084 Youth Perspectives on Sustainability and Change

084 Youth Perspectives on Sustainability and Change


About this Episode

They are our present and our future, although it’s not quite in their hands. This is the generation that’s already bringing change to pale, male and stale boardrooms around the world, but will they run out of time? We talk about careers, sustainability and the journey of these young women to create a future they want to be a part of.

Serena Coccioli 

Serena is a Colombian-Italian who graduated in Ecological and Environmental Sciences from the University of Edinburgh building her sustainability career.

Belinda Ng 

Belinda is a youth advocate for sustainable food systems who has just completed an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London. 

Kailin Jo Spencer 

Kailin is a senior at the University of Washington – Seattle focusing on sustainable curriculum advocacy within the Foster School of Business and researching small business sustainability.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
I recently read an article about what the rich are doing to save themselves from the rest of us, and climate change. What are your thoughts when you read stuff like this?

Serena Coccioli 0:11
I mean, sometimes we like to point the finger at billionaires, at people who have a lot of money. But really, we all need to take a step back. And sometimes it's more about taking action like we're in this together, we have to find a solution.

Belinda Ng 0:23
I think I can offer a counter perspective to Serena's, which is that I think it's a very unfortunate reality of capitalism and the world that we have today, there are a very small amount of people that are a lot more privileged. And in many ways, money is an enabler of their current lifestyles. And it's what's been a huge cause of the issues that we have right now with sustainability., and these people have the capacity to save themselves, sucks.

Kailin Jo Spencer 0:47
The ones that are building themselves the bunkers, I say alright have fun, but the ones that are investing in some technologies that will assist in us being able to live with the damage that we've already caused, thank you.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:04
This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I've decided to take this approach is because, we or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet, if we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views but never at either extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand, I will understand their positions, their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating without being combative. I hope you enjoy Season Five of Where Ideas launch; The Sustainable Innovation Podcast.

Today, I am blessed to have three amazing talents joining me for this show. I have Serena who is a Columbian-Italian who graduated in Ecological and Environmental Sciences from the University of Edinburgh, building her sustainability career. I have Belinda who is a youth advocate for sustainable food systems who has just completed an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College in London. And I have Kailin who is a senior at the University of Washington, Seattle, focusing on sustainable curriculum advocacy with the Foster School of Business and researching small business sustainability. Thank you so much, ladies for joining me, welcome to both of my podcasts, this episode is airing on Do What Matters, The Career and Leadership On Purpose Podcast, and on Where Ideas Launch; The Sustainable Innovation Podcast. So I'm really, super chuffed to have you all with me. So I'm gonna start with Serena. Serena, I met you on Instagram, you had been following my podcast Where Ideas launch for some time. And you decided to work with me on your journey and on your pivot. So I wanted to learn a little bit about what you've been up to.

Serena Coccioli 3:16
Of course, yeah, it was. Thank you, Catherine, for the introduction for this opportunity. Yeah, we connected quite a while ago now I don't remember exactly, but it was amazing that we connected straight away, and you were straight up inspiring to me because of your incredible career and all the things you did sustainability related environment related, but also policy and changes and, and getting into interesting fields as well that then related all to what you're doing now, and all those experiences are coming together. So it was inspiring. And I guess I see myself as at the start of that. So when I first came across your podcast, and we got in touch, I remember I was looking for work, I was looking for a job in sustainability. I was also looking at opportunities to help other people. And what I'd already learned from my degree in environmental and ecological sciences. So it was a really, it was a really exciting time for me because I was looking and I was working so hard every day and trying to find something and I really appreciate the connection. And then we had that chat about like where I was, looking at almost like a business audit, like what are you doing now? Where can you take this? Where can you go? And it was really, really insightful. And I remember thinking, wow, like I have so much potential to just keep doing what I'm doing and also look for a job and getting experience in the field. And I think for some time I thought that they were at odds like I had to just focus on one. Whereas I brought those together and now I'm living the best of both worlds I guess and getting more experience as I go. So yeah, that's pretty cool.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:03
Yeah really, really well done. And you know, I look forward to learning more about your journey as we go, as we go through this. So I'm gonna switch now to Belinda. So we met on a hackathon. And it was a sustainable hackathon. It was a carbon capture conversation, and you won to place in my career club. So I just wanted to talk to you about about your journey since then.

Belinda Ng 5:24
Yeah, I think, gosh, it really surprises me how fast time has gone by like, it really just seems like not that long ago, that the Hackathon was finished. And the whole experience of being part of the Courageous Career Club. As Sarena mentioned, I'm also at the start of the career. So it was a really good opportunity to get to understand more about different perspectives from people that have been working for quite a while. So yeah, it's been quite a crazy journey since then, wrapping up the masters and figuring out what the next step is.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:55
Yeah, I know. And we're gonna get into that, for sure. And Kailin, we met when you were doing research and my community, Women In Sustainable Business, what's happened with that research? And where are you taking it now?

Kailin Jo Spencer 6:06
So my research is focused on small businesses sustainability. And I got to connect with Katherine via an interview, and I interviewed her as an expert with my environmental studies capstone project. And I found that the kind of main solution is something that you're already working on, which is collaboration and getting people together to share their ideas and their experiences and their resources. Because small businesses don't have the revenues that these large corporations do to invest in research technology, and all of those things that would further sustainable business operations. But I'm now kind of focusing inwards on my school, University of Washington, and looking at how we can increase sustainable curriculum and focus on the ground up approach of educating young business owners on how to implement sustainability from the ground up instead of trying to trickle it in from the top down. But that's what I'm working on now.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:04
Yeah, I think it's great. It's an important thing, because I do get the sense that although young people are the future of this thing, and so passionate about it, there's still so many pockets of people who still don't have enough knowledge about this. And for me, this knowledge is as important as math and english, right? You know, in sort of the the English school curricula. And so I think it's really relevant what you're doing. So really, congratulations on that. I wanna move now and ask you all, probably starting with Serena, again, what made you get into this area? And what was the burning platform for you what, what makes you want to leverage change the most?

Serena Coccioli 7:45
I started with loving nature, as many, many of us do, and really wanting to do something towards animals, I thought of doing marine biology, maybe zoology, things like that. And then when I came across the ecology and environmental sciences courses at Edinburgh, I was really struck by how many different things I could try, I could try the ecology side, I could try the environmental side. And the reason why that was better was because it was more of a broader perspective and understanding the system as a whole, rather than looking into the deep cellular biology, for example. And when I did the degree, it was a four year degree. So it gave me the opportunity to try lots of different modules, and to start to align my degree into whether it was going to be environmental or ecological. And actually, at the end of that, I realised how I loved both so much. But I thought strategically, because of my point in time, I wasn't in the best health, I thought, I'm going to focus a little bit more on the environmental, something where I can do a job that's more aligned with what I need right now. And then it started with that and looking at the jobs out there. And actually looking back now to the things that were offered, then they weren't as exciting. And now even if it's only been three years, I'm looking now it's like, wow, like there's so many cool opportunities, things are springing up so much. So it's really been quite a big shift. And I think that's really important. Really interesting.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:15
Yeah, there's a super head hunt going on for ESG people, and it's a bit insane at the moment. So it's a good time to be in the space for sure. They probably were spoilt for choice. And then when we get there, maybe we're not so sure that the organisations are doing the best work. So that's always going to be an issue and a challenge as well. And Belinda?

Belinda Ng 9:35
Yeah, I resonate a lot with what Serena said about being a nature lover and growing up with that, but I also think, yeah, since we've already mentioned education, in the conversation so far, like my degree studying geography has been a key part in raising my awareness about the actual complexity of the issues that the world is facing in different parts of the globe and for different communities. So really understanding the nitty gritty of that. and the sheer volume like, not the volume, but like the sheer scale of the problem that we're facing has been very key to motivating me to be working in this space and understanding more about what I can do as an individual as well. So the kind of second strand of that is my own first hand experiences, working with less privileged communities that have been directly affected by things like climate change. And that's kind of really made me understand that, given that we all are global citizens, and we need to take, do our own part to also help support those that are less privileged, I think, that's why sustainability is a really interesting feel for me, because there's so many entry points in there.

Katherine Ann Byam 10:40
Love that. And, Kai?

Kailin Jo Spencer 10:42
My journey is actually very, very similar as well. I started out, I think my passion kind of arose when I was growing up with the outdoors is my backyard, and that was my playground. So I grew up on Alki Beach, which is on the west side of Seattle, Washington, and we would go on nature walks with my family, and in preschool, and throughout all of my education. And then I moved to Vashon Island, where the whole island is pretty much surrounded in forest. And so recess was just in the forest. And we would go to the retention ponds, and we would experiment with science observations. And so that was where my passion started. And then on the other side, I was also getting fed with reducing your carbon footprint. So that was my early education was reduce your carbon footprint, turn the lights off, when you go and leave the room, turn the water off when you're brushing your teeth. And I remember asking my mom kind of like, what's going on? And she's like, well, like nature that you love, so much like, is kind of in danger. And so that's where my passion was found. And then in school, I remember it was focused on reduce, reuse, recycle. So then that was the next phase of, and then so I have these three stages. And this last stage very similar to you Belinda is environmental justice. So I, in my higher education, I realised it's not just about recycling, it's not just about reusing, it's about the communities that are disproportionately affected by these environmental impacts. And that was where kind of advocacy has grown from. And I've had a really interesting time learning about the history of Seattle and Washington with indigenous peoples and the history of America. And just grappling with all of that, and realising that it's not so black and white, has been a super interesting journey. And it's been quite discouraging, sometimes, which I think we can all agree on. But I, I'm also excited because I think when you're met with so many questions, that you're closer to getting maybe an answer. It's kind of my thinking sometimes. But yeah.

Katherine Ann Byam 12:52
Yeah, I think it's such a highly complex area and for you to be studying in this field, you have to be sort of versed in all sorts of disciplines, in order to be able to do this work that you're doing so, so it really makes you I think, a really wide open people is my perspective. So I think it's a great time of your life to sort of be here. So what I wanted to kind of explore with you, you all have your entire careers ahead of you at the moment, you know, you're just getting started, some of you or you're just finishing. And what does growth actually mean to you in the context of everything that you're learning? All that you know about our planet? And about our economics? What does growth actually mean to you? What what does success look like? For someone who is an advocate and passionate person about sustainability? What, I'll start with Serena again.

Serena Coccioli 13:47
Sure. I mean, it's such a huge, I don't even know where to start, really. But I mean, for me grow, growth and sustainability, as some of the things that already kind Belinda mentioned is that being open minded to learning and being curious and understanding, and really connecting with other people who are experiencing things differently to you. And it's kind of looking at the bigger picture and trying to find out where your strengths are and where you can contribute in that picture. And from that, trying to learn personally, but then growing your impact. So I talk a lot about, with the business owners that I've talked to, growing the positive impact that they have and trying to create a business model that is inherently trying to do better, rather than taking things away and then compensating for them afterwards. So having that mindset, mindset is such a huge thing of my whole sustainability journey, and just generally what what I think is important to consider, is having that growth mindset isn't necessarily the one that we think economically like we need more, more, more, it's more about how can you make the things that are there better? How can you have better connections? And how can you integrate a better way of relating to nature, relating to communities, relating to yourself as well, all of these things tie in together and understanding them as a whole, which is why I love understanding it as a whole, and the whole ecosystem, things like that is because that is really how we can then move forward, because we need to have that holistic understanding. And we need to realise that we're all interconnected, it's not all about my experience, my experience of what I experienced when I go to Colombia is very different to when I go to Italy, and also here, and all the other countries in between. So it has to be coming from a place of always learning, but always bringing other people up and collaborating in this, in this journey.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:50
Love it. And Belinda for you?

Belinda Ng 15:53
Yeah, I agree so much with what everything Serena said, my first response to that was also being really open minded and try new things. I think I'm a big believer of pushing out of your own comfort zone, that's the best way to really learn. And so a key part of that is also being really experiment, experimental. And, you know, testing out what's effective, what works for me, which I think also applies in the wider context of sustainability. Because how we got here to where we are now in terms of the history of the world, and development has also been quite experimental in many ways. And so we have a shorter window of time to be more experimental, now to really fix some of these issues. But I think a key part of that is having this mindset to do that. And then the end goal really being how we can do more with less essentially.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:43
Kailin...

Kailin Jo Spencer 16:44
When I first saw the question, I thought very similarly to Serena and Belinda have said about learning and experimenting. So growth economically is usually you can visualise it with a linear line up or down. And I think in order to achieve a more sustainable future, we're going to need to focus on a circular feedback loop where instead of just taking from our community, and then giving back from our community, we're going to be continuously listening to our consumers and all of our stakeholders. And in that process, we'll be growing our business and our selves professionally. And I think that the goal should never be an end goal, it should always be development. And it should always be experimenting, and building on what you've learned. And eventually, we hopefully will be able to get somewhere where we can coexist happily with the environment.

Katherine Ann Byam 17:43
So I'm going to throw a spanner in the works for you, for you ladies today. So I recently read an article this week, I think it was about what the rich are doing to save themselves from the rest of us and climate change. And about those billionaires who are building these great bunkers or the ones who are trying to solve ageing, etc. What are your thoughts when you read stuff like this?

Kailin Jo Spencer 18:07
is Serena starting?

Katherine Ann Byam 18:10
Nobody wants to start this one.

Belinda Ng 18:13
I'm still processing the question.

Serena Coccioli 18:14
I don't like the sentiment that technology will save us. And I don't like the sentiment that we'll figure out a solution rather than figuring out that for 1000s of years people have lived with nature in a way that's mutually beneficial. And then all of a sudden, we're just wrapped up in what we are now and just constantly consuming, consuming and doing what Kai said about just a linear approach to just, what is the end goal? Are we just creating, creating, creating, and it, you know, we're not necessarily happier people because of it. So we need to re-evaluate our priorities and the values that we have.

Katherine Ann Byam 19:05
So what happens, what happens, when the billionaires who control a lot of the resource are basically just touting one, one passage, like what do we do?

Serena Coccioli 19:20
I mean, millions are made of pounds, right? Like, I think as well, we can't necessarily, I mean, sometimes we like to point the finger at billionaires at people who have a lot of money, but really, we all need to take a step back. And sometimes we can do something. I mean, not everyone has a choice, but we can take responsibility for certain things and we don't necessarily need to fund certain companies. We can vote with our money in some ways. And obviously the biggest thing that you always get when someone says something like this is like, oh, but they have have more money and we don't have like decision power. But it's, it's taking the focus away from the action and it's putting the blame on someone else. And I think that's the issue, it doesn't really matter who is to blame. It's more about taking action like we're in this together, we have to find a solution. But we're also in the solution together. And I think that's what we need. And the learning part is so huge like what Belinda and Kai were saying we need to learn, we also need to teach the others. And in that circle of growth, we can all come out better.

Katherine Ann Byam 20:32
Belinda, what are your thoughts? What should we do with the billionaires?

Belinda Ng 20:38
I don't know if I can answer the what do we do part. But I think I can offer a counter perspective to Serena's, which is that, I think it's a very unfortunate reality of essentially, capitalism and the world that we have today, which is that there are a very small amount of people that are a lot more privileged. And in many ways money is an enabler of their current lifestyles. And it's what's been a huge cause of the issues that we have right now in sustainability. And, yeah, I mean, it does, it does bother me that, for example, one celebrity can use their private jet, like three times and that'll be the carbon footprint, footprint equivalent of maybe one household in a less developed country for like, a month. But I think it's just kind of, like, I think if I, if I really had to worry about this all the time, it would keep me up forever. And it just really botheres me. So I think it's, it's a tricky situation where it's like, in a kind of more selfish world, yeah, these people have the capacity to, I guess, if they're trying to save themselves or whatever, like they can, and it sucks, really. I really am also trying to address that and, you know, I agree with Serena in that, like, we all can do our part. But unfortunately, it's not an equal playing field for everyone.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:59
Absolutely. And Kailin.

Kailin Jo Spencer 22:03
It's a very, like push pull situation where the ones that are building themselves, the bunkers, I say alright have fun. But the ones maybe there's some that are investing in some technologies that will assist in us being able to live with the damage that we've already caused, in which I'm like, thank you. Because I know collectively, like we could vote with our money and make change as a group. But I also know that that's really challenging to get a bunch of individuals to believe that they, that their voice has impact, especially when there's billionaires on their private jets, polluting more co2 in one singular day than this person will have in their entire life. So it's really hard to say like, we're all in this together when, we're not all in this together. So I guess the answer to your question is, there is no answer as to what to do with them. We just have to keep working together as non billionaires, to show the billionaires what we really care about. And hopefully one day, we'll be able to get to a spot where everyone will be in similar playing fields, I guess. But yeah, definitely a tricky question for ya.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:21
I wanted to throw this one in and not tell you about it. So, so thank you for your very candid answers, which countries or companies you can choose either one, do you think are doing an outstanding leadership job on some of these issues that we've been discussing today?

Serena Coccioli 23:37
I always fear this question because it's, um, it's almost like, I've never really seen that, you know, I never really see, every time I've noticed a country, do something that I admire. And for a long time, it was Scotland when I was in Edinburgh, then things change, and all of a sudden their points of view change. And this isn't necessarily with a change of government or whatever, but also in the same, with the same people. And it kind of gets to me that even though we have a clear way of moving forward, and the way forward is to avoid fossil fuels and start to go towards green energy and reducing our exploitative consumption and production ways. It still tends to go towards that and we still hear our gov, like the government talk about growing after the pandemic and making up for all the loss but it's, it's not the right kind of growth. It's the growth for the sake of growth and for the numbers. So I think it's a tricky one. I would say that Scotland is one that I really admired because of the renewable energy and trying to go forward and generally, like showing actionable steps a lot of the time countries promise things that they're not very actionable you can't see them. Scotland did with a lot of things like transport, electricity, all of those things and shutting down coal power stations and that, but they're I know, they're also very tied with England in potentially, like continuing with certain oil fields. And that's all a bit controversial now again, so yeah, it's like hopeful but also disappointed. I don't think there was one like, yeah, close to home. And I mean, I'm gonna see a wait and see I've got some hope for the other two Italy and Columbia.

Katherine Ann Byam 25:36
Fair enough. This one thing I wanted to mention about this with Scotland, and I'm not sure if this actually happened, but I know that they were talking about citizen advocacy groups around certain topics. And I don't know if they actually did this. But I think if I look at what's happening with politics today, I think that this is one of the things that I would like to see a lot more of everywhere, you know, like actually getting, getting people in their communities together to talk through solutions, because it feels very top down, it feels very, you know, you will let some kind of political establishment, and whatever their policies are supposed to be the same rollout everywhere in the country, even where it's not relevant. So I feel as if this, this kind of citizen advocacy, will, will help. It's just like employee advocacy in companies, right, the the needs will be different depending on where you are, and therefore the solution will be different. And I feel like that's missing a lot. But sorry, to jump in there. Belinda, your your your guess?

Belinda Ng 26:35
Yeah this was a really hard question, because I think it depends on what the metric is for outstanding, and also depends on what the sector is. So I'm gonna give a few examples, rather than one because I think it's very difficult to pick, I think, from a company standpoint, I think Patagonia springs to mind, because it's one of the earliest ones that started this triple bottom line focus on like people, planet and profit. But obviously, they're only in one sector. And so I think right now, there's a flurry of smaller startups that are really doing amazing things in their specific field. And I'm a big fan of innovation and really pushing the boundaries with you know, circularity and what we can do there. So one of the smaller B corps that I recently think I've been doing, discovered, actually and feel like they're doing great job is the eco egg in the UK with sustainable laundry, which is something that is very tangible and applies to everyone on a household level as well. So yeah, that's kind of my ideas for the company part. And then, for countries, Taiwan springs to mind for their recycling rate, which is like 55% for household collection, which is huge. And it comes a lot from the ingraining of recycling and why it's important in education from a very young age. So yeah, I think there's loads of promising things happening. So they're very, I think that's a great thing.

Katherine Ann Byam 28:03
No, that's great. That's a great message and Kai.

Kailin Jo Spencer 28:05
Kind of similar to Patagonia is a company that was founded in Seattle, REI Co-op. And that's been one of the companies that I've, my stepmom actually got to work with them, and, and one of my friends also has worked with that company. And it's one that's kind of been a mentor, in a sense, when I'm thinking about if I wanted to start my own business, what would it look like? I think the setup would be pretty similar. And I definitely don't think they're doing outstanding, but they're doing work that is quite different than the other organisational setups of other businesses. And just some examples is they're focusing on that circular economy. So they're working with their suppliers and their partners to reduce their waste and promote reusing instead of throwing away. And then they also have that people over profits, sort of mission, but then the one that's my favourite is how much they focus on their members of the co-op and the members opinions and how those opinions are formulating the business's decisions. And so that, in turn, you're, you're not just giving your consumers a survey, and then like, looking at the data of that and making decisions, you, your members and your consumers are physically making the decisions for the company. And it's led to, in my opinion, an amazing, amazing company that everyone that I've spoken to loves to work at too, so it's, it's not just caring about the environment or caring about your consumers. I think that the value that they put on their employees and allowing their employees to opt, they have this thing called opt outside, so I think it's every other Friday. They pay their employees to just go outside and hike, or go to the lake, or something like that. So it's it's creating that good workplace environment to formulate those ideas that are going to help us get to a more sustainable future.

Katherine Ann Byam 30:01
Love that love that example, really, thanks for sharing. And now we want to move to the second to last question. If you could change one thing about how your, I want to say your current country, but you pick the country you want to pick, is currently dealing with the climate crisis. What would you change?

Serena Coccioli 30:21
I suppose leading, continuing from the one that I said earlier about moving towards greener energy, it's not the be all and end all like we don't just have to go towards green energy, we need to also do like one of the Sustainable Development Goals, whereas like responsible production and consumption and trying to go into those circular loops, like Kai was saying, so I guess focusing more on that circularity and circular business models, regeneration, those things and moving away at the same time from things that are directly affecting the climate crisis, like fossil fuels and petrol based products. So that would be the thing that I think just needs to happen, like, very quickly, and that transition cannot be hindered because they think that then people might have jobs, because that's an excuse to say, well, actually, those people can contribute to this industry. It's not these people are skilled, and they're valuable people. And they deserve to be part of something that's contributing to something bigger that they're also going to align with. So part of bringing those things together.

Katherine Ann Byam 31:32
Perfect. And Belinda?

Belinda Ng 31:34
Yeah, so my home city of Hong Kong has quite a few ambitious climate plans. A lot has been focusing on renewables and also building retrofitting. But I think there could be more focused on reducing household level and industrial level waste, especially food waste, which is very difficult to process. And a lot of the kind of emissions come from landfills, which is also a big problem in Hong Kong with like landfills running out of space. So I think, more focus on really embedding recycling and setting up the infrastructure for that, which is also very challenging, but I think, more focus on that would be really needed.

Katherine Ann Byam 32:14
And Kailin, you've got a really interesting country to talk about.

Kailin Jo Spencer 32:17
It's challenging because I'm from Seattle, where we're known as the Emerald City. So we're known as a green city. And we have probably one of the biggest sustainability efforts in the United States. And so I'm definitely coming from a bubble where ever I turn, I see all of the programmes that I hope to see in America. And then it's when I get out of Seattle, where I'm like, oh, wow, like other cities don't even know what compost is, or don't even know why they need to be recycling. And so I think America has quite a far way to go in all senses of sustainability. Because not only do the citizens not really understand the importance of it, but also like our government isn't really putting money into the right programmes. We're continuously making wrong choices on an international scale. And if I had the answer, I think I would probably be president because no one seems to really have the answer. But um, yeah, I think that there's just so much work to be done that I think everyone should maybe follow after Seattle, and start looking at what Seattle has been doing and implementing some of our, our programmes and legislations into other cities and states, and hopefully, we can get there someday.

Katherine Ann Byam 33:41
Have you read about is it Dubai or the Emirates? The Emirates walled city? The new line? I think it is. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

Kailin Jo Spencer 33:49
I, I have no idea how that's possible. See, it's like so futuristic, that even it doesn't even seem like it would happen in this century. It's,

Serena Coccioli 33:59
Is that the one where they want to control like the weather. Like almost like the climate, it's an internal thing. Yeah.

Kailin Jo Spencer 34:06
Yeah. Yeah. It's not like...

Serena Coccioli 34:10
Like, I've not seen videos of it or anything. Like that, I'd be intrigued.

Kailin Jo Spencer 34:16
Katherine, what do you what are your thoughts on it? I'd be interested to know.

Katherine Ann Byam 34:19
I mean, look, if that solution does work, and really helps us to manage waste, then, then why the heck not right? Because I think one of one of the things that it does that we haven't yet started to talk about enough is the whole concept of biodiversity loss as well right. If we can wall all humans into this narrow space, that might actually be a good thing. So from that perspective, I quite like the idea like, like if we can just reduce our impact to just, to just this confined space, then then why, why not right, and then we can, we can go out into nature and enjoy it like, like a native to nature. But I think there's, I don't think that that's entirely the intent. Right? I mean, and that's where you know, the mix the mixed messages comes through with with stuff like this. Belinda, do you have thoughts that you want to share?

Belinda Ng 35:10
Yeah, I actually, this is quite new to me. I was initially thinking of something else when you mentioned it, but kind of based off the conversation so far, I guess one question that comes to mind is like, who really is controlling who? Like, can you really control nature or people? In that way? It'll be interesting to see I guess, only time will tell.

Katherine Ann Byam 35:30
Yeah, exactly. Ladies, so final question to wrap up one piece of advice that you want to give parents raising teenagers today about career choices, or even the teenagers themselves. Your choice.

Serena Coccioli 35:43
I'd like to echo a piece of advice that Katherine, you gave me a while back all those months ago, and it's to get in a room with people who you don't necessarily agree with, and experience that environment, experience that and feel the discomfort and learn from it, and have those discussions, those difficult conversations. Because that was a really powerful piece of advice that I remember you gave me. And it stuck with me since because I'm more curious about being in those environments, about listening to other people's point of view about what they think is the better thing to do regarding a certain problem to do with sustainability or the climate crisis. And so that would be my advice to young people today.

Katherine Ann Byam 36:34
I don't even remember I said that. It's always good when you have a mirror sometimes. Belinda, what are your thoughts?

Belinda Ng 36:41
Yeah. So mine would be 'you don't know what you don't know'. And also 'be patient'. So I think both are kind of applicable for, I guess, teens and parents. The first part being more open minded. I think that's applicable in the sense of for the teenagers, it's sometimes there's very fixed misconceptions on maybe what career paths should be like, or what would work for the current situation. But yeah, it's always good to experiment and be open minded, learn new things. And the patience part, I think, really comes from the fact that career journeys from what I've learned as well, the past few months is never linear, it's always evolving. And so sometimes it does take a bit of time before, there's a bit more clarity about which path to step on and which path to go. And I think in Hong Kong, especially a lot of parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers, because it's very stable. And I definitely also got a few comments from people being one of the very few people that didn't pick some of these conventional paths about what I was doing and would I even have a viable career. And so I think having that patience, and being open minded to this, from a parent's standpoint is also very important.

Katherine Ann Byam 37:53
Yeah, great advice. And Kailin.

Kailin Jo Spencer 37:56
Yeah, both of that was, those were great pieces of advice that I'll probably take for myself as well. But I think my biggest thing is, 'don't be afraid to fail'. And 'don't be afraid to quit'. So I think there's a lot of stigma around quitters. And I know, at least in America, it's like, if your, if your child signs up for the soccer team, like they're not quitting, even if they hate it, and that was something that my mom did to me. And it's something that a lot of my friends and I have had discussions about, of our parents never really let us say, we didn't want to do something when we really didn't want to do it, because there was that commitment. And I think to an extent, when you commit to something, follow through on it, but also know when it's your time to leave and know when it's your time that you've outgrown whatever, whatever position you're at, knowing your position that you're at is not fulfilling you anymore. And I think that, that's a lot of, Katherine, what you've been working on with people is be ready to pivot and pivot is a better word than quit or fail. It just means that like, you kind of hit, you didn't hit a dead end, you hit a corner. And it's time to, it's time to change. And I think that, that's something that myself along with a lot of people struggle with is change and failure. And all of those things are some of people's biggest fears. And little do they know that they will lead you to places that you would have never expected one of which being on a podcast with Katherine. Just don't be afraid to try new things and put yourself out there and surround yourself with people who you disagree with. But then also people that like are going to boost you into the person that you want to be.

Katherine Ann Byam 39:39
Lovely, ladies,I have enjoyed this immensely. Thank you so much for your valuable contributions for sharing your experiences and for helping people coming behind you as well with, with your insights. So thanks a lot and I will let you know when this is already as well. See you soon.

Kailin Jo Spencer 39:56
Thank you so much. Thank you.

Katherine Ann Byam 40:03
This podcast is brought to you today by the brand new Women In Sustainable Business Awards that kicks off in 2023. If you're a business owner who's starting a business with principles of sustainability in mind, and you want to preserve some lost skills, some handcrafting, artisanal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purpose driven brands, or you're creating fashion, or something that is relevant to the sustainability and green transformation, you are more than welcome to join us, and to get involved in these awards. Check out our group, on Facebook; Woman In Sustainable Business, or follow the podcast; Where Ideas Launch, on Instagram to find out more.

079 Do What Matters

079 Do What Matters


About this Episode

Do what matters… today and for your future. You are more than your ego, and this is your moment to own that, whatever it means to you, and do something purposeful with it. Career transitioning on purpose is more than a suite of skills you can gain mastery over, It’s a way of life. 

This career guide is for people in leadership, management, consulting, change programmes, projects, freelancers or contractors working within medium to large organisations. 

Your voice has never had a more powerful sound, than when it’s coming from a place deep within. Let’s learn how to use that to have a greater impact. Doing what matters also means getting things fantastically wrong, before things change at times. The key is in the long game.

 Explore a wide range of perspectives with me on this journey. 

You will:

Katherine Ann Byam is an author, sustainability activist, coach and consultant for business resilience and sustainable change, partnering with leaders committed to a shared future.” 

A professional with 20+years change leadership experience in the FTSE Top 10, she started her consulting firm in 2019 to support sustainable development within SMEs. Katherine holds an MBA with distinction, specialising in Innovation Management as well as certificates in ESG, digital strategy, and sustainability management from established universities. She’s also a Fellow of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants. 

She’s the host of the internationally acclaimed Where Ideas Launch - Sustainable Innovation Podcast, ranked among the top 5% globally, achieving the top spot in 5 countries, and the top 10 in 19 separate charts. As a sought after leadership and career transition coach and keynote speaker, she facilitates workshops and learning sessions for communities within global brands such as Amazon, Women Tech Global, ACCA, Stryker, Speak Up, Mind Channel and more.

She loves spending her spare time in nature, walking the western and southern coasts of the UK, France and Tobago, or on the Northern and eastern coasts of Trinidad with her partner Christophe.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:00
I think my favourite exercise when I started this book with my book coach was to write the publishers headline, and think about what I'd want people to say about the book. So this is what I wrote, you, tell me what you think, insightful, unconventional, structured, and providing the reader with a framework that flexes to their needs and individual contexts and encompasses storytelling, practical advice and coaching in one comprehensive stream of thought, and provides you with the tools to make those tough career decisions with greater ease. It is a remarkably easy, yet thought provoking read. I cannot tell you the feeling and excitement you get when you produce something that could potentially even have something close to that sort of review. And I feel really proud that this book today, is ready for a mass audience.

This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I've decided to take this approach is because we, or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet. If we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views, but never a type of extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand, I will understand their positions, their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating. Without being combative. I hope you enjoy season five of where ideas launch; the Sustainable Innovation podcast. T

hree years ago, I started a journey to build an independent business built around my strengths, the needs of the planet, my passions, and my economic needs. Very much the ikigai of Japanese philosophy. That business had a clear roadmap, build a digital transformation consultancy using skills I already had in change management, and my partner in IT and data science, and then integrate sustainability into the practice, as I learned more about it myself. Life, though had other plans. After the pandemic hit, I naturally gravitated to fill in two voids that I found opening up making career transitions on purpose, was the first, and starting businesses with ethical and triple bottom line values, as the second. I started my first career transition programme in the summer of 2020, and became the leader of the women in sustainable business community on Facebook in October of that year. Since then, I've met and had business collaborations and relationships with hundreds of people, all of whom have shared rich experiences with me that I've integrated it into my courses and programmes as well as the series of books I will be releasing into the wild over the next three years. Book One is called 'Do what matters: the purpose driven career transition guide'. And it is a blueprint for supporting you with making a strategic shift to include more of your concerns about the planet we share, I want to take this opportunity to share with you the outline of the book, and to advise that it will be available on or after the 22nd of July, along with a podcast of the same name. I'm really excited about this work. And it's taken a lot to produce it. But it's been immensely rewarding. Here's the table of content, I start with what is purpose? And this is an interesting conversation to have at this point in time in our world. Because businesses are talking about it, people are talking about it. And we're not entirely sure where it's going to all land. We're starting to learn more and more about science, we still have philosophy on our side, we still have religion, and these ethical and moral debates that are influencing our perception of what purpose might be. So let's get into how to find your own. The book is then shaped into an introduction section and three parts. In the introduction, I present to you the context and the case study for change. Here I talk about the planetary dimension, the socio economic dimension, and governing the system as a whole. These are all fascinating and interrelated concepts and as we start getting into the complexity, I think it really starts to open doors as to how much opportunity there really is, if we were to take the deliberate step toward more purpose. Part one is about your environment and you and your pathway to self mastery amidst all of these rolling tides. So chapter one we talk about if it's important, build a model. So creating a conscious self improvement plan. Chapter Two is 'who are you really?' and how to begin your own journey of self discovery. Chapter three, we talk about career models. These are the types of career paths that you could attempt to deliver on your purpose. And I have to say that it isn't restricted to sustainably driven careers. This really is about any sort of path that you want to take. And what I would actually advise is to blend your paths. So make sure that you're doing enough of all the things that give you that feeling of completion. Chapter four is the constant leaner and developing a growth and net-positive mindset. A net-positive is something that I want to help people to embrace because I think we need to go further than net zero if we're actually going to hit any of the targets that we've set for ourselves. Chapter five is about your goals needing conscious action, and how to take action towards your purpose. Chapter six, is a nine step career transition framework. And this one is where I sum up all of the things that we're going to cover overall, for the whole book, even though it's coming in at chapter six. The reason it's coming here is that I think you need to appreciate everything that's come before it before you appreciate what these steps really mean. Part Two goes into social credible and responsible you, and how to show up, build an audience and become an advocate for change. In chapter seven, we talk about 'what's the point of your job really?', and why you do what you do not from your perspective, but from that of the business. In chapter eight, we talk about persuasion, influence and manipulation, and how we get others to follow or lead, and whether or not we feel right about doing so. In chapter nine, we talk about money and wealth, because I think any conversation about sustainability needs to deal with money and wealth. And then in chapter ten, we look at your digital twin, and how you show up credibly and responsibly in the spaces that you're interacting in online, chapter elevn, we bust some HR myths. We want to improve in general, the human resource management landscape, or at least your understanding of it. So I want to touch on some really important points here, that may implicate how you go about doing what you have to do. Part three, we get into 'jump but controlling the landing', and governing that first 90 days. And the first chapter in the section is about onboarding. So this is navigating your new job and the change agenda by understanding what's fundamentally important to what will come next for you. In chapter thirteen, we talk about habits and context and creating a compelling mission driven personnel playbook. And this is something where you blend the past playbook that you had that had made you successful, with what your understanding now about the world and the change that you need to make. So this is going to take some integration of the learning that we've done together. In chapter fourteen, we talk about how to create the perfect pitch, and how to earn in funding for your projects and your innovations, regardless of what type of role you're doing. In chapter fifteen, we want to talk about being better than average, but not perfect. And whether or not that's good enough. In chapter sixteen we're dealing with duds and explosives. So this is about the toxic boss, or the weak boss, and how that affects the culture of the company that you're in. And then we talk about the support needed for your journey and how to know if coaching or related services are right for you in any way. The final close will come in the epilogue, and this looks towards the aligned mission and the net-positive action toward the future. And then I finally close with an afterword to tell you about the other projects that are coming up soon. So I really look forward to this project. Being live at the end of July, there's still a lot of work to do. But thank you for your support and your ongoing encouragement. And I do hope that you enjoy it. Do get in touch with me on LinkedIn, on Facebook, follow me. Let me know if you've got the book, if you've read it. Give us our reviews on Amazon or wherever you found the book. And we'd love to hear from you, any thoughts or interesting insights that came up for you as you did these exercises. Thank you so much for your support.

This podcast is brought to you today by the brand new women in sustainable business awards that kicks off in 2023. If you're a business owner who's starting a business with principles of sustainability in mind, and you want to preserve some lost skills, some handcrafting, artisinal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purpose driven brands, or you're creating fashion or something that is relevant to the sustainability and green transformation. You are more than welcome to join us and to get involved in these awards. Check out our group on Facebook women in sustainable business, or follow the podcast where ideas launch on Instagram to find out more.

078 -Youth Perspectives 1: Food Security with Belinda Ng

078 -Youth Perspectives 1: Food Security with Belinda Ng

About this Episode

Belinda is a youth environmentalist from Hong Kong currently pursuing the MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. Passionate about driving sustainable food system transformation, she co-founded ConsciousEats, a mobile app connecting climate-conscious consumers to sustainable eateries in London. She is also one of 30 selected global youth leaders behind the global Act4Food Act4Change campaign, a global youth-led movement taking action to create a global food system which provides everyone with access to safe, affordable and nutritious diets, while simultaneously protecting nature, tackling climate change and promoting human rights. She is also a member of the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council and YOUNGO Agriculture working group. In her home city of Hong Kong, she co-founded youth-led Hong Kong-based podcast 'Sustain-a-pod', which empowers high school students to engage in direct dialogue with sustainability activists and professionals across different sectors.

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Connect with Belinda

Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
Belinda Ng, is a client, friend and inspiration to me, she's one of at least four youth perspectives I will be bringing to you over the coming weeks on the topic of sustainable transformation. In this clip, she shares her thoughts on employment at major corporations listen to it now.

Belinda Ng 0:17
The question that comes up for me is how much of this is really embedded within what they're doing? And it's true to their core purpose? Or is it really just, you know, controversial greenwashing. And that they're just kind of saying this, because it's kind of part of a cool, trendy thing that all companies are doing now. And they can have a lot of money to market themselves in this way. But I think actually, I'm more hopeful than I am cautious. There's the cautious element is more that it's making sure I still have that critical mindset that my education has really shaped me to have to not just take things at face value, but really try and explore deeper; ask critical questions.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:00
This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I've decided to take this approach is because we, or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet. If we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views, but never a type of extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand. I will understand their positions, their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating without being combative. I hope you enjoy season five of where ideas launch the Sustainable Innovation podcast.

Belinda is a youth environmentalist from Hong Kong, currently pursuing her MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College in London. She's passionate about driving sustainable food system transformation. And she co founded conscious eats a mobile app connecting climate conscious consumers to sustainable eateries in London. She's also one of forty selected global youth leaders behind the global act for food act for Change Campaign, a global youth led movement taking action to create a global food system which provides everyone with access to safe, affordable and nutritious diets while simultaneously protecting nature. In her home city of Hong Kong. She co founded youth led, Hong Kong based podcast Sustainer pod, which empowers high school students to engage in direct dialogue with sustainability activists and professionals across different sectors. Belinda, welcome to where ideas launch.

Belinda Ng 2:55
Thank you for having me, Kathy. I'm very excited to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:57
I'm really excited to have you. Belinda, we met at a Kelp-a-thon, a hackathon organised by Carbon Kapture back in July 2021. You were one of the prize winners and a keen enthusiast on the changes we need to see, in sort of carbon sequestration, tell me why sustainability has become a passion for you. And when.

Belinda Ng 3:17
I think I became passionate about environmental issues first before I became passionate about sustainability, because honestly, I only really came to fully understand what sustainability encompased, as such a multifaceted term, in the past couple of years. But growing up when I was younger, in Hong Kong, where 40% of the land area is designated as country parks. I spent my weekends you know, in the nature, hiking, I did a lot of windsurfing, and a lot of the time that I spent, you know, on the ocean or in the forest hiking gave me a firsthand glimpse into very prominent environmental problems like plastic pollution on the beaches and in the water, or issues with air pollution, noise pollution, and other, yeah, environmental issues. So that kind of spurred up my interest in like understanding what we can actually do to address these issues. And then when I came to study geography and my undergrad degree at Cambridge, the course was a very critical look into sustainability issues facing our planet globally and also at various different skills in different contexts. And the more I understood it, the more I realised it was actually a very multifaceted problem. It wasn't just the environment, but it concerned human society, planetary health and various complicated interlinked issues. And so that's kind of what started kind of my interest in sustainability as a concept. And the thing that really made it a passion for me was the fundamentally human focus for sustainability. I think there's a lot that you need to deliver for the planet by first focusing on the people I'm having volunteered a lot with vulnerable populations and groups on, both in my home city of Hong Kong and then in different parts of China, especially with farming communities. I came to firsthand understand how, for example, climate change affects food security very directly. And that really, really generated that passion for me that we have to do something for the people on the planet together.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:12
Yeah, thank you for that. And I really love so many things that you've said. But in reading your bio as well, that you spoke about food and how central food is to what you do. And I was recently looking at the project draw down I don't know if you've seen this list, but the project draw down list of actions that we could take to to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And actually reducing food waste was the number one that we can do to keep within two degrees. It's so potent to see that it's so important yet, we just kind of take it for granted. Right? So tell me a little bit about that journey around food in particular. And I know this wasn't a question I prepared you for.

Belinda Ng 5:53
Yeah, for sure. It was also a very recent kind of journey that I've embarked on, because I always knew I was kind of generally interested. But it was only really in the past couple of years. I think the main kind of trigger, I guess, for what really made me think that, okay, food is something that should be considered in the bigger climate debate was, as I mentioned, that volunteering experience, because I had been visiting these communities for over 10 years. And in the past couple of years, when I had visited, the last time around was about three years ago, the communities there, particularly the younger children who would help out on the farms would tell me a lot about how recently there were like droughts, and there were kind of heat waves that have really affected their ability to produce. And so that's when I started looking into more of the production side with agriculture. And that being the most directly impacted by climatic changes. So that's when I really started caring about food. But then I started to, like, look, and really for myself and think about well, that's a really big, you know, systems - so I feel like agriculture is such a complicated process, what can I do as an individual. So that's when I turned to look at the more consumption side. And then yeah, as you mentioned, correctly with the whole food waste thing, it's a very, this is something that happens at the household level, it happens in restaurants it happens, at a city wide level. And so that, the fact that food is something that's so cultural, and so social, but also so connected to the environment was a very interesting thing for me to explore. And the more I explore it, the more I realise how it can be so important for this whole shift to sustainability that we really need.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:27
Yeah, it's interesting. You said that sustainability so multifaceted. And that's exactly how this conversation is going to go. Because you keep mentioning things that made me want to explore a bit more. And you talked about kids. And this is something that is close to my heart, in some ways, because I've also had the experience of travelling quite a lot and seeing kids on farms. And actually, I don't know, and this is where I'm going to potentially sound a bit controversial. I don't know that it's such a problem that kids work on farms, I actually thought they were getting such a much better education than I had in some ways. And they were so keen to participate, to contribute. And of course, you don't want to take them away from their education, and you want to make sure that there is balance in all of that, but this idea of kids working the farm and helping the family and having that sort of nucleus and that sort of, that sort of process where people understand that the food that they eat is coming from somewhere. To me that felt very important. I don't know how you felt about experiencing that.

Belinda Ng 8:37
Yeah, definitely. I think I fully agree with what you said, in the sense that they're receiving another kind of education, they understand so much about how plants grow, what the seasons are for different crops, in many ways compared to maybe let's say, a child that grew up in the city, they're so much more in tune with nature, and they know so much about the value of nature, because they they rely on this for their food security and for their for their family and everything. So I agree with you definitely. And I think also, well, I guess it depends as well on kind of, this would be very context specific as well, one major issue I definitely have with people growing up in the city is that you can be very disconnected with where your food comes from. And there is a huge debate now about you know, urban farming and really bringing people back to the roots to understand exactly what it is like, the Earth, the importance of the soil, all the stuff that comes with regenerative farming, because for so many people, this is so disconnected. And we also live in an era from a health standpoint where there's a lot of processed food, and so there's that strong health angle as well. So I definitely agree with what you're saying. And yeah, I guess the main difference is that food security definitely manifests very differently in these two kind of city - urban contexts versus rural context. Yeah, maybe that lines being blurred.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:56
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And, you know, it gives me pause. Because I, I want to join these global movements that, you know, advocate for, you know, no child labour, etc. But I think it's way more complicated as is the whole topic of sustainability. It's way more complicated than a ticking the box exercise and everything needs to be system and context specific. So really great conversation. Thank you for, thank you for contributing on that. So I want to move to another tack, which is that you've been studying at Imperial, and you were recently offered an internship at a consultancy firm. But I wanted to ask a more general question. What makes you cautious about working with big companies?

Belinda Ng 10:37
That's a really, yeah, that was a really interesting question. I think, for me, the main thing is, and I guess maybe this is something that also my peers in my age group, who are also increasingly quite aware of the various environmental and social issues that we have to tackle, is the main thing is the promises and commitments that they make to sustainability, I definitely think that the question that comes up for me is how much of this is really embedded within what they're doing? And it's true to their core purpose? Or is it really just, you know, controversial greenwashing. And that they're just kind of saying this, because it's kind of part of a cool, trendy thing that all companies are doing now. And they can have a lot of money to market themselves in this way. But I think actually, I'm more hopeful than I am cautious. There's the cautious element is more that it's making sure I still have that critical mindset that my education has really shaped me to have to not just take things at face value, but really try and explore deeper ask, critical questions. I think I'm more hopeful, because I know there's a lot being done internally now to transform organisations by very driven and passionate individuals within these big companies and other size companies as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:53
It's a good point that you make again, because when I talk to different groups of people, you know, I have a community of women in sustainable business, who are small businesses, trying to do things differently, social impact entrepreneurs, etc. And also, I have a career group. And when I talk to these different groups, the vibe around this topic of greenwashing is quite different. And what's interesting, so looking from the outside, so those of my communities who have perhaps not worked within the context of the big organisations, looking from the outside, they tend to quickly blacklist a large organisation for greenwashing. And when I talk to people who work in big organisations and perhaps work in the space, you kind of understand that there's a huge passion and commitment to the planet for those who are working in that specific space. So those working in CSR, those working in social impact, and, and, and working on innovations, perhaps. So you understand that actually, with big organisations, again, like with everything else we're discussing today, it's not black and white. It's, it's there's a lot of complexity involved. There are a lot of silos involved, especially with multinational corporations that span several different countries. And it's difficult to figure out, like, what exactly can I call out here as greenwashing versus what is, what is a genuine effort that's just being lost in a lack of I don't know, coordination. And so it's interesting to really see how that really plays out in the minds of people.

Belinda Ng 13:34
Yeah I agree. I think a lot of young people, especially those that are more considered activists, they late they like to call out these companies like you're not doing enough, like this is all fake. I think that's definitely one approach that you can use to really ensure that greenwashing can, doesn't happen, and there's, you know, increased transparency and credibility with what big companies are doing. But another hand, I've recently also heard a different view, which is that actually, greenwashing can be very helpful in the way that it's almost like a temporary transition phase. Like, the bottom line is that all big companies are now aware that this is an issue, there is pressure coming from different stakeholders that they need to do something. So whether or not you know, company A matches up to what company B is doing, there's still that internal recognition that something has to be done and whether or not that is something that is happening right at this very moment that matches up to what is expected. I think that time will tell but it is still quite promising. So I'm still quite hopeful, even though that there is this controversial element involved.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:37
Yeah, I agree with you. It's, it's definitely a challenge. And I think, yeah, we need to keep the pressure but we also need to keep the perspective I guess, and it's it's difficult. It's a difficult balance. And I can't say that there's one right approach which which is kind of what I like about the space if I'm being honest. You can really find your way. So I want to move again and this one is more around, I'd say, the sort of personal impact all of this is having on people in your age group. And I know you can't speak for everyone in your age group, but, but if you can make an assessment of how people are handling the climate crisis, and what is sort of the spectrum of reactions you've personally experienced from people in your age group that you might want to share with us today?

Belinda Ng 15:26
Yeah, sure, I think there's a full spectrum, there's honestly complete ignorance, like, I'm just gonna enjoy the present and enjoy my life. And then there's also like the complete opposite, which is essentially eco anxiety to different levels and just feeling a lot of anxiety, sometimes anger, frustration, sadness, worries about what's going to happen within our lifetimes. And that I understand a lot of the fact that that comes from increased access and exposure to news as well, social media, especially, those can get very concentrated if you're working or studying in the environmental space, where there are a lot of scary harrowing statistics that come out, you know, all the time with new scientific publications and international conferences and stuff. So there's definitely a full spectrum. I think, for me, in the sense, because I'm studying environmental sustainability degree, a lot of my friends definitely are more towards the eco anxiety side. And I definitely think it's almost like the more you know, the severity of the situation and the need to action, the more you have that greater tendency to be worried about it. So I think the main kind of thing that, that's been on my mind is that the systems change that's really required to tackle this climate crisis is really the scary part because we really need to see cooperation and, you know, intergenerational dialogue, or across different stakeholders across different countries. But it seems like given the other, the current political, social, economic contexts that are happening in the world right now, it seems very difficult. So the main challenge is remaining hopeful and optimistic. And I think that will really help to, I guess, alleviate some of the eco anxiety that's currently on that, that more scary, sad side of the spectrum, when it comes to how people are handling the climate crisis.

Katherine Ann Byam 17:15
Yeah. And what would you say are your strategies for dealing with eco anxiety? And ask this kind of tongue in cheek because, yeah, I think I also struggle. So what do you do to sort of help you along?

Belinda Ng 17:29
I definitely think being involved or engaged with organisations and individuals that are doing fantastic role work in the space, and really trying to immerse myself more in really positive news. So for example, there's recently I was reading a really optimistic uplifting article about the role of forests. And it this is also very, you know, we can't tell the future. But it was a very positive article about a success in a very specific context, I think, little things like that, and just not trying to carry the weight of the world on my own shoulders, but really being inspired by knowing that there are amazing people around the world who are working on really changing the way we live right now, and changing regulations and working in companies and boardrooms, to really incite change that really inspires me and motivates me.

Katherine Ann Byam 18:20
That's perfect. I love that response. Thank you so much. If I had a listener from a prominent organisation that you'd like to work with, who would it be?

Belinda Ng 18:28
This is a very timely question, and also quite a challenging one. Because am I allowed to be really, really greedy, and kind of give more general responses? Because I'm honestly not targeting one specific company. I'm definitely keeping a very open minded. I'm very interested in environmental consultancy. So I guess ERM. Other big four kind of consulting firms that are working on, in the sustainability space, I would be super interested in. But also, in terms of more a general topic focused thing if your company is working on any aspect of the food systems, for example, like in house with, like Unilever and Nestle, large f&b companies, I'd be really interested to explore in house work. And I guess a final bucket. So I'm being really greedy here. But like I've been really interested in like responsible investing space and kind of the food tech space. So definitely keen to learn more about opportunities in this sector as well.

Katherine Ann Byam 19:28
And how do you feel about entrepreneurship as an option for you? And I ask this question, because I've noticed a shift to definitely in terms of your general age group, sort of coming out of university and thinking, you know what, I want to start a green tech startup. I want to start this company right from the start. So what are your, what are your thoughts about that? And especially as I know that you're already involved in some in some ventures,

Belinda Ng 19:55
So personally, I love entrepreneurship. I think it's one of the key ways that we can come together and bring people together to tackle current and sustainability issues. I think for me, it's definitely something that I see, in my lifetime that is going to happen. But in terms of whether or not that happens right now, I'm honestly not as sure, I can definitely see it happening at some point, because I can envision that that is where I maybe want to end up. And I think the kind of hesitance that I get from not, you know, maybe not launching, jumping into it right now, is that entrepreneurship is kind of conventionally been seen as, like something that young people do. And this is the thing that you should kind of take the risks now before you have to like settle and, and all those kind of narratives. But I think I recently went to a startup Demo Day with investors. And I spoke to a lot of really cool entrepreneurs working in the climate space, and a lot of them actually were in like their 40s. And sometimes some of them even in their 50s. And the reason why they were able to really succeed and you know, persuade the investors for investment and to show that they are the right fit to lead that startup was exactly because they had worked in, maybe for big corporates or in house or, and had really extensive careers. That meant they had the network's they needed to basically launch their product and access the market. And I think that really changed my perspective on like, maybe it's something I don't have to do like, right this moment, to really succeed. And I mean, given the fact that it is such a challenging thing, you really need to have so much perseverance and, and resilience to succeed. Maybe it is better to not just jump into it unless you know, that I think separating your, your passion, your passion projects, and your something that can really be a viable, profitable company is very, very important. So I think, yeah, so my bottom line is I love entrepreneurship, and I can see it in my future, but I'm not sure if I see it right now.

Katherine Ann Byam 21:58
Fair response. So what topics are you currently exploring on sustainapod?

Belinda Ng 22:04
Oh, exciting question. We're recording season three right now. And there's, this season is quite different from the previous two, because it is less focused on purely environmental aspects of sustainability, but going into the social component, as well. So we had a social focus on mental health and eating disorders and body image and what that kind of means in relation to like personal well being in a time when, you know, as we discussed earlier, there's eco anxiety and all these other kind of mental issues going around. So that's something to look forward to, and also exploring more entrepreneurship as well. So particularly in the food space, and also with social entrepreneurship, in from a like a development context for sustainability, which in many cases actually align. So for example, so plenty of startups in, in the African region are now working on, you know, electrifying and bringing electricity to rural communities in a renewable, sustainable way. So I think that's a really great promising, like, Win Win way that we can work on both the social and environmental side of like, yeah, for the planet right now.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:13
How can my listeners reach out to you?

Belinda Ng 23:15
Please drop me a message on LinkedIn, you can find me just with my name, or you can email me at Belinda T. wng@gmail.com.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:23
Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me today. Belinda. I'm really excited about your journey and when you get unleashed into the world, with all the change that you are championing, and really great to have a chat today.

Belinda Ng 23:36
Thank you, Kathy.

Katherine Ann Byam 23:37
This podcast is brought to you today by the brand new women in sustainable business awards that kicks off in 2023. If you're a business owner who's starting a business with principles of sustainability in mind, and you want to preserve some lost skills, some handcrafting artisinal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purpose driven brands, or you're creating fashion or something that is relevant to the sustainability and green transformation. You are more than welcome to join us and to get involved in these awards. Check out our group on Facebook women in sustainable business, or follow the podcast where ideas launch on Instagram to find out more.

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.

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

055 - Green Finance

055 - Green Finance

About this Episode

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

Welcome to Where Ideas Launch 

Mairead Taylor  1:03  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  1:06  

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

Absolutely. 

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

Mairead Taylor 1:55  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  4:00  

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

Mairead Taylor  4:47  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:00  

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

Mairead Taylor  9:27  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:49  

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

Mairead Taylor 14:09  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  15:55  

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

Mairead Taylor  16:15  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  17:44  

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

Mairead Taylor  18:17  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  20:02  

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

Mairead Taylor  20:28  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  23:31  

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

Mairead Taylor  23:38  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  25:15  

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

Mairead Taylor  25:31  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  25:41  

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

034 Sustainable Supply and Sourcing

034 Sustainable Supply and Sourcing

About this Episode

Using the TECK method to improve your supply chain sustainability and resilience, from our host Katherine Ann Byam, Business Resilience Strategist & leadership Coach.

TECK Stands for Transparency, Energy, Circularity and Knowledge. Tune in to learn more, and share your thoughts with us! We are on instagram @whereideaslaunch

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:01  

Today's session is about sustainable supply and sourcing. And before I get into what we could be doing to solve this problem of sustainable supply and sourcing, I need to tell you why this matters.

Now, we are using resources at 1.7 times their rate of natural regeneration. We have become less efficient at converting those resources that we extract from the ground than we were, let's say in the 1980s compared to today. And part of this is because we have changed the source of supply. Most of the world aspires to be at the level of wealth of let's see, for example, the US.

Now as people aspire to have more and to grow more in terms of wealth on an average scale, we're going to demand more of those resources than we have in the past. Climate change will also render many places uninhabitable, starting, let's say in the 2040s, to 50s. And this will invoke mass migrations and a number of other economic and social challenges that we expect will emerge. Technology can give us solutions if we use it in the right way. And there are also projects underway all around the world to rewild nature in some form or fashion in order to get us to a point where we can move the needle on what we've been putting into the atmosphere in terms of carbon with a very, very urgent timescale for change that we need to commit to.

A lot of customers are becoming more savvy. So as we get into the marketplace, we're starting to see a greater demand for a greater need for knowledge around things that are sustainable. I think customers since the global pandemic, have really started to reflect on what it means to them to live on this planet. The recognition that there's only one blue planet that we have that we can currently inhabit makes this need to do something that much more urgent.

We have also seen things like vaccine capitalism come under real attack because still, we are developing the world and we're developing this planet on the notion of nation-states, where the situation that we're in today, it's so globally interconnected that some of these decisions can no longer be taken on a national level. realistically. Yes, we can still take it on a national level. But will we have the impact? Will we have the same efficacy if we take decisions on a nationalist level?

So these are questions that consumers are starting to ask. Now, in some countries, there are no furlough protections like we have in some of the Western countries. So there's no social protection around the issues that have emerged from the pandemic, including the loss of jobs, the loss of tourism, etc. Now, wealth inequality is rampant and growing.

There are something like 2700 billionaires who own enough to be the biggest country by GDP. And it's only getting worse. The number of people that represents 2,700 billionaires is less than .0005% of the planet. Netflix has been doing a great job of educating people around the topics of sustainability, with independent films such as “Seaspiracy” and “Cowspiracy.” And there've also been a number of interesting films on Amazon, for example, “Living the Change.” And what these are doing is creating a movement in people's minds that they need to do something different, that they need to be more responsible, and that they need to make different choices about their food, and about their repurchase of things and how many things they want to accumulate, how they dispose of their things.

But we're going to talk a little bit about how we can make our supply chains more sustainable for this purpose so that we can address the needs of our customers. Another anecdote that I'd like to share with you, I was talking to a friend of mine who runs a group on Facebook, and he told me that he started his group, it's called Sustainable Living in 2014, and by 2020, much he had 3000 people in his group by September 2020. He had 65,000 people in his group. Today, he has 75,000 people in his group and this shows that there's been a huge shift of people looking for sustainable solutions groups that have sustainability in their name on Facebook have been growing exponentially.

My own group of women who are running sustainable businesses has grown by 100 a week for the last month. And it's starting to accelerate. So this is really becoming a thing. There are ways for us to go about checking our carbon footprints, etc, as people as individuals, freeways, which is also helping to expand the knowledge and make people more aware.

So now I want to get into exactly what we can start doing in our supply chains to think through this sustainability equation. I think about it as tech. And I will explain what tech means it has four elements to this sustainability puzzle. It is transparency, energy, circularity, and knowledge. And I'm going to go into each of these topics so that you understand what you could be doing differently in your supply chains to make a difference.

The first point you need to know about transparency. It's about making a statement; making a statement to see what you definitively stand by when it comes to elements of the whole sustainability puzzle. Sustainability, as you know, it has many different angles, we can start with the human side of the thing. Are we against modern slavery in all of its forms? Are we paying our workers a living wage? Are people able to survive based on the contracts that we're giving them? Is all contracting fair?

That's a key part of the transparency debate, and we should be having that publicly available on our websites. How is the ratio of CEO pay to the lowest-paid worker in organisatio? What's that ratio like? And how we preserve certain reasonableness with that ratio also dictates how transparent and how respectful we are of the human side of the story. Then we have revealed things about our suppliers themselves. So as we supply, we also have suppliers and our suppliers should also be following some of the rules that we have determined are necessary to be an ethical company. So we need to think also about our suppliers.

We also need to think about the way our products are disposed of. Transparency is about communicating what solutions are there to recycle the products that we sell. Getting into this further, you can go the certification route.  And the certification route gives other people, your customers and suppliers etc, an idea of who you are if you have a certification that states basically the rules that you have agreed to comply with. This already goes part of the distance, I say part of the distance because certifications have been challenged through their ability to truly verify what's happening.

There are two certifications that are very popular at the moment in this space, which are the fair trade certification and the B Corp certification. Both of these are useful in terms of progress because they do assess quite a wide variety of topics. You can become certified without having all of the boxes ticked. And this is where these certifications can come in the challenge at times. But the idea is that you set a roadmap for yourself as to the things that you want to accomplish. And as you accomplish them, your ranking will increase. So it's a good idea to get involved with finding good ways to be transparent about the good things that you're doing and also to be transparent about the things that you're still progressing. Both sides are important. It's not just a topic of greenwashing. Now we get to energy. Energy is the second in the tech framework and energy for us. - it's really about where you're sourcing the energy to convert your products, how aware you are about the usage of energy in your organisation, and how efficient you are on the usage of energy and the things like your website. So it's not just about the physical product itself, but it is about what's happening in your offices and your website, how heavy is it to load for customers. All of these things need to be validated and checked before we can see that we are truly energy efficient.

So it's not just about the choice of our energy provider. It is also about how we're returning energy to the system. It's also about how efficient our entire systems are to carry out the work that we asked of it.  To see in tech is about circularity and the key question here is how are you sourcing your materials, and can your sources be recycled? And this is essential because we need to be able to communicate to our customers what they need to do to dispose of that product. We also need to think about how we can create a second-hand market for that product. And a number of companies have done this. So they do buy-backs, they do sell secondhand versions of their products. And this needs to be something that we go deeper and deeper and further into, especially if we can make that product more efficient to use in terms of energy. So as much as we can recycle and reuse and change and shift even if it is, you know, scrapping the thing for parts and Using that into the process. Minimising waste is a key part of what we need to do.

Also, using different types of plastics will allow the things to be able to return to the earth, for example, and break down more efficiently as well as being able to reuse them in other products. The other bit of circularity is about your supply chain responsiveness to being able to collect things.

So I have a great business model. Someone I've interviewed on this podcast, the model that she uses is that she gives her product in bottles, and then she's able to collect the used bottles when you make a reorder. All of this is important to your customer, they need to know how to end the life of that product that they've purchased. If you have a circular model designed or some links to other companies who will provide that recycling for you, you need to communicate that. The last letter in the tech framework for supply chain resiliency is knowledge.

Knowledge is about how you're communicating with your employees, your customers, and all your stakeholders about what's key to be measured in your space around sustainability and its goals. So if we think about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and that framework of 17 goals, there's a lot there that we could be sharing and tailoring to our organisation. And this is about real education and real change as opposed to greenwashing. So it's not about CSR and PR featuring what you're doing. Because that comes under real attack. It's about making real changes, communicating but making real changes, and also communicating where you have not yet made changes and what you're planning to do.

This is where we start winning the respect of people who are interested in purchasing our products. So this brings us to the end of the tech framework. I hope that was useful in setting up how you can think about your supply chain for the future. Please follow my future episodes where I will be talking about the supply chain in more detail. Thanks so much for listening.

Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and The Space Where  Ideas Launch. Career Sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. The Space Where  Ideas Launch offers high-performance group leadership coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses in the food and health sectors.

To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn.

031 Innovation Starts with I

031 Innovation Starts with I

About this Episode

Saleema Vellani is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, a professor, and the author of Innovation Starts With “I”.

Saleema is the Founder & CEO of Ripple Impact, which helps entrepreneurs increase their influence and impact through accelerating the growth of their platforms and businesses. She also teaches design thinking and entrepreneurship at Johns Hopkins University and is a frequent guest lecturer at business schools.

We discussed her new book, Innovation starts with I.

Here's the link to pre-order her book
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/innovation-starts-with-i#/

And a link to her 100 Coffee Challenge.
https://saleemavellani.ck.page/100-coffee-challenge

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:02  

Hi Saleema, and welcome to Where Ideas Launch, The podcast for the Sustainable Innovator.Welcome, and thank you for joining me. 

Saleema Vellani  0:35  

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. 

Katherine Ann Byam  0:37  

You must be so chuffed and excited about the launch of your new book. Why don't you tell us a bit about the journey to bring this book to life?

Saleema Vellani  0:46  

Yeah, sure. So it depends on how far you want me to go back. But the journey essentially started in 2014. When I decided I wanted to write a book with a friend and I ended up parking the project. But it was an idea and we wrote some Google documents and started going for coffee with my friend and I asked him to co-author with me. And it was an initial phase of my life because I had been an entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur of the past. And then for me, it was not about being an entrepreneur, it was about having the dream job.

And when I got the dream job, I realised it wasn't the job it wasn't as dreamy as I thought it was. And so I was trying to find my inner entrepreneur, trying to help other people unleash their inner entrepreneur while I was also trying to unleash it within myself and figure out, "How do I become an entrepreneur?" Again, how do I come up with a great idea? I would spend a lot of my nights on Google trying to figure out what are the trends, what are problems, I can solve what kind of business I should go into.

And I was looking outward, I was looking outside and not looking within myself. And the very same problem I was trying to solve for other people I needed to solve for myself. And so my friend ended up telling me, he said to me, "I think you need to live a little bit more before you're ready to write this book." And he was right. It was hard to hear it at the time. But I said, "Maybe I just don't have it in me right now to do this." And then I had a whole journey which I talked about in my book - a whole transformative journey. When I went through a whole evolving into this next version of myself and there's a whole life quake, my life had a crash, and everything kind of fell apart piece by piece. And I go into detail about that in the book.

And it was only until five years later when I picked up the book project again. When I decided, people were wanting to hear my story. People were wanting to learn from me. I was already teaching at that point. I was already doing a lot of the speaking and a lot of getting myself out there to share my story. And it was then that I had the confidence. And I decided, "Yes, it's time to do it." But again, I didn't know how to do it on my own because I didn't have a co-author. And I knew I had to write it on my own. But I got stuck. And I said, “Well, I did what I do best, which is build a team and put a team together to get the help I need so that the things that I suck at are not greyed out so that I can focus on the thing that I'm great at.” But then again, I got stuck again on the writing process because who am I writing this for? How do I where do you start?

A book is not like writing an article. It's a lot of work. So I ended up deciding to interview people, I got inspired. I have this process called the 100 Coffee Challenge which I used during my life quake to go out and get a job when I was stuck. And I had two weeks to find a job that was sponsored by Visa here in the United States. And I use that same process. I use that for many different things. And I and other people, my students and interns use that process as well, to go and have 100 coffees with people. So you learned a lot about yourself through that process. I call it active introspection by going out and talking to people, you learn a lot about yourself. It's not just looking inward, it's getting insights about yourself through your blind spots, especially by having those conversations with other people. And I did that same process with my book, I decided to interview 100 people.

 So I interviewed people from all walks of life and met innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, even Arianna Huffington, Alex Osterwalder, who created The Business Model Canvas and just a lot of really interesting people. And that made me realise that inspired me to write and to put all those insights together and essentially, the beginning of the book journey was, I would say, finding myself through other people and living my story and then being able to write about it through getting inspired through those conversations.

Katherine Ann Byam 4:38  

What made you want to do intrapreneurship? Why was this something that consumed you?

How Saleema Started Her Career

Saleema Vellani  4:45  

Hmm, for me, it's how I started my career. So it's familiar to me because I graduated during a financial crisis in 2009 from university and couldn't find a job. And so I ended up going to Brazil to do some volunteer work and get some more international experience. And it was interesting because I was supposed to work in an orphanage. And then at the last minute, my boss in Brazil called me and said, "You know, before you come to Brazil, I just want to let you know, you're not going to come to the orphanage just yet, you're going to be in Rio de Janeiro. And you're going to start this language school because the situation is ingrained at the orphanage and we need to have more funding to help us run our operations." And so I was put into Rio at age 21.

And had to start the school in Brazil. And in Brazil at the time, it was not easy to do something like that and to get something started, especially a business with very few resources that we had. And the situation we lived in, we didn't have water for most days. I was living in a really cramped room with bunk beds with other volunteers that were coming in and out. And it was just a really uncomfortable situation not having the water, having the internet, all those things. I was just working all the time with the school trying to get it to be successful. And it was there that I learned a lot about entrepreneurship and all the failures as well. Because we had a business model that was like, "let's teach all these languages to these different students."

We were a bunch of foreign volunteers. But we realised that that was a model for failure because it wasn't done initially enough. And we weren't getting enough students. Our classrooms are almost empty but it was just like all our group classes were turning into private lessons. So we ended up really taking a look at what we could do. And we said, "Well, what can we do.?" And so we decided to test this idea of just focusing on Portuguese for foreigners and getting rid of all those other languages, Italian, French, Spanish, etc. And it was when we made that pivot, and we reinvented ourselves. We were like, "Wow, the school took off." And now it's one of the top-rated schools in Brazil for learning Portuguese and wins awards consistently. And it all just started with that little project. And again, I was a co-founder, but it wasn't my idea that I was executing.

And so because I started my career with that project, I learned everything, I learned how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I learned about how to start a business from the ground up. And I carry that on with me. So when I went to Italy, that's another story, I started a translation business. And that was how I survived starting these businesses even though I didn't call myself an entrepreneur, I think probably more like a creator, whatever you want to call it, but I never really labelled it. Because for me, I was embarrassed that I couldn't get a job. And this is what I had to do. And so when I started graduate school.

 I didn't even tell a lot of people that I was running these businesses because it was for me, I failed. I didn't get the job that I thought I was gonna get after college. And so it was only when I came to the United States that's when I was like, "Boom! Entrepreneurship is not such a bad thing." Like it actually sounds. I've done it before. And when I tried the corporate thing and I tried to work on a nine-to-five for a few years I was like, "I really miss that, that level of creativity, that elation, the lifestyle that I had, and the freedom it was a lot of work. And I say I probably worked a lot more being an entrepreneur but there was a certain "I could really embrace myself and my skills and being myself."

And I think because we're evolving as humans at such a fast pace. We're in this reinvention revolution, where we're trying, we need to reinvent ourselves faster and more frequently than ever before. And so, I think because of that pace of growth that we're seeing right now, I would say that I love being an entrepreneur, but I also love being an intrapreneur. So I always do both, I never just do one or the other always, I call it in my book, hybrid-preneurship where you're embracing being in.

It doesn't have to be a corporate setting, it could be doing consulting work on certain projects. But I always think it's very important to contribute to the larger organisations because that will bring value. You're learning in both areas but you're maybe getting more training and maybe doing things that you wouldn't. You're trying to upskill yourself in one of your projects, or whatever. So I think it's important to embrace both to manage that risk. And I think just so entrepreneurship is very glorified, most people can just do it. 

Saleema’s Advice For The Emerging Innovator

Katherine Ann Byam  9:22  

That's so true. I think one of the other things that have become more and more clear is that innovation doesn't start with intrapreneurs, right. Employees are innovators every day. And I wanted to get into that because I know that you have some great advice for that in your book. What would you say to people, employees, to become more creative to express their creativity and take chances?

Saleema Vellani  9:50  

Great question. I think the first thing to do is to start looking inward and that's what my book talks a lot about. Innovation starts with "I." Even though it happens to me, and anything that I did, if I did it alone, I feel that I failed miserably. All those things I did a lot. It was only when I had a team, a community, you know, a group of people or a support network around me. And so I think ultimately, you do have to start with yourself. And if you look at some of the best innovators and look at Steve Jobs, because his journey of enlightenment or transformation happened in India.

And when he came back, he was all rejuvenated and was able to really innovate with his work at Apple. And so, I think oftentimes we focus on the final product of the invention and we don't put enough emphasis on that personal transformation during that has to happen. And so for employees, I think we need to first drop those labels of employees and entrepreneurs because I think that's why there are so many entrepreneurs that are failing, and so many employees - it's hard to retain them. Even like the intrapreneur and entrepreneur thing, there are all these labels.

Sometimes people feel like as an employee, “I'm not successful.” Listen, an entrepreneur here, at least, that was what was considered cool and successful. And then if I was just an entrepreneur that was failing, Oh it's just interesting because I think we use these labels and they have certain connotations. And so I think, first of all, drop the titles and everyone should just have their brand as an individual, as a person and be brand-agnostic around being under a company. I think we see a lot of solopreneurs who are really, really attached to their company; but at the end of the day, they get hired or they're successful as a human or as an individual. And so I think the same thing with employees, really kill it as an intrapreneur. Really kill it with your work within the company, and not just your day to day role.

See where you can give back to your community and your job or start something within and I think that's an opportunity to learn as much as possible. I think people should be in jobs to learn as much as possible so that they can be an entrepreneur at some point in their life. Or if not, start running or get their project going on a smaller scale. And I think what an important tool that's in one of my early chapters of the book, it's on finding your sweet spot. I think our sweet spots, not just something that we discovered, I think we have to develop it, we have to work at it. And that's where I think being in a job is great because you can have a little bit of room for failure and to learn, and you're not expected to always be the expert. You have a community. You have resources. You have a lot more. You have less risk, oftentimes than just being a sole entrepreneur.

And so I would say during this exercise called "sweet spot mapping" where you think about it like your four quadrants where you look at your career as a portfolio or your life is a series of projects, and not so much like what is a series of jobs, and really think about what projects you excel that so what are the projects that people and you know that you did really well and not just work projects that it could be stuff that you do on an advisory board. It could be volunteer work, it could be personal things too. And so really think about those projects that you really excelled at. And then you want to look at what are the projects that people gave you the most positive feedback on, so you got a lot of praise.

And sometimes you get taken by surprise because people will tell you things. And you're like, "Wow, I didn't know, you know, you saw that in me" or "I didn't know I was great at this." or "I didn't know I did that really well. We have blind spots, we're human. So I think really trying to understand the perspective of other people goes a long way. And then the third thing to do is to really think about those projects that you really love doing. You know, you might not be the best at them, but you love doing them. And those activities that you would even do for free because you love doing them so much. So whether you're running a podcast, or you're writing a book or doing something that you love, think about those things.

And then the fourth quadrant is the most important one because that's where we often quiet our inner voices, and we don't listen to ourselves enough. And it's the open-to-testing area. So that's the projects that you're open to testing. So some of those ideas that you have late at night where you wake up at three in the morning, and then you don't write it down, or some of those projects on your back burner that you never get to do. They are maybe slightly out of your comfort zone.

Maybe you're like, I don't have the time. But I know I really need to do this. It's those projects, think about how you can scale down and start with baby steps or micro-steps and just get them going because those are the projects that you often have to develop more skills in but they're projects or skills or things that you can be very successful in.  Often times you touch on, you iterate, and you pivot in a different direction. So like for me it was, public speaking or certain things that I was very uncomfortable doing and I never thought that I would ever do and that I was always a behind-the-scenes desk person and then just trying some of those things, I got invited to some events or certain things I was like, "No. I'm just gonna do it." And it's those projects, those skills, or activities that I think we need to pay attention to. And I think we could be more successful as innovators or entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs if we take on more of those open to testing projects,

Katherine Ann Byam  15:25  

I like the idea of being open to testing. Now we have a lot of challenges facing us in the world, and this podcast is rooted in this idea of sustainability. I see that we have a huge opportunity. Like, I think we have an opportunity now to reinvent a lot of things that we've taken for granted in the past. And that's opening the door for many people to step into themselves and express themselves differently. What are your thoughts on sustainable innovation? And how can we do more to lift it and support it?

Upholding Sustainable Innovations By Coming Together and Embracing Diversity

Saleema Vellani 15:59  

Yeah, so sustainable innovation is a whole topic of its own. I would say that there's a lot on that. I think right now we're seeing a lot of really neat stuff with the younger generations, like trying to clean up all the mess over the past few decades. There are some serious issues we have in the world that we're trying to figure out how to solve whether it's through social enterprise or corporate innovation, social innovation through companies and through different means. 

Solving the Problems of the World by Leveraging Diversity

But ultimately, I think that we need to have more conversations with the different stakeholders. So I think coming together and really embracing diversity, I think sometimes we hear like, great minds think alike. And I really think that great minds think differently. And so I think we need to bring different minds together to solve that. I was actually just in a conference this morning on food security in Cairo. And it was interesting because it was virtual. But it was interesting because it was all these different stakeholders from different countries that were coming together to discuss these things. And I think even especially now in this virtual world, we need to have more of those conversations with different stakeholders, and make that a thing. 

Innovation Starts With “I”: The Four-Step Process to Coming Out With Your Sustainable Innovation

And so I would say for sustainable innovation, I say that the first thing to do is if you're like an individual that's trying to figure this out, and you do something, whether you're a leader in a company or you're a business owner, and you're trying to figure out how to incorporate that, I would say that first start with yourself. And again, innovation starts with "I." So do some self-ideation. So really look at your passions, what frustrates you. So your values, your skills, your experience, and try to figure out how you can inject your uniqueness into the world.

And I would say that’s the first. The second thing to do after you do that self-ideation is to start adding value to people wherever you can. So whether it's through some volunteer work, some expert hearing, going to a different country or virtually helping other people however you can really try to bring your expertise and your value. I think that goes a very long way. I think we need to prioritise giving more, and we learn a lot about ourselves. But we also get some really great ideas when we do some of those activities that are just giving value to people.

And then the third is to really embrace failure. I think that if more people embrace failure, we would see more innovation happening on the sustainability front because a lot of times it's their big, big hairy problems and how do we solve these things. And we do have to go through cycles of iteration and learning to get to that point of a good idea becoming a great idea. We don't start with great ideas, usually. So pivoting when it's time to pivot and think. Oftentimes, we don't know when it's time to stick or like to evaluate the risk and all this sort of stuff. There's just so much to really think about and to also listen to our inner voice. And then when is it time to pivot because a lot of times we just give up where we say this is not going to work. And sometimes we just need to have the right conversation, or we need the right training with the right skills or technology. And we let go of those ideas, or we let go of those projects. And so, I go through that four-step process.

Know When To Pivot

Katherine Ann Byam  19:12  

Yeah. That's interesting. You just touched on pivoting. And I guess my question is, what would be your criteria for knowing it's time to pivot?

Saleema Vellani  19:23  

Great question. I actually interviewed Doug Galen from Rippleworks Foundation. They do a lot of connecting with social entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley mentors. And so they have a really interesting business model. But he mentioned to me that it's important to evaluate what are the three critical risks? What are those three critical risks and really think about those three critical risks?

Then you would know when you do that analysis. Is it time to stick and keep going as a time to let go or is it time to pivot so really thinking about the risks, and doing some coming from the economics world probably doing some cost-benefit analysis on that front as well? If there's a way you can kind of evaluate, is this the path? What are the risks? What are the benefits, and in doing that analysis, I think that can go a long way? If there's a way to simplify it, I would say do a 100 Coffee Challenge as I mentioned. Go and talk to 100 people.

Talk to people from different walks of life, different cultures, different industries, especially not just your own industry. I think that gives a lot of insight so that you're not just putting all the weight on yourself for making that decision. And especially talking to industry experts. I think, oftentimes, we need to have a diversion and talk to different people. But I also think that there's a certain level of, especially if you are trying to innovate and you're trying to scale your business, there's a lot of lack of mentorship that's really connected to industry expertise. And that's something that actually Rippleworks Foundation is trying to tackle by connecting those industry expert mentors and stuff. So I think really thinking about that is key, if I could simplify it. 

Katherine Ann Byam  21:16  

Perfect! How can people find out more about you? 

Saleema Vellani  21:19  

Yeah, so they can follow me on social media. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So I think you can put in the show links, my LinkedIn URL. I'm also active on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. The handle is at Saleema Vellani. And the book is called Innovation Starts With"I" and as you mentioned, it's going to be released later this spring so people can pre-order it already we had a successful Indiegogo campaign last year and we're still taking pre-orders and so those are the different ways where they can visit my website saleemavellani.com and subscribe to the newsletter. That's another great way to stay in touch.

Katherine Ann Byam  21:56  

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining us on the show, Saleema. It's been wonderful hosting you.

Saleema Vellani  22:01  

Thank you. Thanks so much, Katherine for having me.

030 Future Talent

030 Future Talent

About this Episode

In this episode, we are going to be discussing future falent with an old friend of mine, Harry. It was such a pleasure to reconnect!

Harry Vargas is a dynamic HR leader and change agent.

He’s passionate about driving transformation for capacity building and growth, through commercially relevant and pragmatic organizational and talent strategies.

He has 20 Years of multi-market & cultural experience, successfully leading and developing diverse teams at local, regional and global levels.

Harry joined Microsoft in 2020, to lead HR and the culture & people transformational agenda, for the growing regional hub based in Costa Rica, serving LATAM and the US.

Harry is Costa Rican and grew up in Colombia.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:01  

Harry, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Harry Vargas  1:13  

Hi, Katherine. I am so happy to see you after a few years now. Thank you for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:18  

It is really wonderful to have you on the show. Let me set the scene a bit. We have had about five years of digital transformation happen in one incredible year that has been 2020. And looking at the world stock markets, technology firms have significantly benefited from this upheaval whereas, traditional industries have suffered from the decline in overall spending and the closure of retail. The impact on jobs has been significant but buffered by state assistance in many places. And many more people are now in what we could describe as the hustle economy. My first question for you is how did these changes affect traditional organisations from your background; and how do you think they can effectively respond?

Harry Vargas  2:01  

Sure, I think this is one of those things that when you get a real challenge, it brings an opportunity. And I think that is what has happened in this new environment. If you talk about digital transformation - I think in most companies, we have been talking about this for at least 10 years - every time it gets to the point where you have to prioritise the investments and put some money behind it, it doesn't get prioritised because there are other things before doing this. So in this new context that we live in, I think companies simply did not have an option to wait any longer. And started to rethink how to work around this.

That was for me, an opportunity, but at the same time, a huge challenge. So as you have seen, some companies have been able to move faster than others. But everyone is trying to do something about it. The other thing that I noticed is that at least over the last year, consumers adapted way faster to the digital environment than companies did because we didn't pretty much have a choice. And we have to adapt the way we do things in many aspects of life. So again, it was one more challenge and burning platform for companies to really do something about this and do it quickly.

Obviously, it had an impact on cultures and especially for more traditional organisations. We stop and rethink the way we do business, the way we engage with consumers and our employees inside the organisation so we can be faster and more agile. Agility is one of those terms that also we have been using for quite a while. But now, it is a must. You really have to be agile to adapt to everything we need to do differently. So the traditional ways of making decisions in companies were pretty much centralised or maybe too slow. That being said, they may even need to have specific space for innovation. We simply have to stop and do something different, and it impacts the culture. So I think that's the first thing I noticed.

Then, there was an impact also on rethinking what are the skills that we need, what sort of profiles we will need to bring into the organisation so that we have a more diverse way of looking at the opportunities in the market and understanding consumers. And again, diversity and inclusion and all of those things are not new. They have been around for years. But finally, we get organisations to see the imminent value of this and any matter of life or death. Sorry for being dramatic but now we are facing it.

 So I think it is very challenging. It puts every company in a situation where they have to simply change the way they are doing things and come up with a new picture of success, and different ways of doing business. Even for HR, I spend most of my time working on HR strategies and programs. And there were very similar conversations that we have had over the years in terms of having a more flexible working environment that is (maybe) more agile and may have an opportunity to integrate different technologies and be simply closer to people, acknowledging that we are not just working with machines.

And those were very complex conversations for things that today are so obvious, like remote working and those kinds of things. Again, many companies were discussing that for years and did not make any decisions around it. But simply, they did not have any choice any longer. I think, overall, we have faced a cultural shift in finally putting the consumer at the core and bringing this flexibility into the organisations to do whatever it takes to rethink and survive.

Katherine Ann Byam  6:26  

As you touched on it. I wanted to get into your thoughts on the implications of skills for organisations. So I know that you're sitting now from the perspective of Microsoft. And I am going to come to that for sure. But what are the implications on individual skill sets given that we have had so much transformation happening so quickly?

Harry Vargas  6:47  

I was reading a paper from the World Economic Forum on the future of jobs. If you put it simply quite cold, it is a world that has been split into these: essential workers, remote workers, and then the ones that have been, unfortunately, displaced. And if you look at the situation, what we have is a workplace that requires a good combination of some of the classic skills like leadership and good management - "the good old things," but now bringing in more agility and some more specific skills like data science, understanding of artificial intelligence, innovation, adaptability, remote leadership, managing hybrid teams, being more resilient, a full understanding of how teams need to be self-directed in this remote world, and the capacity to help your teams to connect virtually while still maintaining the cultural feeling even if we're not together physically.

So it's a good combination of some of the skills that we used to work around for the last few years but maybe with a lens that is more agile,  modern, and integrating technologies, and those sorts of things. If you look at the kind of jobs that will be more required in the future, all of them have to do with the facilitators of digital transformations, to begin with. People will have a lot to do with data analytics, data science, machine learning, learning expert specialists since all of that is changing. They are engineers, software developers, and information security. We have had many threats over the last few years.

You are seeing now what is happening. So those specific modern skills are the things that we are seeing. It obviously does not mean that now everyone has to know and be an expert around those things. At least, we need to be very aware of how to live in an environment that requires those skills, learn some of those skills and adapt to the new ways of working.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:22  

Yeah. I know that this one is gonna be an interesting question, I think, for my listeners. So we know that as we get older, the ability to learn new things and assimilate rapidly with ease sort of diminishes. That we can always be lifelong learners is obviously something that we can maintain throughout our lives. However, we know that we get slower. And as we get slower, things are accelerating. Right? The rate of change of technologies is way faster than anything we have ever known. What would you recommend for people in their mid-career stages, in managerial type roles who may be in their 40s or 50s who are either out of work or looking for new jobs? What would you recommend that they do? And how do they overcome the natural bias we might have to adult learners?

Harry Vargas  10:10  

Yes. That is an interesting question, a challenging and a very common one - I guess - in this particular time, with many of us trying to adapt and look for new things. I would say, maybe it sounds very simple. But I would start by looking around and assessing who my competition is in terms of talent. Because when you get to a point in which you are already a manager, middle manager, or have relevant experience, it’s good that you feel confident. But look around and see who your competitors are? What sort of skills do the other people have that you will be competing against to get those nice jobs? What do they have? What have they learned more recently - which of those skills that

I mentioned that they recently possessed that you still don't have because you can bring all of that experience which is great. And there must be a good balance in organisations with new talent. At once, that helps us navigate through changes with more experiences but we need to be realistic. We will be competing with those that have more naturally learned than our abilities. So once we assess who we are competing against, then we can prioritise where we need to go on and learn? And yes, maybe we will take some more time to learn a few things. But you really need to be very conscious and intentional about the two or three things that you need to acquire in the next 12 months. Then go and get them and reskill yourself quickly. I think this is the one thing that I would prioritise. 

The other one is the world of having good connections and good networking. Again, that is nothing new but what is new is that it is completely remote. Now, again, it's completely virtual. How do you keep a network that is serving you and that you can learn a lot from it? You can also get access to the opportunities that are around more than 70% of jobs that are open especially at the managerial level.

That the first time they open, they will do it just internally. And only when they have decided that they don't have an internal talent or they don't know someone from outside, they would open it as a vacancy, let's say. So the more connections you have, the higher the chances that you will at least have visibility of one of those opportunities. So connections more than ever, and being creative about getting those connections. Being active is the second point. And then the third, I would say be flexible. Many people have, and especially around the middle management of today, have probably built careers more traditionally. And it is simply different today. We don't even talk about careers per se anymore.

We talk about skills and we talk about experiences. And we talk about, you know, the type of very specific needs that our company has. And then what is the profile that we will bring but we don't bring any more traditional careers, let's say for the new jobs. So you have to be flexible and then assess again - what are the skills that I have? And where do I fit in the new opportunities that might be around? And that flexibility will help in bringing more opportunities in opening up conversations and being flexible about everything. So I think this is one of those concrete things that you could do.

Katherine Ann Byam  14:05  

I had an interesting conversation on this podcast as well with someone who's looking into learning futures. And one of the things that he said was that purpose is sort of akin to attention and where the purpose is, attention goes. And I reflected on this in terms of as organisations start to introduce things like ESG and get more alignment to bigger goals that are not just about stakeholder wealth and the impact this could have on people's ability to learn and assimilate faster. I don't know if you have any reflections on that. I thought it was an interesting way to put it.

Harry Vargas  14:40  

Yes. I think learning faster, as you said, is one of those things that are a must today. And it starts with being humble. If I've learned one thing over the last couple of years it is how can I be more humble in terms of asking “how much I have to learn?” And then that opens up great opportunities for you to, first of all,  feel better because you no longer feel like you know everything because you've been around for 20 years or whatever. And it even brings self-motivation. I mean there's a lot I can do differently and of course, that I can learn. Again, it goes back to these abilities that you need today. Because even if you go and learn one of the most in-fashion skills of today, maybe in 18 months, there will be something else for sure that you will have to learn. So it just has to be continuous. We got to get good at it.

Katherine Ann Byam  15:45  

Yeah. I heard another quote that said, “Typically in the past, we have been able to maintain competitive advantage within eight years or so. But now that competitive advantage has shrunk to one year” which is why the acceleration of learning puts a lot of implications on the workforce. So I want to move to potentially the last question. When we look at the future workplace in three to five years, I potentially see a blended workplace - machines and people. What are your thoughts on managing in such an environment? And what does it actually mean?

Harry Vargas  16:26  

Yes. Hybrid work - that is one of those challenges that companies are discussing every day that passes. We see it closer. Last year, there were lots of conversations that the world is turning hybrid in terms of working. We are there almost depending on the region you live in. But it is a challenge. I think, first of all, it does not mean that machines will take over human value. Right? Because that is one of the big fears around is that machines and artificial intelligence, and all that it will eliminate all the jobs, that there will be replacements.

There will be some evolution on that side; but the value of human knowledge and agility to learn and make things better, etc. will always remain. So I think, a good manager would make the best use of the skills that he or she has to add value to the processes that they are dealing with and to make it challenging for people at the same time; so that they understand that they need to keep on learning, rescaling and acquiring these new abilities. That is one thing. The other thing that I think is even bigger than that is that it's a challenge for companies and obviously for managers. You talk about purpose earlier. No matter what sort of jobs they end up in, having a purpose, more than ever, is one of those things that people are seeing or valuing as the thing that will move, engage, or keep them.

So companies are very clear in articulating what their legacy is and what their purpose is. But as an individual, when you come in, what you will be able to do with that is an advantage that we have been talking about - the quality of life and fulfilment of the work you do for years, and these sorts of things. But now again, it is more important than ever because people are prioritising differently what they value and what they want to dedicate their energy and time to. So in this future workplace, hybrid or not. people will ask -

“Where can I get the best experience?" 

"Where can I balance my life in a better way?" 

"Where can I learn more?" 

"Where can I have the flexibility to do different activities and jobs and not have to wait five-eight years to do something different?" 

And then organisations are rethinking:

“How to do this?"

"How do we manage careers differently?

"How do we plan for talent management differently?"

And everyone is learning at the same time - companies and people. So I think it is a challenging environment. It has already started. The companies that are more likely to succeed are those that are listening actively to understand. “Okay, what are the new things that people value and therefore we need to adapt?” Inside the company, you cannot force people any longer just to wait and see what the company will do now. They will have many options somewhere else, and you have to be prepared for that.

Katherine Ann Byam  20:02  

This one has to do with probably the health and well-being aspect because we kind of touched on it last year. I think that we are in a situation where all of these accelerations, as well as the general wear and tear of the pandemic, create a lot of mental health and anxiety issues that are increasing as we go. How are organisations responding to that?

Harry Vargas  20:27  

Yes, that is one of the priorities. At the moment, it has been a year, at least, for most people in this situation. In the beginning, it was more around basic things like learning to work remotely or virtually like learning to manage your time and tasks and all of that. But after a long period of time, people got burned out.

Then, we are also lacking in social contact not only with families and loved ones; but also with the things that we used to (maybe) take for granted when we were in the office like interactions, collaboration, faster decision-making, less complexity when dealing with issues that would involve people from various areas and those sorts of things; or simply having a conversation in the water cooler with someone, just talking about something else that is not about work. So people need that, and organisations have been focusing more on the good ones like - Let us first learn what people need at the moment but let us also respect their space.

In an ideal world, a great company would come up with a menu of things it can offer - wellness activities, meditation, physical exercise options, or simply additional days off to disconnect and recharge, or get in and learn something new. There are a number of things that have to do with mental health, physical health, learning different things, and simply getting out of the current environment. But there is also the option for you to choose whatever you want whenever you feel the need. So the combination of having various options and also letting people deal with it in their private space whilst having the support of the company. Behind this, I think, is a good balance because at the beginning it was very much programmed. "So now, everybody is gonna come on Fridays for yoga." Those things were nice at the beginning but now people are just tired of it. 

“So just give me my space. Give me the options and I will do whatever whenever I need it.” So that is something we are learning from the technologies. It is supporting a lot of those things. Thank God! We can still have that yoga meditation or cooking lessons or whatever it is you like. Virtually, it has not been a restriction of a year in that sense, but the variety of it and how you keep it creative is one of the challenges we are facing. 

Katherine Ann Byam  23:28  

For sure. Harry, thank you so much for your time. This has been a wonderful session. 

027 + 028 Human Potential

027 + 028 Human Potential

About this Episode

Chris Pirie – CEO of the Learning Futures Group is an experienced talent leader, obsessed with making the future workplace better. Formerly a Global VP of Online Learning at Oracle and Chief Learning Officer of Microsoft, Chris’s entire career has been spent working at the intersection between Workplace Learning and Technology. He now provides advisory services to enterprise organizations and EdTech vendors and teaches as Senior Faculty at the Josh Bersin Academy and The Future Workplace Academy.

In 2019, Chris launched The Learning Futures Group to help organizations rethink their Learning and Development strategy in the face of historic workplace disruption and change. He launched Learning Is The New Working a podcast about the future of workplace learning and the people helping us get there, as part of his research activities.  The podcast has had over 30,000 downloads. He is also a founding director of Humentum.

Chris brings a passion for driving disruptive change and innovation and is a proven business and people leader of large functional teams in very dynamic enterprise environments. He has developed strategic partnerships with leading business schools such as INSEADLondon School of Business, and Wharton University.

He is an experienced Board Chair and Board member in learning related fields such as Association for Talent Development and Learning for International NGOs. A frequent contributor and speaker at industry conferences including Deloitte CLO ForumFuture Workplace ConsortiumINSEAD CLO ForumAST ICE conference and others.

He is a founding Director of Humentum.org, a membership organisation bringing transparency, skills and localization to the capacity building efforts of the International Aid Industry.

Chris was born in The United Kingdom and now lives mostly in Seattle in the USA. He loves to hike, read, sail, and travel with his educator wife, and two grown sons.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:01  

This is part one of a two-part episode. 

 Hi, Chris and welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Chris Pirie  1:29  

Katherine, thanks so much. I'm honoured to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:32  

Thank you for joining me. I'm really excited to have you on the show because you don't know this but your podcast has been a big part of my 2020 story. I attended a Learning Futures conference in London in the first week of February. I think it was just over a year ago. And I got hooked on many of the speakers and all of them spoke about your podcast which is quite remarkable. And once I started listening, I got hooked on it and it started to help me reshape the entire way I crafted my business. So once the pandemic happened, and I started to pivot to doing courses and programs, I started to focus on the future of work and some of the career work that I was doing. So you've had a big part of my story.

Chris Pirie  2:17  

Oh, wow. Well, I'm flattered. I'm excited. Where was the conference, at the ExCeL Center? 

Katherine Ann Byam  2:24  

Yes, it was. Before it was in the NHS Hub?

Chris Pirie  2:27  

Yeah, it was about a year ago. And I was thinking about this the other day, it was actually in February, I think of 2020. And it was one of the last trips that I made. And that building turned out one month later. It was like a “3000-bed” feel hospital. It was amazing. And with the energy of that conference, we didn't know what was waiting around the corner for us. I just remember this, it was the last time I was with 3000 people in one room. Now it feels like a very scary thing.

Katherine Ann Byam  2:59  

It's quite striking to think back. But it was only a year ago. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that podcast, because I find it really transformative. And I know that you have 30,000 downloads. It's called Learning as a New Working. And can you tell my listeners why you thought this statement could be true?

Chris Pirie  3:17  

Yeah, I think I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across that title. I wanted something that was fun. But what I like about it is I think it's a useful frame for two reasons. One is my work is really about how we can prepare the world for a future of work that's going to be very different, especially in the light of how we've prepared people for the world of work in the past has not been excellent. So let me put it that way. So how do we prepare people for the world of work? And I think Learning is the New Working does two things. One is it sort of tells the story of how modern work and how it looks like work is going in the future is going to be highly dependent on the ability to learn quickly and effectively.

That's always your best bet in a world of change, right? It's like this, the secret sauce of humanity is that we can be plastic, we can learn, we can respond, we can adapt, and we can be agile. And that's particularly useful in times of change. And a lot of what I'm reading tells me that we are at this time of incredible change. So that's one thing. Learning is one of the ways that you will be more effective in work increasingly in the future. The second thing is that as I studied this, it turns out that learning is really hard especially once you get past your middle twenties. You absolutely retain the ability to learn and brain plasticity is available to you through your entire life. I'm a big fan of lifelong learning but It gets hard, right?

It happens with no effort until you're in your mid 20s. And then it requires an extraordinary amount of effort to really learn new things, new models, new processes, new behaviours, and new facts and information. And so I like Learning is the New Working from those two angles, because it talks to the future of how we're going to get by at work. And it also talks to something that I feel very strongly about. And that is a new scientific approach that we need to help people get better at being learners.

Katherine Ann Byam  5:36  

Absolutely, I think that's such an important part of the story. I would say that for myself, I have pivoted careers at least every four to five years and radical pivots as well. So I probably don't necessarily agree that it gets harder but I do agree that it gets harder to sell it when you're pivoting and changing. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about sustainable development and the goals around that. There are two goals in particular that I feel I need to talk about in this podcast as it is sustainable leaning. One is goal eight, decent work and economic growth, and the other one is called for quality education. And my question for you is which one do you think we are likely to struggle to get to more? Will it be a challenge around decent work and economic growth? Or quality education?

Chris Pirie  6:29  

Well, the first thing is, I love this frame for your podcast. I mean, to be honest with you, I wasn't super familiar with the sustainable goals - the United Nations' set of goals. I definitely came across them but hadn't really studied them. And I love it. I mean, I think it's obviously a codification of the challenges we face as humanity. And that's very much in frame right now. And so I like it and I like that approach of your podcast. So congratulations on doing that. Couple of things I would say. One is that studying the international aid sector, this is not my area of expertise. But it's something that I've really enjoyed studying and learning from. And I'm going to frame it up. I'll come back to your question specifically, but I want to frame it up first. I think the work of international aid is fascinating. I mean, it's loaded with post colonial baggage.

But it's a $200 billion worth of activity around the world. And when you meet people who are engaged in that, they're usually super people that operate with purpose and integrity. And I love being around those people. And one of the things that I learned was, the whole business of international aid is essentially two things. One is funnelling money to where it's needed. And secondly, it's finding the capability and coping capacity to get the work done whatever it is - water projects, education projects, health projects, and so forth. So it's cash and it's training in its simplest form. And because it operates under such a lot of constraints. I really learned a lot about training and workplace learning by studying the sector. And I really did learn a lot.

And some key principles in my work come from that.  For example, one principle is to use what you have. In the private sector, where I come from, we spend staggering amounts of money. In fact, more money is spent in corporate workplace learning, (the best estimates $360 billion) that is spent in international aid. And so that's Workplace Learning investment to a very tiny fraction of the human population. And it's actually not really very good. That's the dirty little secret.

So anyway, point one is I studied the international aid space not as an expert but as somebody who wants to learn from great work that happens there around agility and impact and so on and so forth. The twin goals of education and work are really, really interesting. As I read them carefully, a lot of the education which I think is number four (is that correct?) It's a lot about childhood education. That's not my area of expertise at all. I really defer to that one. But it's clear, you know, if you read works like Hans Rosling's work, "Fact Fullness," which is one of my favourite books.

You know, he'll tell you the correlation between educating children and moving humanity and society forward is so blindingly obvious that we just need to get better at doing it. We need to spend more money doing it and we need to be equitable and how we give people childhood education opportunities. It's crystal clear. It's out of my expertise, my league now, but just whatever we can do to improve that seems to me absolutely a slam dunk.

Katherine Ann Byam

Added links to your earlier point as well about how easy it is at that age as well to assimilate.

Chris Pirie

Yeah, true. I mean that's absolutely true. And I think when you get uneducated youth in the world, bad things happen. They're easily exploited. They're put to bad ends. It's clearly not good. So educating kids, educating women, educating everybody should be a massive priority. End of story. As far as I'm concerned, what can we do to make that happen? There's a really interesting story that I love. One of my favourite episodes of the podcast. And it wasn't me doing the interviewing.

 It was a friend of mine called  Lutz Ziob, who does a lot of work in Africa. And he found this amazing guy called Rob Burnett, and Rob is a Scotsman. And he ended up in East Africa. He's built this incredible organisation. It is a model for so many things. I remember the episode. Yeah. I think a lot about the future of work and one of the things that I did when I first started this project was I went to learn how to think about the future because there are people who do that.

 And it's not crystal ball gazing. It's a discipline and a science. There's tools and techniques you can use and I wanted to understand them a little bit. And one great phrase that those people throw around a lot is, is actually a science fiction writer whose name is escaping me right now. He says "the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." And so you look for futures around. That's kind of a little bit about what I do in the podcast. I'm looking for possible futures, people who are doing things really, really well, people are on the cutting edge.

And Rob Burnett is one of those people but his future is quite dystopian because he tells a story of how things in 2019 in East Africa. 1.2 million people will graduate from the education system, to your point, goal number four. Job well done. 1.2 million people are educated so somewhere between the age of 16 and 18. These people are educated. They're skilled and they can read and so on and so forth. And they come out of the education system. And less than 5% of them get a job that you and I would recognise as a job. I go somewhere you go religiously every week and get a paycheck at the end of the week.

So these people go onto the streets and they find ways to operate. And I'm not going to tell his whole story. But he helps those people. He reaches out to those people. And he gives them skills that they need to do what they do more effectively. And he calls it the hustler MBA and he speaks in the language and cultural tropes that they understand. He's built this network of 5 million people. And he started by producing a comic, like using what he had, like the simplest technologies he could get his hands on. And he's gone on to build social media that really accelerated his practice.

 And it's a really amazing story. So I think that's a little bit of an illustration of if we get people through school, the job isn't done when they leave school. They're going to continue to need to learn. They're going to continue to get experiences. They're going to continue to need skills, many of which have an increasingly short shelf life. And yeah that's the kind of area of work where we hang out.

Katherine Ann Byam  14:03  

And it's interesting because I think we have had a number of overlapping challenges come upon us in 2020, in a way that we hadn't expected. So even as a workplace futures person, you would have been surprised at what we were able to do in 2020. And how things have changed, right? So we have this sort of perfect storm. It's and it's either actually going to be a storm or an acceleration, right? I'm not gonna say which but history tells us that depressions and recessions are followed by opportunity and by growth, but history never had AI. And I think there are a lot of things that this can challenge. So I probably have three parts to this question. So I'll ask you one at a time and that's good. One is how can we ensure that this strain on services, the climate change impact this whole Biodiversity bit, as well as the rapid advancements in AI do not become a permanent loss in jobs for humanity.

Chris Pirie  15:11  

Yeah. Wow, that's a huge question. And I do think that one possible future is what we think of as jobs today don't exist in the future. There are many people who think that there's Rob Burnett's world in East Africa where that's already true. You know, the idea of having one contractor with one employer who takes care of benefits and salary is really under threat. And it's under threat from a number of different directions and it's likely to evolve.

And we know this because as you say, you look at history as a guide, right? So when I think I always like to start, and I spent six months at the beginning of this journey, thinking about what are the forces at work? What are the macro forces at work? And this was of course before 2020. And the forces at work were really maybe sort of unarguable things that would likely change the way everything happens. One, of course, was climate change and what's going on with our environment. And that's really hard.

 I think for people to get their head around (because it's happening in) in such an abstract way for many many people - if you don't live in these extreme climate areas, you probably haven't noticed the change. But I can tell you, the oil industry has noticed the change. The people who live on these edges and in these futures, they noticed the change and you're seeing the behaviours happen. So that's one thing that I don't have a lot of expertise in. But clearly, it's going to drive a lot of shifts in population. 

You can map out what's likely to happen as a result of climate change to humanity. The second thing is technology. And I think he talks maybe in your introduction about the fourth industrial revolution. We know what happens when a radically new technology comes along. It changes how we organise our work. It also changes how we organise our society, and maybe even how we think about our gods. I mean it has fundamental changes and we know that over the last 300 years, there was this kind of steady drumbeat of changes really based on energy. Actually, at the heart of it, the energy we use to power the tools that we have, that we've invented in that kind of era. And so this is all well documented.

In 1860, people moved from the farm and into the workshop, and then into the factory. And then we started to automate things through computing in the 1960s. We had this sort of 100-year drumbeat. But there's nothing that says 100 years is the magic number. And in fact, here we are just like 30 or 40 years after the information age. And we've got this incredible new set of technologies that most commentators think is described as the fourth industrial revolution. It's the technology that's going to change our world.

So fundamentally, we'll have to reorganise around pretty much everything, especially work. And you mentioned AI. AI is clearly going to have a massive impact on the world of work. Machines are going to be better. We know these machines are better at doing things than we are. That's why we build them in the first place. And thinking of machines, as some people call these AI machines are going to be able to scour much more data than we can ever consume as humans.

They're going to be able to compute at a much faster rate. And already we can as humans. They're going to be able to organise themselves. And so this is a profound shift. And one of the things that really made me sit up and take notice of AI was when somebody said, "you can think about the impact that AI will have on the world, in the same way as the impact that electricity had on the world. So it's not something that's just going to apply to a few niche areas and jobs and vertical industries. It's going to change absolutely everything. And so that's kind of a lot to get your head around."

One of the reactions that we're seeing is this shift to thinking about humanity. Like if we can't calculate as fast as this machine, if we can't consume data as fast as this machine and we can't make connections and learn as a cohesive unit the machines can, what can we do? Where is our strength and where does our advantage lie? And this is what gives me a lot of hope, at the moment the answers to these questions all lie in our very humanity. And I think the interesting work that's going on today is kind of focused around that. And I can see it large even in the corporate world where I hang out.

And then let's just talk a little bit about 2020. When I started this project, my mission was to disrupt the industry that I just spent 30 working years working in because I felt that we weren't moving fast enough to help all the people that needed to be helped. And I felt that our practice was out of date 100 years old, moving people into training courses, and telling them what to do, and then sending them out and expecting them to do it. You know, this was the work of the early 1900s.

And we haven't really moved beyond. And so I had this notion that we needed a new learning science that helps people be really effective learners based on progress that we've made in a number of different scientists in scientific disciplines. And I wrote this little book,which was the kind of me getting my thoughts together around the whole project. And it was called a Learning Disruptors Handbook. It was going to be like an album by The Clash and it was gonna be a call to action and to tell people how they were wasting their time. And then along came more disruption than I could have possibly imagined in the form of the global pandemic.

And this has been the most disruptive action of my life and probably my generation, and probably this era. And all kinds of amazing things have happened. And we all sat here with our heads spinning, figuring out what if this is going to be permanent? And what's gonna happen afterwards? How do we build back better to use one phrase? Or, how do we get back to the new normal to use another phrase. So disruption, whereas my call to action was to disrupt yourself, my thinking has evolved. And my call to action is, rebuild yourself. Rebuild yourself thoughtfully and carefully with technology but with humanity at the core.

So I'll give you one really simple kind of frame around this that I've used for many years. For 20 years, I was an evangelist for the kind of technology that you and I are using today. This was my world. Of course you can use technology to teach people to be more effective in their workplace. That was my job. And we experimented with all kinds of things. And we evangelised elearning, and we evangelised digital learning, and we evangelised global cohort programmes. And we did some really interesting experiments. The next thing you know, the evangelism job is done because people have no choice. And the only way to operate now is through this kind of technology through digital interactions. And so the job becomes different.

The job now becomes not how do we force everyone to use this slightly annoying technology? But how do we make it more human? How do we make it better? How do we take away the tyranny of Zoom fatigue? And how do we find technologies that bring back serendipity and bring back more effective collaboration and bring back happenstance, and bring back the hug, so to speak? And we will (as we know this is what humans do) build better tools. But that's the new job. And we have the opportunity through this disruption to reset the agenda. Whether we'll take it or not remains to be the big question.

But I think all of us have the opportunity, especially now to think ( as this comes back, as the world opens up in the great work of science and vaccines saves us from the brink) what we want it to be like. Let's make this a deliberate, thoughtful choice. And let's write about some of the wrongs that may have happened in the past. Let's be deliberate. And so that makes this a really, really exciting time and I want to double down and do better work.

Katherine Ann Byam  24:52  

To touch on the point about technology. The technology is already there and developing even further for us to have a more intimate experience of this, right? So yeah, even with the screens or even the haptic suits or these types of things that are coming out. So I'm sure that this will improve with technology. But I guess one of my questions remains which is, are we accelerating at a pace that we can no longer continue in our current state? Chris answers this question in part two of this episode.

(Part 2)

Katherine Ann Byam  0:01  

This is Part 2 of a two-part episode. Please be sure to listen to Part 1 before getting into this one.

Are we accelerating at a pace that we can no longer continue in our current state, - so we can no longer continue with technology external to ourselves and, do we need to internalise technology in some form or fashion to continue to keep this pace? Or is there another shift?

Chris Pirie  1:55  

Hmm. Are you talking about the sort of and so on and so forth?

Yeah, the book "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus" are really scary future models there. The ideas are really powerful. So computers are an extension of ourselves that enable us to do extraordinary things. They enable you and either chat across continents and then share that with other people. I mean, it's extraordinary. And that is an extension of ourselves. And there's also a branch of this where we change our physicality through drugs and through technologies of one sort.

The book, "Homo Deus" really does a nice job of playing out what that might look like. I did some research. It turns out that one in four kids in North America is regularly using some sort of behaviour modification drug. I mean these are not recreational drugs - these ADD medicines, and so on, and so forth. Actually, we are starting to use pharmacology to be more effective, not just in sports, but in learning as well. And that's clearly going to be a force and an interesting one and one that I think is going to be hard and take some time for us to get our head around. I would say before we do that... before we change our physicality, there is a lot of work that we need to do. And there's a lot of great work going on around what I call sort of collectively learning science.

 And there's always been a good, well-documented 100-year history of people trying to understand how learning works and pedagogical models have come out of that work. But we seem to be at a point in history where a lot of progress is getting made on a couple of fronts. And I talked about four things - I've talked about computer science. So computers will help us learn and they will help us learn not by just delivering content to us, but by actually taking off some of the burdens of learning, right? So, for example, you used to have to memorise a lot of things to be good at anything. Well, you don't really need to do that anymore because computers can do that much, much better.

You can focus your learning time on more conceptual things. One example, so computer science is going to help us be better learners. And we should be all over that. The second area is neuroscience or brain science in general. And there's a lot of subcategories of that where people are really starting to understand in a lot more detail how the brain works, how cognition works, how plasticity brain works which is sort of magic kind of essential attribute that humans have that is extraordinary and allows us to be so adaptable.

People are really understanding that at the chemistry level, and in sort of behavioural terms as well. So then you've got sort of behavioural science and social sciences that are really understanding one very important piece of learning. Perhaps the most important piece of learning, which is motivation and how you get people's attention. Because it turns out that once you're an adult, if you want to learn something new when you want to unlock your brain plasticity, it's really hard work. And you need to be highly motivated to do it. I think we all know this from our own experience.

And some, a lot of adult educators are in the business of motivation. I had a great conversation with a guy from a language learning company in Germany. It's one of my favourite episodes. And he just talks about the 5 million people who are learning together on their platform and what that allows them to do is to watch the behaviour, like what time of day do successful learners study, and what their study patterns look like, did they do a little bit, and often do they go deep? So we now have these kinds of laboratories, whether it's in a MOOC context or in a language learning context where you have millions and millions of people doing learning behaviours that we can observe in different kinds of ways.

 I think this is going to unlock all kinds of techniques and tips and hints on how to be an effective learner. And then we've got this extraordinary work that's going on in terms of human motivation. This is related to what you mentioned in the sort of pre-read that you sent me a little bit about the inequities of wealth distribution, and what's going on with technology companies that are becoming so powerful in our world. We all use Facebook as everybody does as one example of that but there are many others. Really, what these companies are figuring out is how to get human attention.

 They are really, as we say, monetizing eyeballs, and monetizing clicks. And this is really all about the attention economy, right? Getting your attention on whatever they can monetize, is kind of huge, and it's happening in a very disciplined, thoughtful way. And it's using what we're learning about the brain and human motivation to make it work. And we need to co-opt that. We need to co-opt that approach to help people be more effective learners, and to get people thinking about the right kind of problems. So that's the amazing sort of macro forces at work in our world today. And then the last thing I'll say about this is the most recent piece of work that I've done, I've done in collaboration with some people at Red Thread Research.

And we've just finished a podcast season on the topic of Purpose. And purpose, it turns out, is attention. It's about human attention. And the people that we meet, and the people that I've met on my entire sort of journey through podcasting and research, the people who are successful and the people who are doing interesting things are the people who are purpose-driven. And I really tried to understand that. And I think it lies somewhere in the area of people with purpose and are highly-motivated. And people who are highly-motivated are really effective learners.

 They know that to get the job done, they're going to have to steal ideas, they're going to have to learn what they can, they're going to use what they have, they're going to be clear on what the problem is, and they just get to be very, very effective people in their domain and in their sphere. So I'm very hopeful that this work on purpose and the trend towards purpose-driven organisations, whether in the international aid sector or the private sector is going to be helpful. 

Katherine Ann Byam  9:05  

It sounds as if purpose is also akin to innovation in the work that you're doing. 

Chris Pirie  9:10  

Yeah. I think that's interesting. When I think about innovation, I think a lot about experimentation. And I love experimentation. It turns out that one observation from the companies that I've worked with in 2020 is that the ones that were very open to experimenting before the pandemic and the crisis were the ones that were able to adapt very, very quickly. Because I think experimentation is part of this mindset shift - this growth mindset idea that says being open to new ideas, being curious, being focused on solving the problem, rather than leveraging whatever is you have - seems to lead to sort of greater success and more agility. So yeah, I think experimentation and innovation go hand in hand. 

Katherine Ann Byam  10:04  

Yeah. My final question is if you can tell our listeners a little bit about Humentum and that organisation that you have founded. 

Chris Pirie  10:12  

Yeah. Well, just to be clear, I was on the founding board. I was the board member of one of the component pieces. We brought three organisations together to form Humentum. And there are wonderful people working at Humentum. The predecessor organisations that do all the work but I got inspired to be part of that. Humentum is a membership organisation. There's 300 organisations that work in the international aid space. So you can think about all the big charities and organisations that are doing international development and so it's hard. It's a sort of consortium model.

There are some things to do that are hard that we can't afford to invest in and so let's, let's collaborate, let's come together and solve these problems sort of collectively. And it's focused on the really common fundamental problems that all these organisations have - How do we get our people well trained? How do we build capacity in the places where we do our work? How do we operate with transparency and integrity in a very highly regulated financial environment? How do we advocate for sets of standards that will make our work more effective, and so on, and so forth. So I love that it's collaborative.

 I got involved because of the learning aspects of the work they do - training and educating people, building skills, standards, building capacity where it's needed in the global south. It struck me that some of my experience with technology and learning might help. But I love the work that these guys do. I love that they came together - three separate organisations put their egos aside and formed this “better together” organisation and they do great work. And if you have something to contribute - projects, dollars expertise, then go check out humentum.org and see their work and they're doing good stuff on they're really poised to have even more impact. 

Katherine Ann Byam  12:34  

Wonderful. So in closing, what would you like my listeners to follow about you? Is it the podcast which I would absolutely recommend?  Is there something else that you'd like them to download?

Chris Pirie  12:47  

Yeah, so So I would say go to www.learningisthenewworking.org. And you can listen to some of the amazing conversations that we've been able to have, and more importantly, you can suggest people that we should talk to - people who are doing interesting things around the future of work or learning at work or in the international aid space. We are really always interested in talking to people who've had some sort of breakthrough or doing interesting work. So please go check it out. And I hope you enjoy it. 

Katherine Ann Byam  13:22  

Thanks for joining me, Chris. It's been a pleasure. 

Chris Pirie  13:24  

Yeah, great. Thanks so much. Nice to talk to you.

Katherine Ann Byam  13:29  

Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you today by career sketching with Katherine Ann Byam and the space where ideas launch. Career sketching is a leadership development and coaching brand offering personalised career transition and transformation services. This space where ideas launch offers high performance, leadership, coaching and strategy facilitation to businesses and the food and health sectors. To find out more, contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn