I mean, I mean, what we can do is instead of working wherever your offices you go down to the neighbourhood office that's now weekend and you use that as a co-working space but I'm gonna let you off the hook on this one I know a lot more analysis than we have time to do on this podcast but

Tilmann Vahle  19:48  

but I love by that point let me just jump in what I love that idea Katherine like the decentralised you know, co working spaces. And we have a bunch of colleagues that do this. You know that that works in And then permanently and you know, we just meet occasionally. It's great to decentralise it that way. Yeah, very good.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:05  

It's a great solution that I think we need to be thinking more broadly about. But as you say, You guys are the ones doing the analytics. So looking forward to hearing your summaries, what are the current projects you're working on? And what impact are they likely to have on decarbonisation? This year? 2022?

Tilmann Vahle  20:22  

Yeah, so one of the large ones that we are currently developing and that will go live in April, hopefully, is the battery passport. That's something that the EU has put in regulation. Last year, that every battery every large battery, so not the, you know, the mobile phone batteries, but like stop storage batteries and car batteries that come onto the market starting 2026 We'll have to have a better passport, basically a little database, and that you could access online, that tells you that so the consumer but also b2b manufacturers and to government, what's the co2 footprint?

 Where's the material from? So if there is critical cobalt in it, for example, what share of it is recycled? what chemicals are in there, so you can recycle them better? What's the state of health of the battery? So you can use it for a second life application, for example, after it's not good enough for the car anymore? So very important information for both business and sustainability. And the thing is, it doesn't exist yet. And so the question is, which data in what form? How do you get it there?

 So there's a lot of questions that still need to be debated by industry and politics, technically, but also content wise. And so we've put together a consortium of like a dozen leading automotive companies, material companies and science institutes with the Fraunhofer Institute like top researchers, and the World Economic Forum to answer some of these questions and contribute to that.

That's one of the big projects that we're starting. But we're also working with an economic forum on a study on circular economy policy between the EU and China. That's going to come up mid-year and hopefully start a great discussion. And working with a bunch of corporates also on Yeah, taking their perspective on living in that future urban mobility world and improving the full lifecycle impact.

So it's going to be a very, very, very exciting year and wait, yeah, we're growing very fast. We're doubling our team this year. So looking forward to applications as well, we're looking for colleagues.

Katherine Ann Byam  22:20  

Right. I'm going to talk to you about that as soon as we finish this. So what are your thoughts on how the battery materials and rare crisis can be resolved? Because I think that this is the growing concern.

Tilmann Vahle  22:33  

Yeah. No, and thanks for pointing that out. Right. Because it is definitely and to be honest, it's a matter that isn't only relevant to electric cars but to the whole decarbonisation well pathway overall, right. I mean, if you move from coal power plants to distributed solar, for example, we need a lot more IT infrastructure, a lot more electric motors and a lot more chips everywhere.

And so that's where the wires come in. Right? And just for the foundations that it's often misconceived that electric cars have reversed and the batteries have reversed and it's not really the case like rare earth are in electronics and in electric motors. Yeah. And so they're, like in very small amounts, you have them in very crucial batteries. You have cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese sometimes depending on the chemistry. And none of these is rare. So like also chemically part of the rare earth group but they're also not chemically rare.

The challenge is that they have sustainability issues. And they're not there's not enough around right now. No, cobalt, infamously comes a lot from Congo and child lemons human rights concerns, lithium comes partly from southern America with concerns about water use. And nickel is really expanding. For example, in Indonesia, where there are some impacts on or dramatic impacts on rainforest and oceans. And so that needs to be fixed.

Thing is, right now we like what we're looking at right now. The batteries right now. They're basically what engines were, like 80 90 100 years ago. Yeah, so very primitive, if you will, and right now the innovation is oh, so fast that every like three months, there's new announcements of new chemicals, new new ways of manufacturing, and that we need less and less material to get the same performance.

And, they're getting less and less harmful. And so for example, Tesla's announced that for the big things like the module, model, three, the volume model, they're moving to lithium iron phosphate batteries altogether. And that's important because we talk about cobalt and nickel as the key problem materials. Well, you know, Tesla's already moving away from them, half of the batteries in the cars in China this year already, like 2021.

We already have lithium iron phosphate batteries that don't have any cobalt and nickel in them. So that's a challenge that is real, but it's also that for one limited cost, and for another, not going to be a problem for cars, predominantly in the long run. Yeah, and so it shouldn't be something that blocks this innovation. It's something that we should manage as well as we can. But in the medium term, you know, clean that up and limit and recycle everything that we have. But it's not a fundamental challenge to electrifying cars. So that's very important to keep in mind.

Katherine Ann Byam  25:19  

For someone interested in a career in sustainability, what advice would you give them?

Tilmann Vahle  25:23  

That is a great question. And to be honest, as I've looked back many times, I am now looking forward. Also, what could I do? What can I do? What can I apply myself to, but the thing is, at least since 2018, with the new IPCC report on the 1.5 degree goal, I think everybody's realised that climate change is real, it's happening, we need to act super fast. I also mentioned, technology has changed so much, like you know, solar is now cheaper than fossil electric cars basically, in two, three years time.

If you can't buy an electric car, that's your problem. But you want to buy one right this way here. So now it's shifted right? In the past, it was a lot about convincing people that we need to act, then it was a lot about okay, convincing people that it's possible to act now. It's really a question of okay, getting it done. And so if you want to move into sustainability, well, yeah, definitely educate, take a systems perspective, and you know, ask twice, like, what rebound effects? What's the complex value chain behind things? And who really has the power to change the system?

Fundamentally, is it me eating a little bit less meat, or, or using a bit less plastic bags? Or is it really, you know, the heating system where I don't have an impact on -  Half of our emissions are basically from heating and lighting our homes. So whether you use a plastic bag or not, in the grand scheme of things, is really not important. Sorry to say. So I like learning to look through what are really the big challenges.

And then actually, you know, learn the skills that you need to grow businesses to legislate to contact and reach out to people to communicate, like basically business skills, normal still like to change stuff. You need to have the skills to change stuff not to be smart on sustainability. So I think that that's changed. Yeah. And so going to strategic consultancy, to bank to invest into politics, that's all opportunities to make a change, wherever in which whatever position you are.

Katherine Ann Byam  27:26 

And that's great. How can my listeners get involved and support your work as well as possibly join systemic?

Tilmann Vahle  27:33  

Yeah, I mean, we're, our goal this year is to grow by 50%, from 300 to over 400. And in all our locations, that's London, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Jakarta, Jo Paulo, Paris. So yeah, please do apply, reach out, I mean, through LinkedIn, right, we are easy to find. I'm looking at our website, I think people will find a lot of interesting projects. So that's systemic dot earth and have a look there.

Katherine Ann Byam  28:06  

Perfect. Thank you so much for joining the show today.

066 Making A Design Statement

066 Making A Design Statement

About this Episode

Today, my guest is Karen Adams, founder and CEO of Kaia clothing. Karen made her first garment at the age of seven having grown up with a black and gold Singer sewing machine in her house. Watching fabric come to life in her mother's hands. She marvelled at how a flat piece of fabric could be transformed and engineered into 3d Clothes owned by the family. At 19. She started a small fashion business, she studied fashion design and fashion drawing at London central St. Martin School of Art. And later on, she chose the predictable and dependable roots of corporate retail immersing herself in the geekish side of merchandising and analysis. Clothing represents a return to her earliest passions with a desire to solve some of the sustainability challenges facing the industry in our lifetime.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam

Karen, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Karen Adams  1:33  

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:34  

Really great to have you. We share a bit of an origin story, both our parents were born in Trinidad and Tobago, can you share a little bit about how your Caribbean roots potentially influenced your worldview on inclusion and equality and all of these things that you've all there?

Karen Adams  1:50  

Sure. And I always am thrilled to meet someone from the land, you know, where my parents grew up from Trinidad and Tobago, and where I'm from the Trinidad and Tobago was very much alive to me, because my parents spoke about the place and the smell and the fruits and it felt like home even though I hadn't been there until I was about I think 10 years old. So we both spring from Trinidad and Tobago, and I do marvel that our experiences will be so different in that you lived in the majority, ethnically speaking. And I've always lived in the minority. So I always am, I always wonder about how that would have impacted my resilience and the many wounds that you inevitably acquire growing up in a sort of systemically racist environment for the most part, not always, and not in every way. But it's definitely there. And you definitely had to fend it off for your whole life. So I always marvel at what it might be like to be free from that. And at the same time you develop your own resilience. So as being a Brit, you do, you have to develop your own resilience and your identity and your ways of thriving in the world. But I love Trinidad and Tobago so much. I mean, I've been there, I've been there several times, it's home from home now. And you know, having this I've always regarded myself as dual heritage, or even try heritage because most of my mom's siblings went to the States. And so I have a very early experience of visiting there. And it's really served to increase my resilience, it's almost like I have additional vantage points that most of my peers just didn't have. So I was able to view the world through many lenses and angles. And that's only been a power to me.

Katherine Ann Byam  3:35  

It's interesting what you say, because I think, you know, we can talk about this origin story and how, how people from the Caribbean who then move here in later life, how they experienced the difference because it's definitely different, it's definitely different being in a place where you're expected to grow and to thrive. In other places where that's not the norm, what you're doing has examples. So you don't have enough examples of strong black women, for example, being very successful in their careers. Where I come from there are loads of examples of that, even though, you know, I can't say that the Caribbean is well advanced in terms of equality between men and women. But definitely the matriarch of the family is a strong character in the Caribbean story. So having that has been, I think, tremendous for me, but you're right, I only noticed how powerful that was when I left that environment and saw something different. So it does have an impact. And it's almost like you have to learn again. From my perspective, I have to learn how to navigate this sort of web because it's not something that I'm used to. It's definitely been a learning curve for me as well. What were the pros and cons of your experiences working in retail if we move back into the retail setting and how that has influenced today,

Karen Adams  4:56  

I'll start with the pros because there were many, many pros, I had come out of fashion, I attended a course this is how it began, I attended a course. And the title, of course, was start your own fashion business. It just shows where I was heading and what I wanted to do. And on that course, this guy was brilliant. He talked about the different facets and career options within the industry. And he spoke about merchandising, he described its function at the analysis and intricacies of the role. And he said it was a lucrative career. And so the light bulb went off, I thought it was fairly low risk to entry and lucrative. I'll go that way. 

Because I by then I had tried to, you know, to spin up my first startup at 19, realised the costs were quite prohibitive, really, because then back in the day, you there was no internet, you had to either have a shop or sell offline, you know, to your friends, more sort of small groups as I did. So, you know, I found my inner geek. So there's many of me, I've got many sides to me, I've got the designer who loves to create and express myself through clothing, and I love to design, I love analytics. And I'm always analysing I see patterns in things on very limited datasets. And I feel very intuitive about forecasting. And my forecast will always really bang on. And I just had an instinct for them, which hasn't left.

So I kind of walked into another side of me that woke up and I loved my career. I love the pressure. I love the pace, I love the power of it. I love the fact that it was lucrative, and I was able to, you know, buy property several times over move, and you know, travel. But I loved using my mind in that way, it was really mentally challenging and very difficult work. And I loved it. So these were all positives. And this really helped my sense of self to flourish. And I found another side of me that was highly disciplined and high performing. 

On the negative side, there are people who will hate you for being great at your job. And then they always tended to fall amongst my peers, people on my sort of ranking your organisation. So senior management, you look across horizontally, they're the ones who are threatened. And that's where the danger lies. So I had a couple of bullying episodes, I'm in life bound to my full resilience and my fight back. I just didn't know how to do that. My parents were quite strict, and they took away the ability for me to say no, and to protest loudly, which didn't serve me well, I have to say. So I was a little bit vulnerable, I guess, to the sort of toxic people you can find in the workplace. But that's not to say I mean, I still walked with confidence and effectiveness and so on. So it was more than my inner world, you know, I felt vulnerable in some senses, I kind of grew tired of it, after 11 years of adding millions to the bottom line of Big Blue Chip corporations, many of which have now sunk into that big black hole in the high street during the pandemic. But anyway, I grew tired of adding millions to their bottom lines. And I wanted to do something more purposeful. So I kind of had a spiritual awakening. And I wanted to do something for the good of humanity, not just adding dollars to big companies,

Karen Adams  8:17  

I do think it brought about your spiritual awakening. So a number of things happened in my personal life, involving racism involving toxic people that I should have been able to trust. I'm a very sensitive person. So I can't just brush off betrayal or treachery, it wounds me, deep down. And so that was something I needed to fix internally, or, you know, to improve my resilience. Although I'm still sensitive, frankly, things still upset me. So I have to guard against what I let into me. I began a search to find out why life hurts so much and why people are so unpleasant. You know, I was just so curious. And so upset by it. I just went on a quest to find out a little bit more. So I left and took a psychology degree, I ended up working with vulnerable adults with severe learning disability and epilepsy. And it was the most epic journey of my life, finding the wonder in different brain types, finding the love there, and the personality that was just the most amazing adventure. 

So I entered for a short time, the world of child protection and social work, which I also loved. So there's so many, there's so many. There's so many of me here. And I guess I'm trying to visit them all because I can you can't I can't deny the musician in me or the care in me or the psychologist in me or the you know, analysts to me, or the engineering me I can't sort of deny all of those and just do one thing because I've left everything on tap. The road was longer and more windy than I ever imagined. I thought a couple of stops now kind of resume getting back into the system. And just you know, but it didn't, it didn't go like that and I guess my current venture is part of that journey.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:57  

It's incredible. Your story I want to ask you, how are you now addressing the sort of experiences and concerns that you've had, or the challenges that you've had in the ethos of what is Kaia clothing?

Karen Adams  10:11  

Right. So I describe clothing as my phoenix rising it, you know, this is the culmination, this is where I stop in life and gather up all of me. And Kira clothing embodies all of those counts, all of those passions, all of those heart desires, all of her spirit, you know, that's all in there. And I designed it, I reached a point. So after the child protection, social work episode, I started my family. I had my son, he had very high needs as a child, I had a really nice job, assessing families, and because of his high needs, they wouldn't give me the flexibility I needed. So they said, you either come back full time, or you don't come back. So they took my job. And that's when I returned to entrepreneurship, full throttle, because I had to work on my own terms. So that's where my entrepreneurial journey began, it wouldn't have now of course, because we know that work from home can work. But then there was this notion that Alicia chained to someone else's desk, you couldn't effectively work. So. So having taken this entrepreneurial route, I decided that all of my desires for the world to make it better, to try and bring some love and fairness and justice into the entrepreneurial endeavour. This is embodied in Kaia clothing. So what that looks like is, for example, that I sought to become a B Corp, which originally the name was benefit corporation, it's a for-profit business, that it's designed and incorporated to do good in the world and have a positive impact. And part of my business model is that with every sale, a proportion is donated to a domestic abuse charity. And I've recently partnered with the British Heart Foundation to introduce circularity and also give to them. And of course, running a business involves all of the career skills that I've acquired, nothing is wasted. It's a zero waste endeavour,

Katherine Ann Byam  12:06  

Who does Kaia Clothing target and why?

Karen Adams  12:10  

You know, I've thought long and hard about this. And in corporate retail, especially, you clearly define your target customer, she has a name, she has a profession and an address right down to the tee, and you target her at the exclusion of all others. I'm adopting a different philosophy with chi clothing, because ultimately, the target audience is anyone who cares about the planet.

But in addition to that, it's targeted at people who use clothing to express themselves. So you know, I think we all do that to an extent, you know, we dress to say something, but some people talk, you know, through their clothes more than others. And they use texture and colour and style and cut and all these things to tell a story is storytelling in the way that a dancer or a musician will tell a story through their performance. For some clothing is a performance and you're, you're communicating who you are. So it's for people like that, who love clothes, but don't want to indulge in the damage, but want something a little bit different and expressive.

Katherine Ann Byam  13:09  

How are you measuring and managing your footprint and circular model as a clothing brand for people who are purchasing from you?

Karen Adams  13:18  

So I only purchased materials and finished goods and fabrics that are certified that have a traceable origin. Right, right back to the seed in the ground. And that's the only way to be really sure. You know, when I stand in front of people and I say these are sustainable, these will not deplete more than they won't take excessively, that can't be generated. So when I stand in front of people and declare that I need that to be bombproof to be true. So certification is what I look for.

So I use GOT certified fabrics. So my bamboos and cottons I've got certified. They're made by a small cooperative in India that do a lot of hand looming, and they use a lot of rain in the feeding of the cotton as it's growing and so on with low pesticide to no pesticide use. I have bought T-shirts that have the Greens credentials in the industry. So they're made in purpose-built solar powered facilities and they are fair trade and they are organic. So I go for either high credentials to offer the assurance, what I am trying to balance is the additional cost of doing so. Because you know, until I reach scale, you know, it's more expensive to conserve the planet than to trash it, especially with clothing. But this will be true until I hit scale.

So early support is vital so that I can get those economies of scale and bring prices to not cheap, but bring them down. I buy Irish linens that are made by a family run business centre. They come from Belgium where most of the world's fine linen is grown and harvested as their special techniques. Their linen is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful manufacturing story that you know, it grows in three months, it's fed by the elements, you put it up by hand, it's called retting. And you lay all these bundles of linen in the fields, and then the rain and the sun, everything that nature is complete, that process decays the outer skin so that you can get to the inside and the stock comb and thrashing the inner fibres that make linen flax. So I love that. I love that manufacturing process of linens,

Katherine Ann Byam  15:31  

this is a really important thing, I really think it's, it's important to understand how fabric is made and how, where it comes from. And I think this is an understanding I didn't have before my interest in sustainability, for sure. So it's really interesting to learn this from you from someone who's a connoisseur, per se, of fabric.

Karen Adams  15:49  

I'm reading and you know, watching consuming content all the time to just learn more and more and more especially about manufacturing, and under the chemical side to really understand the full extent of the damage and the choices. I know

Katherine Ann Byam  16:03  

that leading a sustainable fashion brand is challenging, definitely, there is no business that is untouched by the movement towards sustainability today, because I would say it is now widely accepted that we need to have more than a profit motive. But it doesn't mean that things are ready yet. So as you talk about, you know, the higher cost of doing business in a sustainable way, this cost is as a result of the fact that negative externalities haven't been factored into the cost of doing business the old way. And as those things begin to be factored in, as we start looking at ways to factor those things in as we build up on things like ESG reporting and looking at wider risks to this the ecosystem, as it were, what sort of challenges you've overcome already, that you want to share and talk about with others who might be on this journey as well.

Karen Adams  17:04  

Because sustainability is still fringe, I would class it as fringe. And the reason I'd class is that it is free. And just because you have to search hard to find sustainable materials that stand up to scrutiny, you know, I have to search hard to find the threads, the elastics, the fabrics, the commitment to sustainability, right down the supply chain, I have to seek them out. So it takes a little longer to find your suppliers if I were unscrupulous and what was prepared to sneak in a little less here and little that I'd be able to move more quickly and more cheaply. So it costs to commit to sustainability in time and in money.

So they're the biggest challenges having said that, that this fringe community is growing exponentially. And it's such a warm and lovely place, because people are on a venture to save the planet. And their commitment is just writ large over everything they do. And when you find people where sustainability runs through them, it's just such a lovely place to find yourself really hopeful and optimistic and courageous. And yeah, it's like finding the Warriors.

Katherine Ann Byam  18:21  

I agree with that so much. What would you say to other fashion designers interested in making a difference?

Karen Adams  18:30  

I would say harness your courage and do it and get on mission, get all in, don't tinker around the edges and don't align with any organisations that aren't fully converted towards sustainability. Just don't dilute your cause. You have to go all in and your network, you have to surround yourself with people who are all in because if you try and hybrid it, it doesn't work actually is what I found to my cost. Because if you network and you harness yourself to people whose values don't reflect your own, there will be a crash at some point in the cost. So I'd say guard against that.

Katherine Ann Byam  19:08  

I think that's great advice to be fair. And how can my listeners get involved and engaged and support what you're doing today?

Karen Adams  19:16  

Ah, well, if you like what you hear and you want to save the planet, I'd love your support. You can start with a T-shirt, or you can start with a follow up. So my website is Kaia. clothing.co.uk. My Instagram link is on there. So please come say hi on Instagram, that would be great and follow along.

If you want to go further if you want to purchase a Fairtrade organic t-shirt, then please do that. That would be great. I'm trying to get a mass t-shirt conversion going on because it's such a ubiquitous garment that we all wear. So if you just swapped one of their T-shirts for a wind powered Fairtrade organic one, we could sell my mission for 2020 20 days. Two is to stop one tonne of co2 emissions. So if you want to join me on that quest, buy a t- shirt. And let's, let's, you know, let's get that counter moving so that we can stop a tonne of co2.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:11  

Thank you so much, Karen, for coming on to the show. Really enjoyed the session. I think there's loads of great advice. I think of strong black women who are courageous and brave what it takes to be sustainable. You are an absolute beacon of light. So thank you for helping us to see always thank

Karen Adams  20:30  

you so much. It's been great. Thank you for having me.

065 Green Cloud Nine

065 Green Cloud Nine

About this Episode

Today, my guest is Lola Fernandez. Lola was born in Spain, but considers herself a citizen of the world as she's lived in Word outside of her home country for more than half her life. As a girl, she always had a love for nature and grew up with anxiety about the future of the planet. And she became an activist at an early age. 

During the nearly 25 years, she built a corporate career, she had a sense that she was meant to do something more, she started toying with the idea of her own business where she could set the values to align to what she really believed in, she left the corporate world to embark on the biggest adventure of life founding GREEN CLOUD NINE.

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Episode Transcript

It's such a pleasure to have you on Where Ideas Launch, you are one of my best friends in the sustainability space. And it's such a pleasure for me to host you. So welcome.

Lola Fernandez  1:29  

Thank you. Thank you very much, Katherine, it's my pleasure to be here. Because as you know, I'm a great fan of your work.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:36  

Thank you so much. And I wanted to start off with where you grew up. And, you know, I know there's, there's a bit of a story there. But how did that sort of impact your activism work? And how did that influence who you are today?

Lola Fernandez  1:49  

Yeah, well, I grew up in Spain, and pretty much between the South and the North, my family came from the south by the sea. And then because of work, we move up to the north, very close to the Pyrenees, to the mountains. So I have always had a very close relationship with nature, I love both the sea, I love the mountains, I love animals, I, I started developing that passion as well as, as a Girl Scout. Very, very early in my life.

And basically as I was growing up, I started learning as well about the damage and the things that we were doing to our environment. And for me, it was very shocking, to see that sometimes trying to spend some time by a river where we were having picnics as a family, we couldn't do that anymore, because they have the streaming. So it started causing me anxiety.

So I started trying to learn a little bit more. And somehow inside of me, something reacted. So I couldn't just stay put. And I think when I was 13, or 14 is when I had very clear that I needed to do something, and that something started with very little changes at home. And it slowly grew a little bit bigger, and I started joining organisations, I started going to demonstrations, etc.

Katherine Ann Byam  3:12  

That's amazing. So you have worked in, I think it's four important spaces, NGOs, big corporate sustainable ventures as well, which is within the big corporate space. And now as an intrapreneur, can you possibly reflect on what were the sort of lessons you took from each of those phases? to sort of give you the grounding you have now?

Lola Fernandez  3:34  

Yeah, well, I think from every area, I have picked different things, probably from NGOs, what I learned was more about values, things like integrity and the passion to do something that you believe in. But the thing there were also the important things like commitment and engagement, because normally we join NGO NGOs out of conviction, but you need to keep that mission and that passion alive and for that you need to keep the feet on the ground, it is very easy to get lost in idealistic principles, but you really want to achieve change, you need to roll up your sleeves and work right. So I think that being realistic has been very important there. I mean, from the big corporate time, I mean, nearly 25 years there I have taken so many lessons.

And of course, many of them have been on the business side like learning to project manage, learning business development, how to how important is to focus on customers, but they think a very important part of the learnings has been on the leadership side. I mean, they all around leadership skills, like how to deal with people how to communicate, understanding notions of setting up an organisation. All of that has been very, very useful and Till now.

Now on the intrapreneurship adventure, I would say that the biggest lesson I've learned is humility. Because no matter how much I knew from before, for those 25 years experience, I have realised that there is still much more that I need, I need to learn. So I need to approach everything with a very open mind. And so that that together with greed and determination, I think is what I'm learning the most now from being an intrapreneur.

Katherine Ann Byam  5:30  

Yeah, no, these are really powerful lessons. I mean, tell everyone about what Green Cloud Nine is so that they have a perspective before we get into some of the challenges, like just explain the concept.

Lola Fernandez  5:42  

Yeah. So basically, Green Cloud Nine is a digital marketplace. And probably the best way that people envision it is Amazon. So it is pretty much like Amazon marketplace where people can find everything that they need, from clothing, up to cosmetics, food, etc. but focus on the niche sustainability. So that's the biggest difference. In our case, only sustainable and ethical brands are going to be allowed in the platform, and to make sure that they are ethical and sustainable. We make them go through an assessment process, and only those who pass the assessment will be able to sell on the platform.

Katherine Ann Byam  6:27  

And the assessment process. Is this something created by you guys? Or is it something that you're collaborating with other organisations to do?

Lola Fernandez  6:35  

Yeah, so well, we have our sustainability team in green cloud nine. And what we decided to do, I think, in the future, this will probably evolve. But what we decided to do is to create a simplified version of what the big certifying bodies are doing, which is a very expensive and lengthy process. And we have simplified that, keeping the spirit of it but making it very easy. Also, for small companies who cannot afford to spend 3000 euros a year or up to 5000 euros sometimes, on that kind of process, we are giving them the opportunity to demonstrate that they are sustainable with this simplified process that we have developed ourselves.

Katherine Ann Byam  7:21  

Okay, and are you getting some sort of approval for your process as well? Is that something that you have in your work so that your process can become a certification as well?

Lola Fernandez  7:30  

Exactly. So that's the idea. In the long term we ourselves want to get certified by one of the best renowned certification bodies out there and turn our little process into a certification on its own. Yeah, that we need to learn on what we have created so far, and see how that develops?

Katherine Ann Byam  7:51  

Yeah, perfect. No, that sounds really great and exciting. What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced in building? What do you have today in green cloud nine?

Lola Fernandez  8:01  

Well, I think there are many, many, but I think that the fact that it is a very complex project, I mean, everybody thinks, oh, yeah, Minnesota is just a marketplace, what can be complex there, but now everything is complex about it. And the fact that we are looking at a European scope, so we want to have sellers, we want to give sustainable sellers overall in Europe, the opportunity to reach more customers. And that adds complexity in terms of languages in terms of legal regulations in terms of taxes. So there is a lot there. Of course the capital, the budget itself. This is a massive project, you are always gonna need a lot of capital right now.

I'm funding everything myself as a single founder. But very soon we are going to be looking at investment. And of course, trying to build a team without a proper budget has also been a big challenge, which I think considering the complexities and the restrictions I'm, I'm solving relatively well. I have right now an amazing team of volunteers from all over the world. And another thing we are doing is setting a better tone. Considering that a year ago, this was just an ad on paper. So it's slowly we are facing our challenges as we are working through them. And of course, now there are some new challenges coming, especially on the funding side.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:38  

Yeah, no, definitely. What is it like working with volunteers and tell me about this experience for you? Because I know there are two sides to this experience.

Lola Fernandez  9:48  

Sure. Sure. I mean, it is amazing because we have very motivated people so normally all the people that are joining us, they are people they've been Leaving what we do, right is otherwise they would not be working for us for free. And, and they are, they are convinced about our mission and our vision and they're very creative, they are motivated. Yeah, they bring lots of ideas. And because the team is all over the world as well, we are having an amazing diversity, cultural diversity backgrounds.

So that's that, that makes the team very, very dynamic. Of course, on the downside, let's say it's, we are having to manage an already complex organisation also just using volunteers. And that's considering that most of the volunteers are only working part time. There are organisation challenges, time restrictions, sometimes people need to leave the team before the time. And of course there is on the personal side, people that they think that because it's volunteers, it means that they, they don't have to work. So there is always a bit of a challenge there, keeping people engaged and making sure that they understand the commitment behind what you're doing.

Katherine Ann Byam  11:17  

And I guess I guess there's also an internal side for you. Because when you have so many people giving their time, giving their creativity, giving their role, you must also feel a sense of deep obligation.

Lola Fernandez  11:29  

Yes, it is. It is a lot of work. And as I say, we are even starting to build sub teams. So on one hand is very good as well, because we're IC talent, I'm able to develop that talent and into team leaders. And we do have a lot of talent in the team. But of course it is. Right now we are about 35 people, we have been up to nearly 50 At some point. And to have that coordinated, and it's a lot of time, a lot of engagement, a lot of commitment. So yeah, not so easy to manage.

Katherine Ann Byam  12:12  

So tell us a little bit about the intended business model, what's it going to look like? What's it going to feel like if you're a customer, if you're a supplier? Tell us about it.

Lola Fernandez  12:21  

Yeah, so if basically, as we said, so we are a digital marketplace. Basically, if you are a sustainable seller, what you can do is to create a little shop on our platform, we are making, we are streamlining the process a lot. So everything can pretty much be done. Online, we are also simplifying lots of the complexities of taxes, for example, I mean, trying to sell the VAT within Europe is a nightmare. And what we are doing is we are coding lots of this stuff in the backend of the platform.

 So it is a lot easier for the sellers. And the idea is to have sellers across industries pretty much on every consumer area and products but in the future also services. So we want now for later and also consultancy, marketing etc. And, yeah, so then through the platform, the sellers will be able to reach customers in other countries that they normally operate. So many of the companies that we are approaching are really small, they are usually selling within their country.

And we want to give them the opportunity also to reach customers internationally for now within the EU but later on in other regions as well. And if you're a customer, the experience should be, as we said, very similar. If you're shopping in Amazon, we want customers to save time and to be able to buy with trust and transparency that we don't want them to have to think Oh Are these brands really sustainable. So that's why we are doing the work for them with the assessment right so when you land on our platform as a customer you need to have that peace of mind that what you're buying is sustainable. Yeah. And we want to offer, as we said earlier, pretty much every everyday products that you may want to find such as food, your toothpaste, your cosmetics, clothing, etc. Perfect.

Katherine Ann Byam  14:31  

And what's it been like as a woman leading such a big venture? And especially in the tech space?

Lola Fernandez  14:39  

Yeah, I mean, it is challenging, I think because first there are not many women intrapreneur out there so we are still facing some challenges on that fence that if you come as a woman with such a big project, they look at you funny, like, Oh, you're sure what you're doing there. And, and you need to start pulling that, look, this is my CV, I have 20 years experience, I have worked in many areas and so that's still a little bit of an issue. But there are also I think there are also benefits, like I'm having the opportunity, being a woman running this, this show, I'm having the opportunity as well to help other women.

And I'm a great believer in empowering everybody, but especially women, because we know our own shortcomings when it comes to step forward and show our potential. So I'm using the opportunity now also to help women, so we actually have the majority of women in our team. And I'm also personally coaching and mentoring several of them that are showing interest in growing personally and developing to see where we can bring them.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:03  

So that's really fantastic. I think it's something that's, I think, a big part of the sell for the volunteer right to get that sort of coaching and support.

Lola Fernandez  16:12  

Absolutely, absolutely.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:15  

And what would you say to someone wanting to begin a sort of green first intrapreneurial journey? What would you recommend?

Lola Fernandez  16:22  

Yeah, I would say that the first step would be to look at yourself internally and understand your purpose. Why, why you want to do that, and what is driving you because this is a long and hard path. There are good days, but there are many nightmares, very many dark times and sleepless nights. So you really need to be very convinced why you want to do this. If you want to just do it for money, you can forget it, you need to have something a lot deeper, that that is driving you.

And that's what is gonna keep you that's why they were disconnected, especially when those dark times come that you say no, no, okay? Today has been bad, but they know tomorrow's gonna be better. And you can, you can continue. And apart from that, keep going and don't give up. Many startups fail because they give up too soon. If they continue for two more months or six more months, they could be successful. But mainly they add, they go through frustrating times, and they give up and are too early. So determination and purpose, I think, are two key elements. Perfect.

Katherine Ann Byam  17:35  

How can my listeners get involved and support green cloud nine, I love what you're doing. And I'm very keen to you know, shouted from all my platforms.

Lola Fernandez  17:44  

Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Yeah, well, so as you know, we're going to be launching very soon. So I guess we would like to invite everyone to visit our website first, to bring cloud nine.com and have a little bit of a better time learning a little bit about what our vision and our mission is. Right now, as we are preparing for the launch, specifically, and specifically regarding sellers, we are looking for a limited number of sustainable companies that want to partner with us.

So we can develop and grow together, because we know how hard it is to find your place, not just in the market in general, but in the sustainability market in particular. So we think that by partnering and helping each other we have much better chances to succeed. So if anybody's running a sustainable business in Europe, Raoul later, we will expand. But please visit our website, sign up for our green pioneer programme. And then we can start talking and see how this can develop. And of course, on the customer side, we would love people also to subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with what's happening when our launches come in. Also, if people would like to spread the word, find us some work connections. That's always very good. And when we launch, of course, to visit our platform and see what kinds of sustainable products they can find there.

Katherine Ann Byam  19:15  

Thank you so much for coming to the show for sharing all of this insight and for the exciting project that you're building. I know it can't be easy taking on Amazon. But it's really a pleasure to see that such a platform is happening and it's so purpose driven. So thank you and congratulations.

Lola Fernandez 19:34  

Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

064 Share More, Waste Less

064 Share More, Waste Less

About this Episode

Today my guest is Tessa Clarke. Tessa is the co-founder and CEO of Olio, a free app tackling the problem of waste by connecting neighbours with each other, and volunteers with local businesses so that surplus food and other household items can be given away and not thrown away. While Olio has grown to 5 million users in just over five years, and its impact has been widely recognised, most notably by the United Nations who highlighted OLIO as a beacon for the world. And by Viva tech, sorry, who awarded Olio the next European unicorn. Prior to OLIO, Tessa had a 15 year corporate career as a digital managing director in the media, retail and financial services sectors. And she met her co-founder Sasha, whilst they were studying for the MBAs at Stanford University. Tessa is passionate about sharing about the sharing economy as a solution for a Sustainable World, and about profit with purpose as the next business paradigm.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:13 

What an amazing mission you have Tessa, welcome to the show.

Tessa Clarke  1:21  

Thank you, great to be with you.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:23  

Olio clearly hits a nerve with people and has become such a trending brand name and the sustainability space. What prompted you to really begin this OLIO journey.

Tessa Clarke  1:33  

So the earlier journey started, really in my childhood, my parents are farmers up in North Yorkshire in the northeast of the UK. And when you grow up on a farm, you learn firsthand just how much hard work goes into producing the food that we all eat every day. And as a result of that, I grew up with a pathological hatred of food waste. Now, I didn't think anything in particular about that, and went off and pursued as you've touched on a fairly classic corporate career. But everything changed through a seemingly inconsequential moment in my life. Just over five years ago, now, I was living outside of the UK moving back and a moving day, that movement told me that I had to throw away all of our uneaten food. Now, obviously, given how much I hate food waste, I was not prepared to do that. So instead, I set out to the streets clutching this food, hoping to find someone to give it to and cut a long story short, I failed miserably. But I wasn't to be defeated, so I went back to my apartment. And when the movement we're looking at smuggled the non perishable food at the bottom of my packing boxes, and I remember that moment so vividly, I thought, Wow, I'm probably performing a criminal offence right now. But to me, it felt even more criminal to put perfectly good food in the bed, when I knew there was someone probably within 100 metres of me who would like it. And so that was how the whole idea of OLIO came about.

Katherine Ann Byam  2:53  

It's incredible. Because I think you know, growing up on a farm in Yorkshire, I grew up on a farm in the Caribbean, and the community was always important, right, so nothing would ever go to waste, you would always share.

Tessa Clarke  3:04  

Exactly. And actually, that's one of the things we've discovered, since launching OLIO, is that nobody enjoys throwing away food. And the reason why we throw it away is because we're no longer connected with our local community, we no longer have someone to give that food to. And that's actually what earlier is trying to counter. We're trying to harness the powers of modern technology to make it simple, safe, fast and fun for you to be reconnected to your local community. So you do have someone to give that food away to

Katherine Ann Byam  3:34  

powerful message. Which of your past skills would you consider most transferable to the OLIO journey? And why?

Tessa Clarke  3:42  

That's a really interesting question. Because both Sasha and I, between us we'd had a 40 year corporate career before we became entrepreneurs. And so we definitely felt that we were going to grate against the grain a little bit. I think the stereotype of an entrepreneur is some kind of couple of young guys who have dropped out of college wearing hoodies right at the beginning of their careers. And we were definitely not that we were sort of two mums in the middle of their life.

But what we've realised, actually, is that all of those skills that we acquired through our corporate careers have been incredibly helpful and valuable for us. And I think it's fair to say that we have kept probably half of the things that we learned from our corporate background, and we've ditched the other half that we think is a waste of time. So the stuff that we've kept, is everything around recruiting, retaining, managing people, leading teams, communications strategy, the importance of customer insight, data, analytics, all that good stuff is absolutely critical, no matter what size of organisation you're working in, the stuff that we jettisoned.

And then we got the opportunity. I think it was a lot of that bureaucracy, just the timescales on which things happened when You're an entrepreneur with very limited resources. And time is money, you have to move extremely quickly. You have to test and experiment the whole time. And so very early on, we read a book called The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. And that book above all others, I think, really transformed our mental mindset and changed it to something very new which prioritised as I say that constant test, measure, learn test, measure learn process.

Katherine Ann Byam  5:28  

Yeah, I think there are a couple of books in this category of startup that are really powerful. I think Alex Osterwalder is one of those authors that I think is really pivotal in this space, right? Yeah. So what are some of the challenges you faced when you started as well.

Tessa Clarke  5:47  

So many challenges every day is a new challenge. And the important thing to recognise is that that comes with the territory. And you've got to learn to be at ease with that, we had a couple of very significant early challenges. So one of the first early challenges was that our early adopters loved olio. But they hated food waste, and so they had no food to give away. And then we had, somewhat naively I think, hoped that local businesses would use the owner app at the end of the day, to bring extra customers into the store, etc. And they were too busy, you to run in their core businesses to be messing around sort of messaging with members of the community in an app. So we had a food sharing app that had no food on it, which I'm sure you'll agree was pretty useless. So how we solve that conundrum was, we said, why don't we take the people who hate food waste, don't have any, but have plenty of time, and match them with the businesses that have lots of food waste in no time. And that resulted in our food waste heroes programme, which today has over 35,000 trained volunteers. These are members of the audio community who we match with the local business. And then at the end of the day, for that business, the volunteer will show up, they'll take all of their unsold food, they'll take it home and add it to the app within minutes, the neighbours requesting it and minutes later, they'll pop around and pick it up. So that helped us overcome the problem of a fish sharing app with no food. Another early challenge was how to grow the community with very close to no marketing budget, because again earlier is a product that depends upon there being lots of other people using it for it to actually work and be useful. And so how we managed to get around that was we developed our ambassador programme. And we now have over 50,000 ambassadors. So these are people who are really passionate about our mission. And they recognise that for them to be able to use OLIO, their neighbours need to be on earlier as well. And so we give our ambassadors both digital content to enable them to spread the word. But we also give them old school letters and posters and flyers, so they can do that sort of hyper local guerilla marketing on our behalf. And that's been a really, really cost-effective way for us to grow rapidly.

Katherine Ann Byam  7:58  

Really powerful story. I'm really curious about the topic of the business model because I read in your summary that this is a free app. So I guess my question is, how are you actually making money?

Tessa Clarke  8:12  

Great question. So we are firm believers in profit with purpose. So Elio is absolutely not a charity, we believe that business can and should do good. But in order to survive and thrive, you've got to have a sustainable business model. So we generate revenues through the service that we provide to the businesses that I just outlined with our food waste heroes. So at the moment, businesses have to pay a waste contractor to take their surplus food away. Instead, they are now paying us to ensure that that food is taken away but redistributed to the local community so it's eaten, not thrown away. And our largest clients are Tesco, pret Aman, Shea, Booker, the wholesaler, and many, many more.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:02  

Wow, that is brilliant. It's really a great way to solve two problems, right? It's really turning waste into a product. It's a circular economy. It's everything. That's good, and what we're transforming in the world today. So really, kudos to coming up with what a great model.

Tessa Clarke  9:19  

Thank you. Yeah, we love it, too.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:22  

So what's it been like as a woman leading in a global trending brand, and in this new space of sustainability? Tell me a bit about that.

Tessa Clarke  9:31  

You Yeah, so I think that being a female co-founder business, so I should say it's not just me, it's my co-founder Sasha as well, is nothing but an advantage and a benefit. I think we've been able to build a brilliantly inclusive and diverse team. We have a phenomenal culture and we measure our culture regularly and we're really, really proud of that. There is only one way In which being a woman is a disadvantage, and it is a crippling disadvantage. And this is when it comes to the topic of fundraising. So female-founded businesses receive just 1% of all venture capital investment. Male founded businesses receive 89%. And mixed teams receive 10%. And when you are fundraising, and facing those incredibly depressing odds, it is extremely challenging. And I should say that this is a problem that afflicts not only female founders, but diverse founders of all types as well. And it infuriates me because when I look at the world, and when I see who is really stepping up and solving some of the world's largest problems, like the climate crisis, light, social inequality, etc, it is diverse founders who are doing that. And the fact that they receive just spare crumbs of investment capital means that we are short, ultimately shortchanging humanity due to a lack of investment in those diverse founders. That is the only thing that has been challenging as a female leader.

Katherine Ann Byam  11:15  

Yeah, no, that's really a powerful message. Because I think I've spoken to many, quite a variety of people on this podcast. And you're absolutely right, the people who will go getting who are really making game changing moves in their local environments in the nation states. I spoke to a young lady in Namibia the other day, who's trying to change how they do agriculture there and she can't get the funding. And this is such a problem. It's a crisis.

Tessa Clarke  11:41  

Yeah, it is. And it's not like this is sort of nice to have topics that we're talking about, you know, that lady you mentioned, she's literally trying to feed local communities and feed the world. And we are shortchanging all of us by not investing properly in these diverse founders. And the flip side of that is I find it infuriating. Seeing all the capital flowing into areas that argue if you kind of to step back and look at what humanity really needs to be investing in at this point in time, you might say that we perhaps shouldn't be spending billions on getting people's groceries delivered within 15 minutes, right. So yeah, it's a topic that I'm very passionate about.

Katherine Ann Byam  12:24  

What surprised you the most about this journey, if anything?

Tessa Clarke  12:30  

surprised me the most well, every day is a surprise. Quite literally, I think one of the things that I learned very early on, I think, is because you listen to lots of stories of successful startups, and you hear about Airbnb and people like that. And often when the story is told retrospectively, it's told as if there was this sort of silver bullet or this moment in time, which resulted in this massive inflection point. And what we have learned early on, I think many entrepreneurs quickly realise is that there isn't a single silver bullet. You know, for a long time, we lived in hope that the next feature, the next marketing campaign, the next initiative would be the one that propelled us into the stratosphere. But the reality is that actually is just about showing up every single day, and just testing and improving and testing and improving. And cumulatively, that adds up. And that's what takes you the distance.

Katherine Ann Byam  13:28  

You know, pretty much an overnight success takes about five years to build. Yeah, like,

Tessa Clarke 13:32  

Which part of those 10,000 nights was the overnight?

Katherine Ann Byam  13:39  

So what would you say to someone who's wanting to begin on a green first sort of intrapreneurial journey, and it could be green first, Digital First, whatever the idea

Tessa Clarke  13:51  

I have several pieces of advice. So the first one is to make sure that you are solving a real problem. And a problem that you are really, really passionate about is this, your life's calling life is far too short to be working on something that isn't sort of your life's calling. And there are so many massive problems out there that need solving yesterday, that I think we all need to kind of stand up and kind of get going. The other thing I would say is very much linked to that is to stay focused on the problem that you're trying to solve. And do not allow yourself to fall in love with your particular solution.

Because it is almost inevitable that your solution will not be perfect when you first launched into the market. And it might actually be completely incorrect for the problem that you're trying to solve. And if you just stay really, really focused on the problem you're trying to solve, then you will be able to test and iterate your way to a product that will solve that. The other thing as I've already touched on, I recommend that everybody reads the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and also a book called the Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, which is all about how to do that kind of early market research.

 And then I think the other thing I would say is to reach out and build a peer group, connect with other people who are going through the same journey, it can be extremely lonely. Unless people are kind of going through it themselves, it's really hard to understand what the entrepreneurial journey is like. And also, it's much quicker learning from the experience of others than necessarily having to experience every single mistake yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, the final thing is to enjoy it. Right? Like, make sure you enjoy the journey because you will never reach your destination. That's something else that I've realised. So enjoy it while you're doing it. And sort of what's next for olio?

Katherine Ann Byam  15:39  

What's on the horizon? What's happening now? What are you excited about?

Tessa Clarke  15:43  

So we have set ourselves an enormous and terrifying goal of 1 billion OLIO is by 2030. And the reason for that is really, really simple. If humanity is to stand any chance whatsoever of living in a 1.5 degree warmed world, then that is what we need to achieve. So we're super clear on the end goal. And we are busy plotting the right path in between where we are now.

And that goal, which I'm kind of really excited about, but I'm really excited that businesses are finally waking up to the fact that food waste is wrong. And so we have lots and lots and lots of businesses, from supermarkets, to the quick commerce companies to quick service restaurants, to corporate canteens, they're all wanting to work with us, to enable them to have zero food waste locations. And that's what's changed. You know, we've been sort of slogging away at this for a couple of years. And definitely this year, there's been a real mindset shift as businesses are realising that time is up for food waste.

The other thing I'm super excited about is we've recently launched a section in the app called borrow, which connects people to their neighbours, so you can lend and borrow everyday household items. And we're super passionate about that, because we are sort of currently in the midst of a resource depletion crisis, basically, and that's best exemplified by the concept of Earth Overshoot Day. So Earth Overshoot Day is the day in the year in which humanity has used all the resources that can be replenished in a year. And when it was first measured in 1969, Earth Overshoot Day was 31st December.

So humanity, using a year that the planet could replenish in a year, fast forward to this year, Earth Overshoot Day was the 29th of July. And so what that means is that every single thing that every single one of the seven half billion people are consuming after the 29th of July, is net net depleted to the planet. And this is a very long, roundabout way of explaining why I'm so excited by this new Baro section. Because what we have, you know, we're consuming collectively as if we have 1.75 planets.

And by 2030, we're on track to be consuming as if we have three planets. And by 2050, we're on track to be consuming as if we have five planets. Clearly, we only have one planet. And so we've got to reinvent how we consume. And so we really want people to when they want to consume, to first and foremost, utilise the resources that already exist in our local community.

And so instead of you going out to buy a cat carrier, or buy a fancy dress costume, or buy a drill, why don't you just borrow one that is sitting gathering dust in a neighbour's home. And if we can borrow instead of buying, if we can give stuff away, instead of throwing stuff away, then we really can help solve the climate crisis at scale.

Katherine Ann Byam  18:31  

Absolutely. Listen, thank you so much for this. How can my listeners follow your work and get involved in what you're doing? I guess, go download the Oliwa.

Tessa Clarke 18:39  

Download the earlier app. Yes, absolutely. So earlier, we spelt out li O. And you can find it in the app store in Google Play, and then on our website, as well. So you don't have to have a smartphone to use olio. You can access it via the website. And then we're very active on social media as well. So it's at OLIO dot app. And if you're interested in learning more about sort of sustainability and sustainable living, then please do follow me. I'm on medium. I'm at Tessa Clark.

Katherine Ann Byam  19:10  

Perfect, thank you so much for joining us today.

063 Let's Talk Supply Chain

063 Let's Talk Supply Chain

About this Episode

Sarah Barnes Humphrey is a logistician, 10, supply chain mogul, passionate about collaboration, transparency, diversity and doing better business. As the host of the popular podcast. Let's talk supply chain. Sarah puts people right at the front of an industry that's traditionally been about stock stats and numbers. From thought provoking questions and lively discussions to championing diversity and real people's industry success. Let's talk supply chain and its sister shoes, women in supply chain and blended, bring the breath of fresh air to logistics.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03 
Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  1:21  

Thank you so much for having me. And congratulations on your show. I'm just super excited to be here with you today.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:28  

Oh my God, thank you so much for bringing that up. It's been such an honour to be recognised in that way to have achieved the number seven podcast in the UK on innovation topics, which is just tremendous and extraordinary. Thank you.

So Sarah, I wanted to get into how you got started in 2016, you started to babes talk supply chain, and they sort of went back to see how you started. And I love the original concept because back in 2016 women in the supply chain area was certainly still working hard to find their place at the table. Right?

what inspired you to get into the supply chain in the first place?

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  2:10  

Yeah, so my parents owned a freight forwarding company. And so freight forwarding is like a travel agent for freight or for products that are moving across by air ocean truck. And so I remember talking about supply chain and logistics at the dinner table since I could remember. So I kind of see that supply chains in my blood, it kind of got in my blood early. And once you get into supply chain, you never leave because it's just a lot of fun that people are amazing. And so I worked at my dad's company, I did operations while I got hands on experience. Well, I got education by correspondence.

And so I did my diplomas and different things while I was working. And so I got the opportunity to do all sorts of operations. And then I got the opportunity to sell all of those services. And then I got the opportunity as Director of Sales and Marketing. And we really needed to tell our brand story. And I was listening to a lot of podcasts at the time. And I was like, well, if Lewis Howes can have his own podcast, why can't Sarah Barnes Humphrey, and why can't it be about supply chain? And you know, things like marketing and supply chain at the time were really stuffy? And I was like, how do we push the boundaries of this? So I asked a guy from my customs department and tongue in cheek, my team and I decided to call it to babes talk supply chain.

Katherine Ann Byam  3:29  

It is really brilliant. And I think it's probably what changed the trajectory of success for you. Because I think it's important for us to show up as we are. And I think you've done that brilliantly. So thank you for that. Thank you. So So I've spent pretty much the last seven years working in supply chain after sort of 10 years in finance and five years and internal audit. And supply chain was like a real growing up experience for me, like when I entered that function, because I kind of realise it blends everything, right? It takes a bit of the finance, you have to think about the finance, you have to think about the cost of things moving, you have to think about the customer, you have to think about a lot of things. 

What are your thoughts on sort of the challenges facing supply chains to be post-pandemic? And as we start to re-examine how to make them more resilient?

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  4:17  

Who so many thoughts? I think the disruption that we've seen in the last 18 months is not something that I've seen in my whole, you know, 20 year career, you know, and I talked to people from different walks of supply chain, and you know, the ones that are really dealing with it on a daily basis, as far as the disruptions are concerned to, you know, CEOs of tech companies who are coming up with the solutions that can really help us move forward in the industry. And you know, it's so it's been tough, right? It's been tough for a lot of people to really, I mean, we're problem solvers.

 That's what supply chain owners are, we're problem solvers. And so we thrive, but when it's a lot, it's a lot, you know, and when brands are starting to compete on supply chains, it really elevates the level of which supply chain, the role of supply chain has played in any organisation, poll, you know, pre-pandemic, I don't think we're out of the woods yet. I mean, I showed an article on my live show a couple of weeks ago about how Costco has invested in three vessels until the end of 2022. So that really, I mean, nobody has a crystal ball, we don't know what's going to happen. However, that's a really good indication that Costco is kind of like, this isn't going anywhere, we need to double down on our supply chain risks until the end of 2022.

So really, really good indication of what that's going to look like. I think supply chains are resilient because of the people behind them. And I think we've got some amazing people in this industry. And if anybody can get us through that, it's them.

Katherine Ann Byam  5:57  

Yeah, I think it's also heavily relationship-based as well. And I think it's something we underestimate.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  6:03  

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, people are the heart of supply chain, and you can't really get around it. I mean, we need tools, we need technology, we need to be able to move forward and have the data to enable and empower everybody to make the right decisions all the way through the chain. Right. And so yeah, we've just got some amazing people that we need to empower.

Katherine Ann Byam  6:28  

So we agree, and sort of post-CoP 26 as we are now I know that you know, there's an increasing look at how we get to a net-zero commitment. There certainly bigger fish to fry in terms of, you know, stuff cutting trees, and a number of these things. But what innovations are you most excited about in the supply chain space that will help us deal with the crisis, especially around moving? And freight, especially air travel?

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  6:55  

Yeah, so from a sustainability standpoint, I literally just put out a LinkedIn learning course called fundamentals of sustainable supply chain. So if you're looking for sort of a course to take, that's easily digestible, about how to sort of start on that journey. That's a really, really good place to start. I give a lot of examples. And so definitely check that out. So as far as sustainability, I mean, just the fact that everybody's talking about it, and the fact that we are seeing organisations put more emphasis on it. I just ran a panel last week at the procurement foundry event with Francis Edmonds, and she's the head of sustainability at Dell. And she was like, if you're not thinking about it right now, then it's too late. Right? You really need to be starting to think about it right now. And you really need to be implementing what that looks like. There's a lot of different technologies. She talks about starting with procurement, and starting with your suppliers and making sure everyone in your supply chain is aligned with the same sustainability goals. And what does that look like for them? And how can you support them? How can they support you? So again, going back to the people going back to the communication?

Katherine Ann Byam  8:07  

Yeah, certainly, it's part of the ESG framework now as well, to look at your scope two, scope three. So it's definitely something that must happen with procurements, other other functions optional, but we need to get started everywhere we can vary. So sharing your experiences as a woman in the field, and what helped you to rise? And what challenges did you face as well.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  8:29  

So many challenges. I mean, I started working in the industry, I mean, I started working in the industry when I was 16. But that was mostly like filing and different things like that. And so that was in the late 90s. But I really started my career in supply chain in the 2000s. And, you know, if you think about that, if you know anything about that era, we were still very, very, very male dominated. So I was one of maybe three women at any industry conference that I would go to from, because from a sales standpoint, I was very lucky. And a lot of people don't know this. But in the supply chain, you get to travel, you know, in a variety of different positions, but you get to travel a lot in the supply chain.

And so I was very fortunate to do that. But again, I was one of like three women at an interesting Industry Conference. And so that was a little bit daunting, but I was kind of in sales very early on in my career. And I was just sort of told to go out there and start talking to people. And so you know, I was pounding pavement and knocking on doors. And so very early on, I kind of found, I guess, my voice in that way. You know, and there were a lot of things still around the family, right? You're gonna get pregnant and you're not going to worry about a career. Well, that wasn't me. I mean, I have wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 16. I wanted to take over my dad's company and unfortunately that wasn't you know what was meant to be. But it also then led me down this path of Let's Talk supply chain, which to be honest with you has been so amazing because I've been able to just be myself, a lot of times when you're in different shadows for a variety of different reasons, especially in your career, you know, you get lost in some of those things, and you kind of lose yourself. And so I was able to bring that back.

Katherine Ann Byam  10:22  

Yeah, I think one of the challenges I faced as well was pretty much being able to speak the language of the testosterone in the room. Right?

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  10:31  

Right. Well, that was kind of it, I kind of had a double whammy, right? Because I was a woman in the industry, but then I was also my dad's daughter, and I was also the daughter of the owner. You know what I mean? So there was a mixture of challenges that kind of came out of that show.

Katherine Ann Byam  10:50  

We will get into that in another in another episode and share with us advice would you give to other women in the supply chain space on building their careers and amplifying their voices,

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  11:03  

Just do it, I'm going to take a page out of Nike, just do it, okay. Because at the end of the day, you don't know what you like, and what you don't like, unless you try it. And that is invaluable to your career because it can take you in different places that you never even thought possible, right. And then to find your voice, I mean, I still get very nervous speaking in person in public, I've gotten a lot better digitally. And it's from some childhood trauma that I'm sort of working through at this moment. But when I was looking at, you know, finding my voice and being able to speak in public, I went a different path.

So I would not voluntarily sign myself up for Toastmasters, like my hand literally shook every time I tried to press send, and it didn't work for me. So I ended up getting a talent agent. And I went to auditions. And I got laughed out of and guiled out of so many audition rooms. But it was okay because I wasn't going for a career as a, you know, as an actress, I just needed to get used to being in front of people and trying to memorise lines and try to you know what I mean. And I ended up on TV with Denise Richards a couple of times, and for the shopping channel, I was in a dog food commercial. So it really gave me some really, really, really cool opportunities. While I was still trying to figure out what that looked like. So I guess, you know, in all, some of my advice is really just to try something new. And if the traditional method isn't for you, that's okay, just find a different way to think outside of the box and what that might look like for you.

Katherine Ann Byam  12:48  

I thought it was so very interesting when you talked about dealing with trauma from your childhood, and I just wanted to touch on what does it take to be able to bring yourself to the public in this way, and how much self work you've had to do, just give us a picture.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  13:04  

So I am a very big fan of therapy. I've always had a therapist, I was bullied from grade five all the way till grade 12 in a variety of different ways, from a variety of different people for a variety of different reasons. So you know, there's certain things right, you've got triggers all the time that certain things come up. But when I kind of resigned to who I am as a person and who I want to put out into the universe, and be my authentic self, that's when the magic happened.

And, you know, if you talk to anybody, they'll say anybody that you see on like, if you see me on the screen, and then you meet me in person, a lot of people will say to me, you're the same person. And I'm like, Yeah, I can't, I can't pretend to be anybody else. And so that has really been how I've built my brand is just on who I am and how I treat people on screen and off-screen.

Katherine Ann Byam  14:06  

I love this. I know that you can't speak very long. I'm grateful for you coming on to the show. Please let my listeners know how they can get in touch with you and how they can fully work.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  14:16  

Yeah, so many different ways. We've got a great community on LinkedIn. So follow let's talk supply chain on LinkedIn. I'm also very accessible on LinkedIn. So it's Sarah Barnes-Humphrey. Our website is letstalksupplychain.com And we're on a variety of different social media platforms. We do have a supply chain dictionary that we're giving away for free. So if you go to let's talk supply chain on Instagram, and DMS talk with the number one you can actually get our supply chain dictionary for free and it's like 107 pages so tell me a little bit about blended. So blended is the newest conversation in diversity and inclusion. It's like red table talk for podcasts, where I bring five different people from different walks of life to talk about different diversity and inclusion topics, but we've taken it one step further into a non for profit.

And so corporations as well as individuals can actually donate to the cause. And we're going to be creating an impact visually on imperson stages, digital stages, and in audiences at conferences. So we're gonna, we want to see a visual impact on diversity and inclusion in those three areas in the supply chain. And so we've got a GoFundMe page for individuals, and then we'll be looking at corporate sponsorships. And we'll be providing scholarships to those that have speaking opportunities but can't potentially pay for the travel to get there. Oh, my God, I'm so looking forward to that. You know, I just want to applaud you because, you know, I think like you said, it's not easy to get out there and, you know, talk about yourself, talk about your story, interview other people, get perspectives and really provide value to the community. So congratulations, because, you know, I think that what you're doing is making an impact on the industry. And, you know, thank you for doing that.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:13  

Thank you so much for the accolades and, and let's celebrate together. Thanks for joining the show.

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  16:19  

Thanks so much, Catherine.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:24  

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

062 The Sustainability Puzzle

About this Episode

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's
show. This is the sustainability puzzle. And my guest is Alice Schmidt.
We are streaming live for the courageous career club and on LinkedIn. We're also recording this for my podcast where Ideas Launch, the podcast for the sustainable innovator.  Thank you all for joining us.

And we're gonna get into the session. So let me introduce a bit about Alice.

Alice is an advisor and an advocate and an author on global sustainability and social transformation, and she's passionate about gathering, collating and distilling deep insights on global systemic challenges and solutions regarding environmental and economic sustainability, as well as social justice.

So she has a big agenda. And in her latest book, The sustainability puzzle, which she co authored, together with her friend, Claudia Winkler, she discusses how systems thinking circularity and climate action, as well as social transformation can improve health, wealth and wellbeing for all.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

 This is a big challenge. We've, we've now just come out of cop 26. And we've had all of these challenges going back and forth on those countries that are struggling. And it's really interesting what you're doing. So Alice, welcome. Welcome to the show.

Alice Schmidt  2:01  

Well, thank you. Hi, Katherine. Really good to speak to you today.

Katherine Ann Byam  2:04  

I wanted to start by sort of acknowledging the breadth and depth of your experiences across cultures and across geographies. And having started your academic life in business and Communication Studies, what first prompted your interest in social impact work? First of all, of all the things that you're interested in?

Alice Schmidt  2:23 

Yeah, so a great question, let me go really far back, because it's actually affected the first, you know, children always asked what they want to become right when they grew up. And for me, when I said, I want to become an author, and I want to write a book to save the world. And I'm clearly not saying I've reached it, but just as this is to demonstrate that this has been within me. So you know, as a child, I found clubs to save the environment and to protect the environment and to help sort of socially disadvantaged people. And, um, you know, I was, I was part of the scouts movement. And I do think now with hindsight, that this kind of influenced my values. And my thinking is sort of, you know, this cherishing nature and all of that and taking responsibility for your actions.

But professionally, it came when I was working with Coca Cola and also Henkel, another fast moving consumer goods company, at the time, based in Vienna, but focusing on the Central and Eastern European markets. And it was a long time ago, that was about 20 years ago, I just came out of University and finished my business degree. And I remember thinking when I worked at Coke, no kind of dream for a lot of young marketers thinking, do I really want to focus on helping one company sell more of an unhealthy, carbonated soft drink? or would I rather use his energy, my skills to sell something that you know, is actually perhaps, you know, saving the wild, I had a similar experience with the launch of a dishwasher, dishwashing detergent in Central Eastern Europe, which at the time was quite poor, and a lot of people didn't even have enough money to buy, you know, sort of detergent at all right? They had to make soap by themselves.

And that really then drove me into this direction of social impact, sustainable development, initially, more on the social side, and then bringing back the business sort of link as well as engaging with climate issues because I really think it's this bigger picture for me sustainability is really people planet and profits.

Katherine Ann Byam  4:35  

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think my experiences in life have taken me on a quite similar journey for two years so I worked in internal audit for a huge multinational in a controversial industry. And I had the opportunity to travel the world as well and experience deeply and firsthand the plight of many societies of many communities, and how innovative they are. Coming up with solutions that are frugal. And, you know, I, I've also seen how the crisis of geopolitics has sort of ravaged the environment. Right? And how has that work across cultures and disciplines benefited your work on understanding and, and sort of tackling complex and integrated system challenges? 

Alice Schmidt  5:23  

Yeah so I mean, I have indeed written in about 30 countries on four different continents. And that was very much my choice. At the time, there wasn't this trade off that we discussed earlier about climate at least, you know, your carbon footprint in terms of flying around so that I neglected at the time blissfully, I was blissfully ignorant of it. And, I was clearly driven by this insert that the more I see, the more I understand, but also the more I know what I don't know. Yeah. And, I quickly recognise that solutions or sort of activities, actions, programmes projects that seem like solutions can actually make things much worse, if they're not sort of embedded in a bigger picture kind of frame just to give an example.

And students because I use this because students of mine brought this up yesterday. And you know, the famous brands toms, right, the shoes, right? That don't donate a pair for each pair that you buy. And, and if you sort of just parachute into a developing country, and you see oh, there's a few children without shoes, you might think, Okay, I have a solution, right. But then if you see him out and somehow look a bit, sort of deeper and more broad, broadly, you find that actually, it's not the shoes, perhaps at MIT. And actually, if you give away shoes, you might destroy local industry, right? And this is not to bash Tom's as a company. To their credit, they actually think about these issues and do research to understand the impact.

But I mentioned this also, because we see, you know, a lot of talk about electric mobility at the moment. But as long as this electricity, the power that you power your car with does not come from renewable sources, it's not particularly sustainable. And that let you know, leaving aside all the issues around batteries, etc. And so yes, this, this, this, for me, also, on a personal level, these trips to a lot of developing countries, other cultures more broadly, have always been very eye opening, very humbling. And they've been very, extremely useful reminders of how lucky I am, how privileged I am. And have been there for allowing me to really focus on what matters, rather than you know, winching about this and whining about that. So absolutely important in this experience. Yeah.

Katherine Ann Byam  7:58  

Yeah, it's interesting, you touched on something that I'd love to explore a little bit, if you don't mean. So it's, it's around this topic of transitioning to electric cars. There's so much baggage behind this transition for me, because at the moment, I'm driving a car that's not fit for the future. I know this. But at the same time, I don't want to commit another act of criminal injustice against the climate, by purchasing a car that's going to extract more materials, rather than taking my existing car and converting it. Because if I were to sell my car, someone else is going to drive it. So I haven't solved the problem, I have not solved the problem of climate change by selling my car. So if I scrap my car and waste the asset, right, so for me, I wish the solution that people would be coming up with and I do hope to hear from BMW soon about this. But I want them to retrofit my old car. You know, and I guess the question is, how do we tackle that?

Alice Schmidt  9:00  

So I mean, I think you're touching on a lot of different things. And some go into direction of circularity. And actually, if you resold your car to someone who would otherwise buy a new one, right? Yeah, that would help given that you as long as you didn't buy a new car, and perhaps went into car sharing, right? Because I think it's not so much about the car, it's about mobility, again, sort of this need to zoom out right, but we also stress in the book a lot. And look at this bigger picture. And in this case, it's mobility and seeing how we can create Win win wins, right for ourselves, for the planet. So for the environment, the natural environment, and for people and cars are a great example because of course they pollute right? Some people love them and think of them as very beautiful but you know, having tons of cars sitting on our sidewalks on our roads, right?

Instead of having greenery and forests in our urban environments is Not particularly appealing, we've just become so used to it that we don't question this. And it's, of course, what I think is interesting in terms of the electric mobility movement is that, by and large, this is something where we have policy and agreement. It's become a political force. Yeah. So it's not one of these things. And so giving people an alternative, still being able to sort of own a car, if they must, is already an achievement, I think, yeah, but it definitely does matter where this comes from for your car personally. And I mean, yeah, if you could go without a car or car sharing, I think that would be a deal. If your car is sort of not too old, it might actually be much more economical, and also better for the environment to continue driving it right for a while, if it's too old, I have this super old car. And I'm told actually, that it's, it would be better to go electric to actually, you know, sell it, but driving. For me, it's really bad. Do I need this car? And I hope the answer is no.

Katherine Ann Byam  11:12  

Yeah, no, I think that's a good way to reflect on it. But I do still want the manufacturers of these vehicles that are more polluting, to take some sort of circular action to sort of help us write help. I would much prefer to have my car retrofitted and pay for that, than to extract materials again.

Alice Schmidt  11:32  

Yeah. And that's true. I mean, with cars at the moment, you can't really retrofit right with buildings, you can do that in an economical way. Yeah. But of course, some of the big car firms like BMW are actually also jumping on the sharing bandwagon. Yeah. And I think this is perhaps their biggest contribution they can make.

Katherine Ann Byam  11:50  

Yeah, so I'm going to take a quick pivot to the comments and just flash them through. So we have some good wishes from Sean. Thank you very much, Sean. And we have Isabel saying hello to both of us. Hi, Great that you joined us. And Mary Lou is asking me a question. So I'm facing the same mobility dilemma. Katherine, I sold my car and for now, I am managing without, but at some point in the future, I may need a new one. And I'm not convinced about electric vehicles yet.

Alice Schmidt  12:20  

Go for car sharing. That would be my current really going without occurring.

Katherine Ann Byam  12:26  

Right. Yeah, exactly. And, you know,

Alice Schmidt  12:29  

also a trend we're seeing I mean, cities and mayors around the world. But that's not the end of the world. But some cities are really going this direction. And it's also about making cities more pleasant, more sustainable, more livable for the 50%. Right of the world population that's already living in them.

Katherine Ann Byam  12:48  

Yes, exactly. And, look, I think there's so many important things that I think people need a space to kind of ask questions as well, because as your book indicates, it's a puzzle and it's complex. And we need support, we need support to make the right decisions, instead of everyone going off doing what they think is best, which might actually be causing more problems. Right. So it's an interesting debate for sure. Yeah, so let's, let's talk.

Alice Schmidt  13:16  

A lot of there's a lot of well-intentioned projects and companies out there and players out there, but you know, well, meaning well-intentioned doesn't always mean good.

Katherine Ann Byam  13:28  

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So let's move to a few concepts in your book that I think listeners will find fascinating. So I wanted to start with this happiness beyond GDP. And I've been following what's happening in the Greek reshuffle and the Greek pause as some, some people call it, post-COVID. And there's definitely a heightened level of interest for many, for many people to design more holistic, healthy lives and get more from their careers, more purpose from their careers. So tell us about your thoughts on how to facilitate change in the direction of happiness beyond GDP.

Alice Schmidt  14:06  

Yeah, so first of all, it's true that people care and they don't want to go back to life before COVID. Right. I mean, there were quite a lot of studies on this last year, I think about 80%. So it's zero, they said that they actually wanted to go back to a more sort of sustainable life. Right. And I think this is partly a reflection of the pandemic, having forced us to think about what makes us happy. What does wellbeing mean for us as individuals, but also what does progress mean for us as societies as countries, right, and there have been, I mean, this is not completely new, and there have been a lot of very sort of big, well recognised institutions, global institutions, but also individual mayors again, yes, city governments trying to shape the target setting and policies in a way that don't just maximise the GDP, right?

Because the GDP has been the main indicator that is used around the world, to sort of indicating progress. Yeah, that's the measure we have. I mean, it doesn't actually measure progress. It measures economic output, right. And it misses all the voluntary work that our societies depend on. And it goes up when we see disasters, floods, Harrigan forest fires, right. So it's not a measure of progress. And even you know, the guy, that cannot be Simon Kuznets, who invented it, almost 100 years ago, basically said, This is not about measuring societal progress, but somehow our mindsets are so adapted to this thinking that, that it's very hard for us to move up. Having said that, a lot is happening.

 And I think a lot of people start to, to value what matters to appreciate what matters companies and NGOs, but particularly as of companies are still are starting to track the social impact, the environmental footprint, and what sort of the newest, and to me, also most exciting trend is that we're getting towards a system, we're tiptoeing towards a system, where we account for costs, as they truly are, which means we valuing the services the ecosystem is providing for us, right through wood, or food or natural medicine, fibres, whatever. But also, services like climate regulation, or water filtration, maybe we never think about this, but I'm not saying I'm definitely not saying give these things a price. But I'm saying let's value these things. Let's value clean air, air pollution kills 20,000 people a day.

That's a sort of a tragedy, right for individuals, for families, for societies, but it also comes with an economic cost. Yeah. And I think it's really important that we start talking about these costs more and more. And because that's just how we think right in our world, we think in monetary terms, and that's why I think translating negative impacts into what I call the cost of unsustainability is really helpful. But of course, we don't want to communicate negatively, right? In fact, a book is very much about optimism, and about picking people up where they are, yeah. Not really killing anyone, because they have ignored sustainability. You know, until recently, I'm not laughing at any questions, obviously, but also taking seriously the efforts they are making and trying to work with them to see how they can make more efforts.

How could they perhaps, you know, increase their impact. And, and and, yeah, so I think that this is partly also for people to really appreciate what they have and what they haven't thought about before such as clean air. Right? I mean, our mental health and again, this is measurable, our measurable, our mental health improves significantly, if we live in areas where there are sufficient trees. Yeah, it's the same trees that sort of decrease this famous heat island effect, and make people die from excessive heat, right. But it's also a mental health benefit. That's really important, particularly now in these times, right when a lot of people are suffering through the pandemic. Yeah, no,

Katherine Ann Byam  18:55  

That's absolutely true. And I wanted to touch on something and I didn't tell you about this before, but we'll talk about it anyway. Which is this idea of donut economics. So I recently discovered Kate Raworths' work. I hadn't heard about it before. Remarkably, even though I've been in this space for a while, and there's a lot of I'm following her Twitter account where you know, she's building communities around trying to bring these ideas of living within the doughnut to life if you want to perhaps talk a bit about that maybe explain the concept to my listeners as well and talk about your perspective on how we can do that.

Alice Schmidt  19:32  

Yeah, so I fully agree can she has done great work and I think it's encouraging that her book is also really, and her ideas and her thinking have really sort of gathered very widespread attention. So the doughnut essentially tries to reconcile both the environmental and to social, the global social injustice, aspects of sustainability. Yeah, bookkeeping within the donut hole, we all know what a donut looks like.

And make sure that we don't overstretch our sort of planet services. Yeah, then that is the natural environment, but we still provide a sufficient standard of living for all people in the world, right? I mean, that's also why we wait for us, this is really important, because we also talk about our book where the subtitle is health, wealth and wellbeing for all. I think this is so important, right? People like you, and me, you've been to a lot of places to see this, these enormous disparities, right, even within one country within one city.

Right. And I think we'll understand this, but not everyone has had the chance to understand this. And so. And I, what I like about the donut economics is that it's also a concept that's now being used by governments, including city governments. I don't know, for some reason we keep coming back to urbanism and cities today, and like Berlin, or Amsterdam, right, that are really trying to use this sort of framework, because it resonates with people. Yeah.

Katherine Ann Byam  21:10  

Yeah. It is easier to grasp for sure.

Alice Schmidt  21:14  

And so just one thing that comes to mind here, is this, this idea, or this insight, that there are only developing countries out there that are not any developed countries that are economically developed countries, but there aren't any countries that are where we need to be environmentally in terms of environmental protection. Yeah. Or providing a sort of social justice to everyone.

Yeah. And, I think David Attenborough also said this in his famous cop speech recently, which was brilliant, by the way, so I recommend everyone out there to watch it for seven minutes, definitely worth your time. And it's also about sort of, you know, learning from that inverted commas developing world, right, because a lot of what people in these places do is exactly what we need today. Think about circularity, you know, you repair things, sharing things, not throwing them away. And that to come full circle with Acade worth, she also said, on a finite planet, there is no way you can throw things away. And that's another one I love.

Katherine Ann Byam  22:34  

Yes, absolutely. Now, yes. All right. And I think the more that we have examples of countries embracing this, you're right, it's going to set a new trend as to what it really means to be an evolved society. And of course, we have other competing things that are coming into the sort of forefront now with digital transformation. And, you know, Facebook and Electabuzz, I'm not going to ask you to answer questions about that, don't worry, but it's one of the things that is now part of the whole complexity of how we redesign better for the future.

So I want to pivot now to cop 26. And there have been some commitments made around me being around reforestation, etc. But there have also been some sort of COP outs, so to speak, forgive the pun. But you know, talking about reducing coal, as opposed to eliminating the use of coal, and things like that. So I guess which agreements have been the most encouraging for you? And how has caught 26 done enough, in your view, to solve the problems that we face?

Alice Schmidt  23:48  

Yeah, so um, I guess I won't give you the short or the long answer, but something in the middle. I mean, one thing I think we need to consider is that before the cup after the cup is before the cup, yes, there's going to be another one next year, and it's going to be in Africa, which is great. I think Egypt if I'm not mistaken. And I do think that it has served to really get a lot of global attention. I don't think that's just me, you know, because I'm in my little bit saving the world kind of bubble. I do think there's been more attention to the cop and awareness, pressure also from civil society, I think is key.

Yeah. What it hasn't done is really come out with this new big agreement that everybody subscribed to. Yeah, there's a text, a communique that came out at the end and which included some very encouraging text around phasing out fossil fuels. There was this debate about phasing out  fossil fuels. And there was also the, the, what was it there? Yeah, phasing out fossil fuels. And then the coal that you mentioned specifically, right? Because coal is the worst, the most polluting fossil fuel. And but what we've seen from a governance perspective is little blocks emerging, right?

So a few countries, you know, going for methane are now this another few countries for forest, etc. And I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, right? Because it could become very easy now for countries to say, well, actually, you know, China didn't sign up. So why would I need to? And that brings me Of course, another really important point. I mean, I think one of the face savers, if that's the word for COP, was this quiet last minute agreement between or at least Joint Declaration between America the United States and China? Yes. Because in the end, it will come down to that. Right. Are they going to work together? And so I think there's a, you know, there are some promising signs. But, yeah, we're not there yet.

 And finally, perhaps, because one of the celebrated achievements, I think, was Brazil, among others agreeing to help defer deforestation relatively soon. And that is bread and butter, it's not going to help us that much in terms of climate change. Right. I mean, forests are important for biodiversity, for livelihoods for you know, we talked about trees already before trees in urban areas anyway. And I think, and, yeah, so we need to, we need to take everything that's come out of the cup with a pinch of salt.

 And keep in mind that these are just commitments. Yeah. So this is not implemented yet, and the most beautiful policy is worth nothing if it's not implemented, actually. Yeah, so just to finish, I think we might actually need to focus more. And we see this as a trend right to resort to climate litigation. And that brings me back to Brazil and now, right, there's some action against him. And companies are starting to fear that and I think this is an act for which my activist heart tells me this is a really good sign as well.

Katherine Ann Byam  27:24  

Yeah, yeah. Now this is great. So I want to close with the final question, which is, actions we can all take. So what are the sort of first steps that you would recommend people take at the household level? I mean, before we actually went live, we had a conversation about, about the whole topic of travel.

So I'm gonna let you take the floor in this one, because, for me, particularly travel is one of the one I would call the guilty pleasures that I'd love to still have. I haven't travelled since the pandemic began. But it's something that for me has transformed my understanding of complexity. It's transformed my approach to the world, and therefore it has been hugely beneficial. At the same time, it's wrapped up in a huge carbon footprint bet.

Alice Schmidt  28:11  

I hear you, I find that really hard as well, myself. I try to be principled, but I don't think I will always be able to write. And, I mean, again, travelling with mobility personally, I love long train ride, so I don't mind going between Ghana and Brussels for 13 hours. You know, I like how this soul travels with me and my soul travels with me. And I'm not sort of parachuting into a new place. But of course, there aren't the trains that are a thing in itself in Europe, and there needs to be a much more improvement but do but still do take trains.

Yeah, I think a very important message is to use public transport. eat less meat or no meat, and insulate your home. Yeah, that's another sort of big lever lever. And particularly also buy only what you love. Yeah. Even if it's more expensive, invest money, invest in quality, buy something you really love, and you're gonna be wanting to repair in case it breaks and that you will want to refurbish and that you will want to perhaps trade against something else as a friend Sir.

 So this circularity I think is also really something can be with and I'd like to mention also that in the book, the sustainability pamphlet, we really we deliberately included sketch notes for each chapter there which summarise the main sort of the main puzzle piece like circularity, climate action, which we're not talking about. And in each of these sort of puzzle pieces, we tell people what they can do as individuals, what they can do, you know, as representatives, companies, and what they can do as governments because I think it's really important and it's also important to, for people to understand That no matter what they do, it can have an impact.

Yeah. And it's not just about what you buy and what you do and which services you access or consume. It's very much also about how you take others with you, right? Your friends, your peers, but also your colleagues influence you at an organisational level. Yeah. So lots you can do and I hope you find more inspiration in the book. I

Katherine Ann Byam  30:28  

I loved your tips, particularly about buying something that you really love, even if it's expensive, and making sure it's something that you want to repay. I think that's my main one. Huge takeaway. So thank you so much for joining me today, Alice. And thanks to all of you who've listened and do give us your comments and feedback. And do get a copy of the sustainability puzzle if you haven't already. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Alice Schmidt  30:51  

Wonderful, thank you so much, Catherine and to everyone else here and keep in touch, stay in touch, get in touch.

Katherine Ann Byam  30:58  

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