Keeping families healthy is an ongoing effort and a passion for Rayne Guest, an innovative and forward-thinking female entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of ArrowClean. While living in Los Angeles, Rayne was inspired to launch her career in the green industry, developing customised recycling programs for hotels and other commercial properties. Vowing to change the game, Rayne created a successful company that manufactures an EPA-regulated device that attaches directly to a facility's water supply to produce a hypoallergenic disinfectant proven effective in killing COVID-19.
ArrowClean is a state-of-the-art on-site disinfecting and cleaning solution that is safe for humans, animals, and the environment. ArrowClean is used in schools and industries that understand that toxic disinfectants poison their workers, clients, and the environment.
Jaime Snell is the founder of Eco Crates of America and The Eco Mama Podcast.
Jaime lives in the Upstate of South Carolina in the USA. She is a mom to three, happily married, and sharing her life passions while putting them to good use for the greater good.
She developed her footing by receiving a B.A. in Business Management and a master's Degree in International Business from the University of Florida.
She enjoyed working many years with the Ritz-Carlton in South Florida before pursuing her passion for holistic wellness as a buyer for Whole Foods Market. After taking time off from her career to focus on her family, she put her energies into developing her own company, Eco Crates of America. This organization provides a monthly subscription program of carefully curated items for your home that are safe and non-toxic, and eco-friendly.
Additionally, Jaime provides a wealth of knowledge on a full range of products and lifestyle habits through her blog and various social media channels that benefit the family home and the Earth. Including a recently launched podcast, The Eco Mama Podcast. In the podcast, she shares personal stories of her family's journey to living a low-tox life and education on harmful ingredients we should all avoid in our everyday products.
When Jaime is not busy in the mom life of her three young children and managing her company, you will find her walking barefoot in her garden or sipping coffee while listening to the river flow just beyond her property.
Jaime's motto is "The little things we do in life today have a ripple effect on the lives of others. So I strive to create as many positive ripples as possible in this life that I can."
Jamie Snell 0:01 This one is really key for me, teach your children how to care for the earth as if it were a part of the family. Like when it's literally like, would you leave that in your grandma's living room? No, let's pick it up. Let's take it to the trash can, let's take it with us. Just having that respect for the earth as much as they do for those they love really, really makes an impact. Yeah. And that leads into being an example for sustainable leading to others, especially children, because you're going to want them to pay it forward when it's their time to be the leaders for our country, avoid personal care and home cleaning products that contain, these are like my top four that I avoid at all costs, there's a big list that I have on my website called the 'no thank you list' that we strive to avoid, but these top four; avoid fragrances, parabens, phthalates, and sulphates. sulphates are also called SLS or sodium lauryl sulphate. This is huge. We talked about this earlier, seek quality over quantity, just that alone will help you spend less, grab less, less impulsive buying.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:02 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. Jamie Snell is the founder of Eco Crates of America and the Eco Mama podcast. Jamie lives in the upstate of South Carolina in the US. She's a mom of three, happily married and sharing her life passions, while putting them to good use for the greater good. She developed her footing by receiving a BA in business management and a master's degree in International Business from the University of Florida. And she enjoyed working many years with the Ritz Carlton in South Florida before pursuing her passion for holistic wellness as a buyer for the Whole Foods Market. After taking time off from her career to focus on her family, she put her energies into developing her own company, Eco Crates of America. This organisation provides a monthly subscription programme of carefully curated items for your home that are safe and non toxic, and eco friendly. Jamie, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.
Jamie Snell 2:53 Thank you so much, Katherine, I'm so happy to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:56 It's really an honour to have you and it's an honour to see a business, like yours that has grown and scaled because I have a number of people who've wanted to start this type of idea but haven't quite caught on to the scaling part of this yet. So it's going to be really interesting to jump into all this with you. I'm really excited. Let's understand a bit about your background. I know you talked about your, your academics and where you worked before coming to sustainability, but tell us what brought you to this part of your journey.
Jamie Snell 3:24 My journey truly began when I became a mom. Before that I had an interest in sustainability, healthy nutrition, and took a holistic approach to living. But it wasn't really until my first child arrived, that these interests became a passion. So in all honesty, you could say I almost stumbled into the lifestyle. As a new mom, I wanted to stay home with our newborn, my husband relented and we had, we had to make great sacrifices and transitioning to a one family income. So in doing so, playing home more, we cooked more at home, or I should say I cooked more at home. I also began making homemade cleaning products, homemade personal care products, just learning the core ingredients of these things. And over time, I realised not only how much waste that I was no longer putting out, our family was no longer putting out but also the money that we were saving, and we felt better physically and emotionally. So that was like all these wins that came from it. And I so I kept it up. When our second child was born, I took it to the next level and I made everything from scratch from our home goods to our personal care. I mean bread, sauces, I mean all of our baby food. She was in cloth diapers and we had homoeopathic remedies for everything. I started learning about the food colouring that was in medicines and I just got really intentional about everything I brought in and did for our kids. So by the time the third child came along Now mind you, each one is 19 months apart. So while I'm still breastfeeding one I have another in diapers and then I finished breastfeeding, she's still in diapers and then I have a third, you know, so then I got two in diapers again. And it was just a whirlwind, it was really, there was very little time for myself much less to keep up all of the sustainable lifestyle that I had created for myself and our family. So I had to figure out a shift making everything wasn't sustainable. As I mentioned, with the time and energy that I had. So I had a choice, I could either burn out or I could seek balance. And thankfully, I chose balance, because who needs to burn out when you have three little kids at home? And at the time, I had a little bit of postpartum depression I didn't, you sometimes you don't know that until you look back. But anyway, what happened was, we've bought a new house, or we've actually bought our first house together when my son was about five months old, and he developed a staph infection on his upper thigh. Now he was in the cloth diapers that I had used on my second child and used all of them more of the general gender neutral diapers, no matter what we did, who we saw, this staph infection would not go away. It lingered for months. And you know, as a mom, I'm like, What did I do wrong? I'm freaking out. Well, one day, I just decided to test a theory or new home had well water. And that's how we washed our diapers in the washing machine with the well water, we didn't have a special separate pump, we didn't have city water. And we didn't have a special filter. And I realised, over time that it was the well water, what I was laundering his diapers with. So I switched him to conventional diapers at that time when I was doing the test. And then we stayed that way. But thankfully, by then, there were better options for disposable diapers, there were more biodegradable options. Of course, these natural brands cost a bit more. But my priorities at this time in my life were optimal health, minimal waste and proactive measures. So it was worth spending a little more on that for me and then doing without others things at the time. So then I continued this journey seeking practical solutions that met our comfort needs, but also had a minimal footprint in our everyday lives.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:51 It's interesting, because in your background, like before coming to motherhood, it didn't seem like you had a background in sustainability. So what was your epiphany moment when you decided to make it a business?
Jamie Snell 7:04 Along this journey, it's very rare for me to meet like a kindred soul that had a similar passion for clean ingredients and love to the earth. And the rare times that I did, we were instant friends. But it just, it was there weren't enough people for me to talk about these things. So the more I learned about eco friendly sustainability, I just had this desire to help everyone I knew, understand that there was a link between the daily products that we were using, the trash that we were accumulating, and our physical and environmental health like it all ties them together, it starts from the home, how we live our lives every single day of those little habits. But unfortunately, the eyes of my audience usually glazed over as I mentioned, like just not enough kindred souls in my circle, I just couldn't understand why others could not see how we were harming ourselves with the products we were using, the harmful ingredients in these products, and how their aftermath was also wreaking havoc on our forever home; Earth. Over time, I realised that it was too big of a picture for people to see, it was kind of an 'aha' moment like, I'm out here preaching and they can't see that big picture. So I started talking about little things I needed to bring it back home, I brought it back into my own house. And then I took it from my house to yours, to share my journey. And it's to encourage others how a healthy family begins with a healthy home, a home with fewer toxins equals a life with fewer chemicals. And that was more digestible. And my message was starting to be heard. And I finally felt like this mission that was inside of me, was coming to fulfilment. And I just picture like if every family made just one change for the better, that our Earth would have a greater chance of surviving, from COVID, that was very evident that Mother Earth can heal itself or can heal herself. She just needs time. All it really could take is one family to focus on making one change at a time. Some examples could be going plastic free for one month, switching to personal care products made without phalates or fragrances or even seeking more sustainable furnishings - buying secondhand Not everything has to be new, the demand for more caustic productions of goods would eventually shift from harmful toxic ingredients to sustainable practices or in toxin free solutions. So I have all this passion. I'm learning this knowledge, I'm starting to speak the language. The business evolved, because I know how hard making changes is, especially if you're a busy mom or you're working full time. So many of us get stuck in our comfort zones or we're too busy to learn new habits, especially when it comes to researching our products and finding different brands that we've never heard of before. Can we really trust them, was the quality worth it? So that is why I created Eco Crates of America.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:50 Yeah, I love that. A question on this because when I look at the metrics and the scores and results of where we are in terms of warming and everything else, you know, we've been talking about this, I'd say aggressively since 2015. Right? I mean, of course, the conversation has been going on for much longer, but aggressively this has been in the news all the time. You know, there's, there's climate change, there's climate, fear, eco anxiety, we've been talking about it for like seven years non stop, yet, we're still seeing things trending up. So what's not working in your view? What's what's the problem with the transition at the moment?
Jamie Snell 10:22 As far as sustainability transitions, I will be honest with you, I'm a dreamer. I often have very high expectations, and sometimes unrealistic expectations, I can't always tell the two apart, but I never stopped shooting for the moon. So I'm a big dreamer. And I just do the best I can every day, I would love to see more consumers shift to a quality over quantity mindset. And just to start there, just a small thing about quality versus quantity. Seek safer ingredients, and support small local businesses as much as possible. If enough individuals can make the shift, thent our economy can start to shift to strengthen and support itself, again, that are what I call sustainable at heart, they have a reason to make a clean product, or to do a service that benefits the earth and people they can lead in providing these consumers with what they want and need. So you don't have to go bare minimum, I am not a let's move out into the middle of the woods and live off the land. It sounds ideal. But that's just too much work for me. I like my creature comforts. So knowing the needs versus the wants, and then finding that happy medium, the less eco minded corporations and companies will need to scramble to improve their sustainability options.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:41 Really powerful stuff. And I like the dream. I mean, I think it's I think it's important to have to have these big goals and dreams because it pushes you it really pushes you to do more to do more than you ever thought you could so really appreciate that. From the perspective of measuring success, and this is a conversation I tend to have with all my guests around how we determine the metrics for success, how we determine if we're impacting, we're doing what we think we wanted to set out to do, what are your thoughts and reflections on success? And also, if you can share with us what surprised you on your journey as well.
Jamie Snell 12:15 I find one of the greatest successes is when I see and receive the excitement and support of like minded business owners and individuals that believe in my dreams, the surprises occur when how much joy I receive from the 'aha' moment of friends and customers, when they begin to see how sustainable they can be and think differently and understand the power. It's just one person and the vast difference they can make, even with a tiny change in habits.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:42 And what about challenges and obstacles? Like I totally know that every business does not start as a growing, thriving business. And I know that you mentioned about you know how successful you have, you have been in terms of growing this and getting this going. But what have been the obstacles and things that got in your way? And how did you overcome them?
Jamie Snell 13:02 So technically, I've been in business for a year and a half, but I've been selling boxes for maybe 14 months now. And one of my biggest obstacles was getting in front of the extensive, like an extensive base of ideal customers. And speaking the language that resonated with them. I've been on this journey so long, I see it more of as an eco friendly, sustainable journey. But busy mamas don't have time to think about the Earth, they are busy changing diapers and trying to get dinner on the table and wondering when the last time they had a full night's sleep is. But what they do want, is like the best for their kids, they want a healthy environment. If they knew about the chemicals, they'd probably be too scared to use anything ever again. So it's taking this approach of language that helps them see, entices them to want to learn a little bit more without being scared off. So learning that language of health, healthy home and healthy family versus eco friendly and sustainability. So making that shift so that I could be heard, it's what some people might call dog whistles, that the people that I've been trying to get to, they, they get it, they understand it because they do want that, they just didn't know what it was called. The other struggle. And I'm, this, I'm not alone in this, this is with every startup, is that, you know, finding the excess funding to go above and beyond inventory and operational cost. So it would be really nice to have the money to pay someone to help me so that I could focus on the growth part. And they can start doing the day to day functions of the business that I have established in the past year. Things like social media, customer service, so that I can get out there and you know, start communicating and I'm going to share here, this would be a really great time, I recently did a boot camp with my community and the city that I live in. And they were wonderful and it was very intensive the very first day we looked at the business we tried to find out where are my sore points like what am I missing and what should I be focusing on, and they talked about business to business and business to business is done quite a bit in the subscription box industry. And of course I wanted to do that, that was on on the backburner. That's something I would get to later once I had a bigger following and a larger stronghold and, you know, just more established, so to speak, so that they could see that I had something to offer. And they convinced me like, you don't need to wait. You already have so much to offer. There are so many companies out there that are, they're sustainably aligned, but they don't have time to do all that research on how to practice that in their everyday workplace and run their business. So why don't you reach out and see about corporate gifting or corporate bundling. And that very day they had me make phone calls, and I have two contracts already with corporate gifting, one with corporate gifting, and one with corporate bundling, aligning with these existing sustainable corporations, are, we align, like what we believe, what our goals are, they just happen to be doing something bigger scale, and I am doing something smaller scale, but we benefit from each other. So that is something that's like a, you would talk about the obstacles, but moving forward and talking to more people about those obstacles. That's something that entrepreneurs do, we don't talk about the problems enough, we need to be able to talk about the problems to work through them, because you never know who can help you on the other side, or who's gonna inspire you to do something maybe you're scared to do. And that is the pivot you needed to make for your business to start thriving.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:16 I think what, what happens, what tends to happen, we go online to find that support for our business. But often, you know, like, we have some service based entrepreneurs trying to help product based entrepreneurs, but the dynamics of the business are very different. And what we really need is, is you know, those business owners that are doing similar things to really share, to have that place that safe space to come and talk about the problems and work through it together as opposed to have someone pitch you something that you don't need. Right?
Jamie Snell 16:43 Exactly, exactly. So it's the connection in the community where you grow together, and you thrive together because you have that common goal with whatever your business may be. So I think community is critical when you're trying to overcome obstacles and challenges.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:55 Absolutely. So tell us about what's next for Eco Crates of America. And in fact, for you.
Jamie Snell 17:01 Well, as I said, I'm a dreamer. I like to have a big lofty goals. When I set out my business model, in the very beginning, I set out a goal that within five years time, that I would have 700 recurring monthly subscribers. This meant that I would be reaching 700 homes every single month, with products, home cleaning, personal care, developed relationships with these small businesses, helping them grow, shining the light on them for the goodness they are providing, I would also like to have accumulated at least $5,000 cash to give as an award to a budding ecoproenur, I have a 1% Give Back Programme, so 1% of all profits are set aside. And then I'd like to have that build enough to get to be able to help someone else get on their feet that wants to start a sustainable business. And then finally, I really enjoy working with people one on one, offering virtual coaching, you know, directly to individuals and families that they need a little hand holding, because God knows I do sometimes to, like starting something new, I don't always have the confidence to just do it, I need someone to hold my hand walk me through the first three steps. And then I've got it from there. So if I could be that service to someone in addition to, you know, I can lead them to the water, but sometimes they want me to help them crawl into the water to, so having the time to be able to do that to help them create a home with fewer toxins that don't really know where to start.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:25 Well, you know what I would like, you got to write this down because this is a service I would love. I would love someone to ask me to share my shopping list, and then figure out replacements for everything in my shopping list. That for me that would be an awesome service.
Jamie Snell 18:42 Because it takes so much time to go in and figure out which one's gonna work, which ones not. So if you really liked the benefits of this product, you're gonna like this one that has cleaner ingredients. Yeah, send me a copy of your list, and I'll see what I can figure out. I love it. I love it. That sounds like a challenge I would really enjoy.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:59 That's awesome. So tell us a bit about some tips. I know that everyone listening, you know, a lot of people who are listening to this podcast have already started their journey. And they're definitely already doing some things. But still Just give us some Lehman's tips about what we can start with how to how to improve our game in the sustainability space in terms of home products.
Jamie Snell 19:19 Absolutely, I would love to so first thing I'll say no matter how long you're on this journey, there's always more to learn. So never stop sharing with other people. But also have an open heart because you never know who might have a good idea that could be a game changer for you making like a little bit more simpler and still being sustainable not to say that I'm a guru and all of this but I can share some of the tips and tricks that I've learned along the way and that I share with other people that are pretty basic things but some of us just lose sight of it because it's so simple. So one thing could be ditching your body wash for bar soap, there's less plastic right there. Start eating at home more often, shop your local farmers market instead of the large chain stores because a lot If their produce if you look at the tags, they're coming from outside of the country, so shop the local farmers markets, but also eat seasonally because that's where you're gonna get your fresh produce, buy from frozen if you must have something that's not in season, not canned, eat less meat. Now I am, I'm definitely a meat eater. I'm not gonna pretend not to be and I would say if bacon wasn't a meat, I might be able to go vegetarian. But bacon does exist. So I don't know how to go about it.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:27 I totally get that. Yeah.
Jamie Snell 20:28 I don't need steak. But bacon. Oh, my goodness. So yeah, eat less processed foodss. I do, do uncured bacon. If that. If that saves anyone there from heart attack, seek organic foods when possible. EWG, I'm sure most most of your listeners know about them. But they had the clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen, put out a new list every year. And they tell you what if you're gonna, if you're limited on budget, and you can only get certain things organic, it'll tell you what's most important to get organic, use paper bags, or reusable bags instead of plastic. This one is really key for me, teach your children how to care for the earth as if it were a part of the family. Like when it's literally like, would you leave that in your grandma's living room? No, let's pick it up. Let's take it to the trash can. Let's take it with us. Just having that respect for the earth as much as they do for those they love really, really makes an impact. Yeah. And that leads into being an example for sustainable leading to others, especially children, because you're going to want them to pay it forward when it's their time to be the leaders for our country.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:28 I love this. Yeah,
Jamie Snell 21:29 Thank you. Just a couple more I have here avoid personal care and home cleaning products that contain, these are like my top four that I avoid at all costs, there's a big list that I have on my website called the 'no thank you' list that we strive to avoid. But these top four avoid fragrances, parabens, phthalates, and sulphates. sulphates are also called SLS or sodium lauryl sulphate This is huge. We talked about this earlier, seek quality over quantity, just that alone will help you spend less, grab less, less impulsive buying really does equal more money in the bank and a better Earth. So next time you do need to go to Target, skip that dollar, I think it's a $3 section now, skip by that and avoid the dollar store. Seek quality over quantity. Open more windows, fresh air is so important, our indoor air quality is two to five times worse than the outdoor air quality. And it's because we're stuffing the air, that our homes don't breathe anymore, everyting's made so efficiently, that we don't give it a chance, there's no way for air to escape and come back in. So we have to open the windows to get that fresh air. Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose, and refuse. So that's a big thing. Like we've talked about. You've mentioned in the last seven years how the conversation has gotten more prevalent with sustainability. It used to be the three R's. And I think it's technically it's like the seven R's now, but these are the five R's that I still like strive by: give up fast fashion, this can be hard for some people, especially if you like your fufu stuff, but let me tell you, if you just get a few articles that are very well made, you can still have a very nice wardrobe, you don't need to be buying things every time you go out. I have an aunt who literally, God bless her heart, but she loves to go to Walmart, and Target and the department store in the mall. And she just loves finding sales. And that's her hobby. And it kills me because she has more than she ever needs. And it's all fast fashion. Finally, I have here in my, on my list of things, tips and tricks is and this is this is the biggest, the biggest changer; know the companies that you're giving your money to, ask yourself are they align with what I believe? Are my values inline with their values? Know that you and only you as an individual have the power to vote with your dollar. And you work hard for that money. So I suggest you make it count.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:48 I love all of this stuff. And I don't want to challenge you. But I do want to put a challenge out there probably to everyone because I know what some people are going to think, depending on who they are, listening to this stuff. It's like, we've just heard of all the job losses that we've had across big tech, for example, you know, it was what Facebook one day, Amazon another day, you know, and they keep going on and they keep rolling on, Microsoft as well, etc. What can we do? Or how can we think about the world differently to make sure that even when we make these choices to support local etc, that starts creating some kind of havoc in the economy because people are looking away from the big players. How can we make sure that we're taking care of the people around us too, you know?
Jamie Snell 24:34 I have found as I said in the beginning, I was actually saving money when I started making everything myself, if you if you're not working you got a little bit more time on your hands, you can start asking yourself what your needs are versus your wants. So that shift and quality over quantity, and need and want can save you money right there. I took it up a notch in my personal endeavours and I only buy American made when possible. I believe in international trade. Don't get me wrong. I love computers. And television, you can't find electronics here like they make them there. But on the flip side, I can't find clothes here, I can't find food here, those are two basic needs, I don't have to buy stuff that is shipped from, you know, across the ocean, I can just focus on slow, small sustainable options here in my own backyard. And you can do the same for yours. And in doing so, when I chose to only buy American I literally limited so much of what I could buy, I no longer really go to the stores, I don't shop Target anymore. I didn't really like Walmart to begin with. But I don't go to Walmart, I don't need the grocery store still has limited options other than the basic food. But again, I tried to do the farmers markets, we have some local co-ops that we try to get most of our food from. And then there's, that I mean, there there are options out there that are less costly, to be honest with you. And if something, if you're looking at two different products, and one product is safe, and one is not. But this one looks like it's so much more money, I guarantee you the one that is cheap, is dumbed down with extra water or harmful ingredients that are either going to burn through the product a lot faster, or make you pay more for your health insurance in the long run. Because you're not being proactive to take care of your health. So there's, there's an investment in your future. But if you were to, let's say the generic lasts, with the not safe ingredients, it might last two, three weeks, where the quality one that's made with pure essential oils, and maybe it was a concentrate and you add your own water to it, your own safe water, then that could last two, three months. So there's an opportunity cost there. Do you want a cheap right now so you can get what you need and move on? Or do you want to think about slower movement, being proactive with your health, being proactive with your money, like what is the best for investment. And yeah, so try to limit your options by saying need versus want, and quality over quantity. And then seek those things that you can't live without and try and find a more sustainable option that is going to last you longer than the less expensive item that you normally would buy.
Katherine Ann Byam 27:00 That is so powerful. Jamie, you've been amazing. All of your advice and tips are great. And I cannot wait to share this episode with everyone. So let everyone know how they can get in touch with you.
Jamie Snell 27:13 Absolutely. So you have plenty of options. I'm on every platform, you can go to Jaime dot Snell that's ja i m e dot snell at Eco Crates of America.com. I also have a website Eco Crates of America. And we just opened our shop. So we have some surplus items, as well as items that I feel are just important to have around. And they might not have been in a previous crate. But they're available for, for the shop and we're slowly building the shop. So it's like one or two items added per day. So you can visit that at Eco Crates of America.com backslash shop or just go to the main page and click the shop button at the top. Let's see I'm on Facebook, I'm in LinkedIn, if you are a corporation and you're looking for some easy sustainable gifts for your employees, this holiday or year round, give me a call. I do some custom curating as well as duplicating boxes we've done in the past. So I'm on Instagram, I do have a YouTube channel, Pinterest, there's a little bit on Pinterest there. So Eco Crates of America is on all of those. So, you pick your favourite platform and you go see what I've been up to lately on that one.
Katherine Ann Byam 28:16 Fabulous. And I know that roughly 50% of my audience is in the US and the rest of the world. Is there something that you do that could support listeners who are all over the world?
Jamie Snell 28:26 I have a blog where I share information. And I also have a podcast now it's called eco mama podcast. And you can find me on Apple and Spotify, you can also go to eco mama podcast.com and see my latest episode and on that it's very simple, straightforward. Tuesday's is just a simple conversation about what this eco mom has been up to on her journey. Sometimes it's an interview with whether it's industry experts or just a mom who made one change, and the world was better for her. And then on Fridays, for all those that like to geek out over products, I do deep dives on the different ingredients that we tracked, that I strive to avoid as an individual, as a mom and also as a business owner. So on Fridays is when I do the deep dives into what fragrance is and where it's found what phalates are, what else it's known as. So those ingredients and the products that you need to be looking for them. And so that's every Friday, that's maybe five or 10 minute podcast.
Katherine Ann Byam 29:21 Thank you so much, Jamie, and it's been really a pleasure to meet you and to chat with you today. And wish you all the best.
Jamie Snell 29:27 Thank you so much, Katherine, this was wonderful. Thank you for having me on your show.
Katherine Ann Byam 29:35 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.
091-AskBelynda-Sustainable Search Extension
About this Episode
Irete Hamdani is a female solopreneur and founder of askBelynda, a greentech startup helping reduce our carbon footprint. askBelynda offers a Google Chrome extension that recommends sustainable products to consumers while they’re shopping online. She has a Computer Science MSc. with honours from Tel Aviv University and is an AWS Certified Associate Developer and Solution Architect. Irete uses her 25 years of tech experience to develop askBelynda. She believes in a greener future with the expansion of sustainable consumer goods. Irete resides in Denver, CO, with her husband and two daughters.
Irete Hamdani 0:00 So what I've done initially is develop a Google Chrome extension that consumers can download for free. And then when they're shopping on Amazon, it pops up and suggests sustainable alternatives. So that goes back to making it as easy as possible for them to be able to shop while they're on Amazon.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:17 What would you do with funding now? What's your top priority,
Irete Hamdani 0:20 Still marketing, obviously, so I invent, investing, my work within my budget, but if I had backing, I would invest a lot more. And I also would grow my team, I'd have a product manager, I'd have a development team, obviously a marketing full time person. So if you know when funding comes, that's when it's gonna go to towards growing the product, growing the vetting, growing, the, the marketing and obviously growing the target base and the revenue.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:53 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, my guest is Irete Hamdani, she's a female solopreneur and founder of askBelynda, a green tech startup helping reduce our carbon footprint askBelynda offers a Google Chrome extension that recommends sustainable products to consumers while they're shopping online. She has a computer science MSC with honours from Tel Aviv University and is an AWS Certified Associate developer and solution architect. Irete uses her 25 years of Tech experience to develop askBelynda she believes in a greener future with the expansion of sustainable consumer goods. Irete welcome to Where Ideas launch.
Irete Hamdani 2:29 Hi, thanks for having me here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:31 Really great to have you. I had a bit of a look at your background. And I found it so fascinating what you're doing. Tell us a bit about how you came to technology as a career, and why sustainability is so important to you?
Irete Hamdani 2:43 Both my parents come from computer science backgrounds, and both have master's degrees in computer science. And it was kind of like from third grade that it was inevitable that I would be in computer science as well. You know, I have kind of an analytic type of thinking. So I had a very long career at a large corporation, and there I started out as developer, later on and went into pre-sales as a solution architect, and in the last past years, in addition to that and parallel to that, I have become growingly aware of the environment, of our impact and you know, living in Denver, you see the Amazon trucks pass your house, the FedEx, that you get every day, you see the boxes pile up on your doorstep, on on your neighbours. And you know, it's so easy. But on the other hand, it kind of masks, what goes on behind the scenes, where are these products coming from? Who's manufacturing them? What are their manufacturing processes, their shipping, how they treat their employees. So all of these things kind of, I started to look at, and I found that it's not that easy to find reliably sustainable products, there's a lot of what's called greenwashing out there with companies, large corporations giving tonnes of slogans, but you're not really sure if that's reliable or not. And so I started doing the research and I was talking to people around me and I realised that they would benefit from a product that would give them these answers immediately. So that's kind of how I started up with askBelynda, I did a lot of research, talked to a lot of people, and found that the best solution would be for them to keep buying things on Amazon. But to get the information while they're shopping on Amazon, make it really super easy for them to understand what sustainable products are out there, why they're considered sustainable. So all the information on the values behind the companies and their certifications is provided to the consumer while they're shopping on Amazon, and super easy to just click on a product and add it to cart and buy it instead of a less sustainable product.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:56 Was this easy to develop?
Irete Hamdani 4:58 So I come from a programmers background. But things have changed since that 15 years ago when I was a computer programmer. So it took a little bit of getting up to speed. But you know, the basics are still there. So I would say, I enjoy the development a lot, and it hasn't been too difficult.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:16 How does your solution compare to others on the market, for example, sites dedicated to sustainable product offerings that have registered their products and solutions with the site owners? For example? How does it compare what makes your your offer easier?
Irete Hamdani 5:30 So what I've done initially is develop a Google Chrome extension that consumers can download for free. And then when they're shopping on Amazon, it pops up in suggest sustainable alternatives. So that goes back to making it as easy as possible for them to be able to shop while they're on Amazon. Now, there are many curated storefronts, marketplaces out there, and I shop from some of them. But the average consumer wants to get everything at the same place wants to be able to track it, Amazon is so much easier. These websites offer comparable solutions. It's not the same target audience, my target audience would prefer to buy everything they need on Amazon and have it shipped together. And so that's why my solution is targeted to that.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:16 That's really interesting. I like the idea of this because it's definitely frustrating. I know many brands who've started a dedicated site so that you can really support sustainable brands, but they don't get the traffic, because the traffic is going to Amazon. So what your solution is doing really makes so much sense. How do you measure your success at present, and what kind of surprised you the most about the process of developing askBelynda?
Irete Hamdani 6:41 So obviously, the success is, the more customers that download the extension and use it and are happy with it. And it leads them to reducing our carbon footprint by buying sustainable products. But better. That's, that's the ultimate success. A note on that is that I, the types of products that I'm covering are necessity products, or personal care products or cleaning products, basic clothing, I'm not promoting consumerism, I'm not promoting, you know, going out and buying more and more, it's the basics that typically people will buy anyway. So preferably, they buy a sustainable product while they're shopping. Now, with regards to what surprised me, I'm on this journey, especially since January this year. And I've been reaching out to so many different startup founders and CEOs. And what is really amazing is the amount of people out there that want to help. It's very humbling and very, you know, just eye opening, how much help is out there? How much I think consult with people get their support, get their advice. That's something that's been really awesome on this journey.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:52 Yeah, that's cool. And I do feel as if this community is different. If they think back to other experiences I've had sort of, you know, tangentially to startups since 2016, when I completed my MBA, it's, this is a very different community. So people are really willing to give you a hand. So many people have volunteered, for example, to support some of the projects that I'm working on for next year. And this is really inspiring that people really give generously to a cause that they believe in. And, you know, everyone does this stuff for their own reasons. But it's, it's really good that we can still have that. And, you know, when you look at some of the solutions being offered today, like I've looked at what some of the communities in New Zealand are doing, like having their own local currency to encourage people to buy local and stuff like this. These are really important sort of ways to to reimagine commerce and reimagine capitalism.
Irete Hamdani 8:50 Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:51 What sort of challenges and obstacles have you faced?
Irete Hamdani 8:55 So I come from a tech background, so I'm doing the tech, and I know a little bit about product management, so I'm doing kind of that, where I don't have a lot of skills with marketing. So I initially had a marketing consultant, and then I moved to a marketing agency. And, you know, my budget is limited because I'm still bootstrapping this on my own. And I found that just the dedication and you know, the commitment, the passion is not there when it's, you know, it's high with me, okay, so, so right now, I've kind of left those organisations, those agencies and consultants and I'm trying to kind of run it on my own with, with specific people that have specific expertise, like I just started with a social media manager, but I'm kind of stepping up and learning about Google ads and Facebook ads, and I'm doing the marketing now on my own until it gets to a certain point where I feel I can outsource it to others. But the challenge is, is marketing, the challenge is getting to the consumers that it's relevant for them. So, for them to Download it, you know, here's like to grow and, and provide the solution to more and more people. So getting out to them is important.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:08 So let me ask you something when it comes to to deciding to bootstrap, as opposed to, let's say, getting angel or VC funding, what made that decision for you?
Irete Hamdani 10:18 When I started out in January, there was a lot of money out there, and VCs and Angel investors were handing it out, it seems like without a lot of due diligence, but by the time I came around to thinking of reaching out to angel investors, the market changed, and it's harder now, I'm not opposed to getting funding, I just believe that the more customer traction I get, the more valuable the startup is, the easier it would be for me to raise funding. So for now, as long as I have the budget, I'm running on my own.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:48 And about that. So what would you do with funding now? What's your top priority?
Irete Hamdani 10:53 Still marketing, obviously, so I invent, investing, you know, my work within my budget, but if I had backing, I would invest a lot more. And I also would grow my team, I'd have a product manager, I'd have a development team, obviously a marketing full time person. So if, you know when funding comes, that's what it's gonna go towards growing the product, growing the vetting, growing, the, the marketing and obviously growing the target base and the revenue.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:22 And I'm gonna ask another question, sorry, I'm probing so much. But I find this very interesting, especially for my listeners, who also business owners. But have you considered, for example, first dedicating what you were doing to the Denver area, like just really tapping into Denver space and seeing what that brings? Or is that too soft to target for you at this point?
Irete Hamdani 11:43 So, in general, on my journey here, I've become fearless. So I, I'm up for any challenge. And so I did spend a few kind of targeted, focused weeks, just hanging out at different kinds of WeWork type places. And I just approached everyone there and talk to them about askBelynda and shareed it with them. I went to a TEDx event and talked to a whole bunch of people there, outside that were mingling and shared it with them. So that's kind of how I reached out to the community in Denver. And I've gotten great feedback, and they kind of feel like they're involved in the process. So they also give me kind of their wish list of what features they want me to add. So, so absolutely, yes. But marketing wise, I'm targeting American population, people who care about the environment. Typically, it's young, young parents, to young kids that care about the health of their, you know, and the safety of their kids and the environment. So just targeting Denver, I mean, there's a lot of population in Denver, you also see a lot of amazing startup, sustainable startups coming from Denver. But the target audience is broader than just the local Denver community.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:01 Yeah. I love your tenacity as well and going after it. What's next in your growth or development for the app? And what would you like to bring, other features, etc, that you'd like to bring to customers?
Irete Hamdani 13:14 So what I really want to set up and I'm working towards this is personalisation. So sustainability means different things to different people. Some don't want to buy anything that has plastic in it. Some are, you know, avoiding anything that has in any part of its supply chain cruelty to animals. So the data is already there. But I want to expose it in a way, I want to create customer profiles where you can pick and choose which criteria are important to you. And then we'll filter the products based on that. So that's kind of in the works right now. But it will take a few more months to be released. If you're asking beyond that. So you know, right now, it's a Google Chrome extension. It works on Amazon, but the plans are to expand beyond Amazon, Target, Walmart, Google search, and beyond just being an extension. So yeah, there's a lot of plans.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:04 That sounds super exciting. I feel really thrilled to actually have you on the show and learn more about it. I wanted to ask another thing. So have you considered stuff like potentially having affiliates so people with huge communities, for example, to help support your brand?
Irete Hamdani 14:21 And now you're asking they would get a percentage of the revenue because they're, they're supporting and promoting it with their communities? Is that what you mean by...
Katherine Ann Byam 14:31 Yes Something like this. Yes.
Irete Hamdani 14:32 Um, it's not something on the radar immediately. But that's not to say that I won't get there at some point. In general affiliate marketing, so my revenue model is based on amazon affiliate, but a lot of companies, a lot of companies that I'm promoting have affiliate programmes of their own. And so when I expand beyond Amazon, I will be connecting to them on their affiliate programmes.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:55 Yeah, that makes sense. So, can you give my listeners who are business owners an idea of how you check and vet companies for your service.
Irete Hamdani 15:05 Yes, it's a very thorough process, it takes some time, we have, so I have a sustainability expert that I consult with. And together, we put together a list, very long list of criteria that looks at many different aspects. It's kind of beyond sustainability. You know, in the core, its manufacturing processes, shipping processes, ingredients, where the, where is if it's local, in the US, the manufacturing plants are outside, and also how committed the companies are to diversity and inclusion. What are they doing with their employees, how fair are they treating them? So it's a very broad list of criteria. And now I'm outsourcing it, so I have a few people on my team that are vetting company after company, and then I have a process that automatically pulls the products of those companies and puts them in my database.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:03 Yeah. And have you considered doing Impact Reporting for what you're actually doing already? So just to really embed the principles of sustainability into your business offer as well? Are you doing that sort of Impact Reporting?
Irete Hamdani 16:18 I have connected with an organisation that, you know, I'm really, really small operation right now. But I have connected with an organisation that calculates the carbon footprint of you know, my home office computer, I don't travel a lot. So it's very basic. And I put dollars towards a forestation project to kind of offset that. Beyond that, I think it's a little premature for, you know, in depth recording, because like I said, I'm still a very small operation.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:46 And what about the sort of downstream So looking at there's a stage of Impact Reporting, that takes into consideration the alternative that a consumer might have chosen? So for example, because they've actually purchased your, purchased something from your service, they've avoided purchasing something from more damaging service. And, you know, people do comparisons on this sort of thing to like, what do you, what pain are you avoiding for the planet as well, right. So I think this whole space of Impact Reporting is really fascinating. It's growing, it's, there's a lot more thought being put into now. And there's a lot more that you can squeeze out of even your digital business, because your digital business potentially has huge forward impact, you know, in terms in terms of the rest of the ecosystem that you're impacting on. So there's a lot of potential there, though. Don't Don't underestimate that.
Irete Hamdani 17:44 Yeah, no, I've, it's definitely something to look into. Thank thank you for that.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:47 So how can my listeners get involved with this? How can they access askBelynda? What do they what can they expect when they're using the service? Let us know how it how it goes.
Irete Hamdani 17:59 So beyond the basics, you know, we have an Instagram group, a Facebook group. And there's also a LinkedIn group, but beyond the basic social, obviously downloading the extension, and I'll share with you the link that they can click on. So you download it once it's free, it takes seconds. And then whenever you're on Amazon, if I have something to recommend it pops up, it gives you all the suggestions, lists all the criteria by which this product was selected to be in the recommended product. You can you can see the image, you can click on it, you can click on the link, you can add it to cart. It's very easy, seamless within Amazon. So, and we have our email on the on the listing. So if anyone downloads it and has any feedback, I'd love to hear it. We're always improving based on our customer feedback. So yes, so the more downloads the better and feedback always welcome.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:56 Thank you so much. Irete for sharing askBelynda with us. And really we're rooting for your success. Thank you for joining us.
Irete Hamdani 19:04 Thank you so much, it was a pleasure.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:09 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.
090 Youth Perspectives: Designed for Positive Impact
About this Episode
Tara Pigott is a freelance Graphic & Brand Designer. She helps sustainable and positive impact businesses visually communicate their mission, values, and messages through intentional branding and design. Her mission is to be able to help such businesses create strong visual presences so that they can powerfully speak to their target audiences and make a greater impact in the world. Outside of work, she is a competitive powerlifter, so spends many hours in the gym lifting heavy weights.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01 One of the things I most love about interviewing youth on this podcast is the absolute idealism and incredible beauty of theie thinking processes. Listen to this comment that my next guest Tara has made.
Tara Pigott 0:14 success isn't necessarily a numerical value or tangible thing that I can quantify. It more so speaks to a feeling and sense of satisfaction within I'd measure success in how fulfilled I feel, how happy and confident I am, but also how much value I've provided people with and how much change I've helped to bring about through design. Yeah, I think it's in a way dangerous to chase numerical goals and indicators of success, because ultimately, we'll never be satisfied. And we'll always be chasing more and getting carried away with the data. So that's why I see success as more an overall fulfilment, satisfaction.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:59 Listen to this episode now. 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.. Tara Pigott is a freelance graphic and brand designer, she helps sustainable and positive impact businesses visually communicate their missions, values and messages through intentional branding and design. Her mission is to be able to help such businesses create strong visual presences, so that they can powerfully speak to their target audiences and make a greater impact in the world. Outside of work. She's a competitive powerlifter. So spends many hours in the gym, lifting heavy weights, Tara, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.
Tara Pigott 2:35 Hi, thank you for having me, it's a pleasure to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:38 Really great to have you. Getting into your background, I absolutely love it, when I get to meet and work with young talent like yourself, I've been digging through your social profiles to learn more about you. And I discovered that you actually are trained in sustainable development in your degree from Warwick University. What encouraged you to choose this is a first degree and what brought you to this commitment to purpose?
Tara Pigott 3:04 Yeah, so it all started from quite a young age, to be honest, like growing up as a child, I was always concerned about the environment. And a story that I remember is that there's a stage in primary school where I actually collected empty, crisp packets from other children after they had their lunch and made them into this sort of abstract art, art piece to stop them from going to waste. So I would say it was quite emotionally affected when seeing you know, the state of the world and how it was deteriorating. And I noticed as well that this seemed to affect me more than it did like my family members and peers. And at the, at the time, it couldn't really understand why I kind of had trouble understanding why these people didn't care about these issues. So I was always quite passionate. So fast forward a few years to when I was applying to university, I knew I loved studying geography, and learning about the world and different cultures and countries. So I thought that this is what I'd study at university. And it was in looking for that geography degree that I just stumbled across a degree called Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick. And it was, yeah, like, immediately, I knew that this was the degree for me and what I wanted to study. So yeah, I guess in order to answer your question, there wasn't really a defining moment in my life where I made, you know, a commitment to purpose as such. It was just a really strong feeling and conviction from a young age. I knew I wanted to be part of the solution, and do all that I could to drive positive change.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:43 That's really, really encouraging. And it's interesting because I see young people today as having sort of, you know, obviously, I can't sum everyone up into two buckets, but they're kind of two paths, right? So there's the path of let's really save the planet: come on, what are you doing to our futures, let's make a difference. And then there's the path of, well, hey, I can actually be this mega influencer and make a lot of money. So, so I see these two things as being kind of what's in the public eye, let's, let's call it that you have the Greta's, and then you have the Tik Tok influencer. And your formal uni training doesn't appear to include graphic design. So what made you choose this as a vehicle to kind of deliver your change, your idea of change?
Tara Pigott 5:29 Yeah, I didn't study graphic design at university. Although it was at university where I started getting into design, I found myself designing social media posts and social action campaigns for the clubs and societies that I was a part of at the time. And it was through doing that, that I kind of just fell in love with design, it really provided me with an escape from reading, all the long, boring articles that was necessary for my degree. And I found myself becoming such a perfectionist over the designs that I was creating and spending far too many hours on them, making sure that, you know, I was truly happy with them. So it was doing that where I started to understand the importance of graphic design, in making change and encouraging sustainability and positive change in general. You know, most people can design a social media post in Canva. But designing one that really speaks to your target audience, and communicates your message powerfully and effectively is not such an easy task. So I guess you could say it was my love for design and commitment to sustainability that later led to me kind of pairing these two things together, and making a business out of it. And deciding this is how I was going to contribute to positive change in the world as it were.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:52 Yeah, that's interesting. Did you cover marketing in your degree aswell?
Tara Pigott 6:55 No, it wasn't marketing. It was, it was kind of just studying all of the world's problems. And how we can, you know, in essence, go about solving them. But no, marketing wasn't a part of it.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:07 I find that the command that you have of marketing impressive for someone who hasn't put it into her studies. So that's really encouraging as well. And what do you consider to be the role of design in general on bringing about that change that you want to see? How does design affect us?
Tara Pigott 7:26 Yeah, I think it's really important, especially in our day and age, where so much of what we're consuming is online, which has resulted in people's attention spans getting really short. So it becomes even more important to grab people's attention quickly. And we need to do this in order to encourage people to make change or to join a movement. And you've really got to be intentional about that, and how you're gonna go about doing it. So design is what you can use to grab their attention and communicate your message with them really concisely. And clearly, you know, if we can design a brand, or campaign or social media post that really appeals to the people that we want to target and makes people want to read it and makes people want to learn more, or even convinces them to take an action, then we've done a good job. And I think without good design, it's quite hard to do that.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:21 Yeah. Now, I totally get you I follow you on that. And I think that some of the greatest campaigns that we've seen have really considered the experience of the person watching, right, so it moves you and you know, you look at films like 'don't look up' or things like this, and you really connect with it in a different way than, you know, a scary Guardian article. And God bless the Guardian, I think they do a really good job. But, you know, sometimes there's a lot of fear in there. So, I understand completely what you're saying. How do you measure success? And what has surprised you about your progress so far?
Tara Pigott 8:57 Yeah. So for me, like success isn't necessarily a numerical value or tangible thing that I can quantify. It more so speaks to, you know, a feeling and sense of satisfaction within, so I'd measure success in how fulfilled I feel, like how happy and confident I am, but also how much value I've provided people with and how much change I've helped to bring about through design. Yeah, I think it's kind of, in a way dangerous to chase numerical goals and indicators of success, because ultimately, we'll never be satisfied. And we'll always be chasing more and getting carried away with the data. So that's why I see success as more an overall fulfilment, satisfaction with what I've achieved and how to bring about and it's not this abstract thing that we can ponder about, you know, when I'm successful, but rather we can see ourselves as successful now and now we can be content with where we are now while still moving forward and contributing to more impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:07 Yeah, and what has surprised you about what you've achieved so far?
Tara Pigott 10:11 I think for me, I really resonate with the quote that says 'people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, but underestimate what they can achieve in five or say, 10'. And for me, I can relate to this, because the start was very much, you know, a hard slog, like coming out of uni and deciding to start this business, I didn't have a big network, and I didn't really know much about business, or, even marketing at the time. But I guess what surprised me is how much, how powerful the compounding effects of all the work I've put in up until this point is, and how that's just going to keep on growing from now. And I'll see the results of my work in due time. So I guess that has been the surprising factors, like the first year, you know, nothing crazy is gonna happen. But it's thinking about, you know, the next five or 10, where I think all the crazy kind of results are gonna start happening.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:09 When it comes to pricing. How did you go about picking your pricing? I'm intrigued by this. Because when you're just starting out, I can imagine that that's a really slippery slope. How did you navigate that?
Tara Pigott 11:21 Yeah, so that was a challenging thing for me at the time, because, yeah, I wasn't very business savvy, and didn't know much about pricing. And I found myself just comparing my pricing to other designers. And that was kind of how I went about it. But you know, there's also that thing about imposter syndrome at the start is like, well, they're really good designers, why can't possibly charge that much. So there's a lot of yeah, comparing myself and comparing my prices to other people that were offering similar things. But now I try and take it back to the value of what I'm providing. And if this work that I'm doing is going to provide someone with a lot of value, then I should be charging accordingly for that, but it's still a thing that I'm figuring out and trying to navigate. And a thing that will constantly change with time, with my experience and my offering. So it's nothing, nothing that I fully figured out right now, I'd say.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:20 And I have another question around this. And it's, it's more to do with why you decided to start on your own, as opposed to work with an agency or something to start with? Why, why this choice? And why this pathway?
Tara Pigott 12:34 Yeah, it's a good question, because I did have that question at the start, when I knew I wanted to become a graphic designer, there was two kind of routes to go down, it was agency or, you know, being a designer for a company or doing it myself. And I think the doing it myself, and starting a business and starting a freelance venture, as it were, just seemed a lot more appealing to me at the time, I wanted to build something that I could truly be proud of and that could be my own, and it seems like a great challenge. And I love a challenge. And I guess it also gave me the, the opportunity to link it back to sustainability and positive change that I was so passionate about, I still wanted to retain some of that within what I was doing, and not just work for an agency or work for a company that wasn't related to sustainability or bringing about positive change. So I guess it was just yeah, my desire to do something good for the world and I thought like being a freelance designer for positive impact businesses was just a great way of doing that. But it was a very scary decision to make at the time.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:40 Yeah, no, I understand that. And I want to ask one more question around this, I know that I'm digging a lot into your business. But I think that's interesting for a lot of people who are in your position. And I know that you would have faced a lot of these challenges, but I really, I'm really interested in whether or not your client base is 100%, your ideal client, first of all, and what are you struggling with in terms of convincing brands to make more green choices? If you are struggling with that?
Tara Pigott 14:08 Yeah. So first question, no, all my clients right now wouldn't fall into the category of kind of sustainable, positive impact businesses or organisations. And I think when you're starting out any kind of business or freelance venture, we shouldn't restrict ourselves in terms of what work we're doing and who we're getting involved in because it's just really great to get experience across as many kind of places as you can. And I don't want to be turning down work and losing out on those experiences that are going to teach me so many things. So yeah, at the minute, no, it's not 100% my ideal client base, although that is what I'd like to move towards in the future. And the second question in terms of encouraging brands to make ethical change. I wouldn't say that, that's something I'm strongly involved with because the Ethical brands that come to me they're already wanting to make a positive impact are really concerned about how ethical they are being. So I don't tend to be involved in the process of convincing different brands to make ethical change, if you know what I mean.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:16 So let's look toward the future so Metari Design, what are the big hairy goals and key milestones you see for yourself, let's say in the next five years, and I know that five years is a long time in today's sort of environment and context of a lot of global risks. But what do you see for Metari?
Tara Pigott 15:37 Yeah, again, like this is always a hard question for me to answer because I'm more so like a person that does what feels like the right thing at the time, more so spontaneously, so I don't have like a solid plan laid out about where I want to get to at a certain point in the future. But I do have a few goals. And I do think that our goals should scare us. And if they don't, then they're probably not big enough, I would like to be able to do some public speaking on, you know, the importance of design in sustainability and bring about positive change. And I think I'd like to work with some big organisations and charities that are involved in driving this positive change, and help them with their visual communication and how they're communicating with the broader public. And I think a final thing that I potentially like to do in the future, would be to study more in depth, the behavioural science responses of people when they interact with design, so that I can better understand how to create a design that makes the most impact on people when they are viewing it and have that really rooted in science so that we can use this to drive even more positive change. But in terms of you know, where I'll be in five years, you know, only time can tell I'm excited to see myself, I think it will be somewhere exciting. So we shall see.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:07 Perfect, I'd love some tips. So can you give my listeners some tips on how to prepare for a brand design consultation, and how to think about their design.
Tara Pigott 17:17 So yeah, if you're interested in a brand design consultation, the first thing I'd recommend is getting really clear on what I call your brand's foundations; purpose, your values, your mission, and the messages you want to share as a business or organisation. And without these kind of key foundations of your brand, it will be hard to steer your business in the correct direction, prepare it properly for the design stage, essentially. So your designer will usually ask you about these things in a consultation that, so that they can understand your business and use that to create a design that works really well. So it is good to have, you know, some sort of a clear idea of what they are before going into consultation. Secondly, I think you should consider what you want to get out of working with the designer, that could be more clarity on your brand and who you are, as a business, it could be more sales, it could be to gain funding, or to appeal to a new target audience really nailing this down. And getting clear on what you want to get out of this whole brand design process, will make sure that the whole experience is a great success for you. Because if you're clear with the designer about what you want to get out of it they'll hopefully make sure those goals are achieved, and that both parties are happy with the final outcome. So they're are two tips that I'd give
Katherine Ann Byam 18:44 Thank you so much for that. And finally, I would love to know about powerlifting, it's probably one of the most interesting things I've read in your profile as well. What inspired you to get into powerlifting? First of all, and how does it help you in life and health?
Tara Pigott 19:00 I guess it it could go back to when I was younger, I was actually a sprinter so I did athletics and as a part of that as part of the training for that, we'd do some weights in the gym. And I kind of just loved this section of the training so much that you know, when sprinting kind of didn't work out for me in the end, and I wasn't seeing as much progress, I kind of just wanted to carry on doing sport and training of some sort. So I found powerlifting at university, I think and once I found out about it and found out that you know, weightlifting and lifting weights was a sport in itself. I just became really interested in it. And that's where I got introduced to it and I started training for it and I started competing. And it just, yeah, I just really loved it that I just carried on I'm still doing it all these years later. And yeah, in terms of how it helps me in my life and health now. I think it's a great break it's a great separation from work related things it gives me like a second focus, not all my time and energy is spent going into the one thing, I think it's great to have another thing that you're also focused on so that you can renew and recharge and get inspired and not just be bogged down by the same one thing all the time. So, yeah, it gives me another focus, and also it encourages me to prioritise other things in my life, such as sleep and nutrition and being active. And without having powerlifting, I don't think I'd be as motivated to prioritise all those other aspects of my life to make sure I'm as healthy as I can be in order to make the most progress in the gym, etc. So that's another benefit of it in terms of health.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:43 It's really, really intriguing. And thank you so much for sharing today with us. How can my listeners reach out to you?
Tara Pigott 20:50 Yeah, so I am on LinkedIn. Tara Pigott, is my name. So I'm quite active over there on LinkedIn. But if you're not on LinkedIn, you could also feel free to send me an email. Perfect. Thanks for joining us, Tara. No worries, it's been lovely to have a conversation with you.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:09 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.
089 Recloseted
About this Episode
Selina is the Founder & CEO of Recloseted, the first one-stop consultancy for sustainable fashion. Recloseted launches + scales sustainable fashion brands and helps existing brands become more conscious through their programs and consulting services. Selina leverages her experience working at startups and Fortune 500s, and now leads an all-star team of consultants, sourcing experts, and material scientists to transform the harmful fashion industry.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01 Let's talk a little bit about this whole field of sustainable fashions, everyone appears to know that their fashion choices have an impact. But yet, we still see people continuing to enjoy these practices that aren't necessarily helpful. What are your thoughts on this?
Selina Ho 0:17 I will say I do think most people know now about fast fashion and the differences between that and slow fashion. When I first started half a decade ago, I would say it was dicey around who knew and who didn't. And so to your point now, I almost feel like there's no excuse not to do anything. And so what I think personally is holding people back is a combination of things. One thing could be money, the other thing could just be time. And then the third thing could just be lack of care if I'm being blunt, right, because if you really care, you're going to do something about it.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:49 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. Selina is the founder and CEO of recloseted the first one stop consultancy for sustainable fashion. Recloseted launches and scales, sustainable fashion brands, and helps existing brands become more conscious through their programmes and consulting services. Selina leverages her experience working at startups and fortune 500s, and now leads an all star team of consultants, sourcing experts and material scientists to transform the harmful fashion industry. Selina, welcome to where it is lunch.
Selina Ho 2:23 Thank you so much, Katherine, I'm so excited to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:26 Really great to have you. I really want to understand a little bit about what you do in more detail. Because it's amazing when I look at the summary of what you've shared with us in your bio, and I Googled your digital footprint, and it's all very impressive. I noticed your degree was in business and not necessarily dedicated to sustainability. So I'd love to know where your interest and passion for sustainable business and life comes from.
Selina Ho 2:50 Yeah, well, thank you so much for the kind words, I think that I've just always been so passionate about this. And it just organically happened. And I find that that's always really fun, where you go to school and you study something, you start working, and then it doesn't really make sense when you're going through it, but then when you look back, you're like, oh, this makes sense. So, anyways, long story short, I've always been passionate about entrepreneurship. I've also always been passionate about the environment. So background on me, I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and if you've ever been there, if you haven't been there, beautiful, there's lots of nature, there's lots of mountains and oceans. And I was always surrounded by that. And I would enjoy hiking and snowboarding and just like just always love being in nature. And then personally for me, too, I've just always been so inspired by entrepreneurship and building your own company building something that does good for you, its employees that you employ, and also the environment and trying to figure out the intersectionality of all of that. And so I went to business school, I learned kind of The ABCs of business, and it was good, but I graduated. And so I did a corporate job. And at that corporate job, maybe like a lot of your listeners, I kind of felt really lost. And I didn't really know what I was doing with my career. And I was like, why am I in this cubicle? I feel like I'm just rotting away. And at that point, I had really discovered just like fashion and the harmful effects of it. Granted, you know, I've always loved fashion, I love clothing. But yeah, just like finding out more about the sustainability side of it, the environmental side of it, it spurred when I got a skin rash actually wearing a blouse at work. And we can talk a little bit more about that. But that really spurred me to go down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out what's going on with our clothes and what I can do to help.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:36 What was the moment that you knew sustainable fashion was going to be where you drive your efforts forward and and create that change and impact, what really happened to make this business model make sense for you.
Selina Ho 4:47 Yeah, so like I mentioned, it all started kind of with that skin rash and I was wearing a polyester blouse at the time I kind of knew what polyester was, but I didn't really and when I started Googling it I found out it's basically made out of oil. And I always like to say, you know, we're not going to go to the gas station put oil all over our bodies. So why are we wearing these garments for hours and hours on end, right, and the materials was kind of just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fast fashion and the harmful effects of fashion. And so I went down this deep, dark rabbit hole of the unethical treatment of garment workers, the harmful materials that we're putting on our bodies, the millions and millions of tonnes of textile waste going to our landfills filling up the global South, like there's just so much wrong with the fashion industry. And that was when the passion and the fire really lit within me to do something about it, because up until then, I had worked out a lot of like, you know, fortune 500s, startups, like I mentioned, like you mentioned, but it just didn't feel fulfilling. And I really wanted to take my expertise and my skills and put it towards something that I really believed in. And so that's when that kind of started and then the actual starting of Recloseted as a business came really organically. I started the podcast, I wrote a handbook to consumers about how to really start the sustainable fashion journey. And then I started working pro bono for local sustainable brands, just helping them launch, helping them scale, and I was able to get them a lot of great results and in the process, I also loved the work I was doing. And so then I was like, I should turn this into business. So that's how it started. It was really organic. And again, looking back, it kind of makes sense. But going through it, it was very messy.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:26 That's really great. And that's the kind of stories we like to hear. Because a lot of people, you know, they're going through this difficult phase, and you know, maybe one or two years in and you're still not sure you're still not convinced it's ready to tip to your favour. But you know, it does tip. And I think that's part of the beauty of this journey, and the commitment that you make as well the long term commitment and all the marketing choices that you make. So let's talk a little bit about this whole field of sustainable fashion. So there's a lot of knowledge out there. And everyone appears to know that their fashion choices have an impact. But yet we still see people supporting those damaging brands, and continuing to perhaps enjoy these practices that aren't necessarily helpful. What are your thoughts on this?
Selina Ho 7:12 Yeah, so I will say I do think most people know now about fast fashion and the differences between that and slow fashion. When I first started half a decade ago, I would say it was dicey around who knew and who didn't. And so to your point, now, I almost feel like there's no excuse not to do anything. And so what I think personally is holding people back is a combination of things. One thing could be money, the other thing could just be time. And then the third thing could just be lack of care if I'm being blunt, right, because if you really care, you're going to do something about it. And so with the money piece, sustainable fashion does have typically a bad reputation for being more expensive for being inaccessible. And I'm happy to talk about how everyday consumers can, you know, try to incorporate more sustainable practices, even on a budget later on, if that's helpful, but there's the money piece, and also for brands as well, right, they have to invest and paying their garment workers higher or more, they have to invest in better quality materials, they have to, you know, design intentionally. And so all of that has higher costs associated with, with all of that. So costs are definitely something that hold people back. And then of course time as well, right? Like if you're going to thrift or if you're going to try to research a sustainable brand. Or on the brand side, if you want to actually think intentionally about what to design versus just copying a fast fashion brand, then all that requires more time and more effort. And the banner on top of all that is the care, right? Like you really need to figure out which part of the fashion industry resonates with you, why you're really passionate about solving it like me, like for me, personally, it was the textile waste, and also the unethical treatment of garment workers like that really, really lit a fire in me. And so, yeah, I think it's a combination of those things. And of course, some people might have a lack of education as well. And so if that's you, please watch the true cost, please. You know, Google, there's, there's so many resources out there. There's so many documentaries, so many videos, so there's really no excuse.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:09 Yeah, I get that. And I'd love to experience what this journey was like in terms of the success stories that you've had those campaigns you've run for clients, and the impact that your work has actually had on communities perhaps and even in the lives of the business owners.
Selina Ho 9:25 Yeah. So one thing I would love to share with your listeners is when you're going through it, yes, it's messy every single day kind of feels the same, kind of like Groundhog Day. But when you take a look back and you really write down all of your accomplishments and your successes, you realise how far you've come. And so I really recommend to your listeners to do that on a monthly quarterly and annual basis. Because in preparation for this podcast, I kind of like thought through it and I was like well, we've actually done a lot in the past few years. And so yeah, there's there's a few things I'm proud of so for our recorded radio podcast, we've had hundreds of 1000s of downloads and streams. So that's something I'm really, really proud of, because that just means our message is getting out there, and people are joining our movement. And then from a brand perspective, we've helped 1000s of brands all over the world as well, which is also something I'm incredibly proud of, because, again, that speaks to sustainable fashion taking off worldwide, but also speaks to the amount of impact we can have. And when our brands and our clients make better choices, we also have a better impact on the environment and on, you know, society in general, so that's been really great. And just on a very, I guess, tactical level, I'm also very passionate about creating conscious wealth for entrepreneurs, because I often find that with fashion and with kind of more creative businesses, there's this mentality of being a starving artist, and I hate that mentality. And I hate that stigma. And so I'm really, really passionate about creating conscious wealth for all of our clients. And so our LYB programme launches brands that make at minimum 20k. That's something I'm really, really proud of our Accelerate Your Brand programme helps clients to be able to achieve consistent monthly revenue, which is really, really tough for entrepreneurs just starting out. And so I really am a firm believer in doing something that you're passionate about, doing a business that can have a great impact on the environment, but also making sure that you can pay yourself, your employees and everyone just associated with the business,
Katherine Ann Byam 11:26 What are the challenges and obstacles that might be getting in the way for some of your clients at the moment, and what needs to happen to make those things improve, it maybe some of the things my clients or even my listeners are facing now?
Selina Ho 11:37 Yeah, if I'm being honest, I think funding is a struggle for a lot of business owners right now, especially in the recession, especially coming out of COVID. And for a lot of our clients, and probably your clients and your listeners too, if you have higher business costs, because you are paying people fairly, you're buying better materials, then it's a struggle, right? Like you really want to figure out how you can drum up sales. So what I always tell our clients is in these difficult times to really double down and figure out who your ideal customer is, really try to nurture them, really try to figure out what their pain points are. And just be super intentional with every single thing you put out there. We've also really suggested to a lot of our clients to move to more of a pre sales or inventory, like made to order model versus having inventory, because that can be a lot better in these uncertain times. And then I'll just like kind of a plea or a message to just an everyday consumer out there. If you do have some money and you are thinking about buying new clothes, or you need something, please try to support one of your local sustainable brands, because they definitely need that funding and that money way more than a fast fashion brand. So please just take five to 10 minutes, do a quick Google search, try to find a local brand in your area that you like and vote with your dollars, right? Like if you support them, that's going to go so much further than you giving it to Zara, or you know, some of those other fast fashion brands, and we won't name them all. But you know, so just Just please be more mindful.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:04 And I want to touch on this aspect of funding and what has been sort of your experience in helping some of your business owners get funding or in getting funding for yourself? Can you share a bit about that?
Selina Ho 13:17 Yeah, so in terms of funding, there's a few different mechanisms that we have suggested to our clients to leverage. So we actually don't recommend our clients get investment from private equity or you know, other investors just because it's really, really hard from a b2c perspective, they're always looking for really innovative products. But beyond that, their time horizon for returns are also very, very short, usually. And so it can get really, really stressful. And so instead, I think that pre sales model can really, really help where you get funding in advance from your customers. You can also try something like crowdfunding, which is another model where your customers pool and they help perhaps pay for your production, which is the highest cost and then you can go off and go make it. There's of course also bank loans, but now with interest rates being where they are, I kind of don't recommend that anymore, unless you absolutely, absolutely have to. Of course, there's also funding and raising from loved ones and family members, so friendlies if you're able to do that and take it seriously and show them the routine, you know, the returns and all those things. But yeah, I think just really trying to double down on getting funding from your customers. That's always what we recommend to our clients, be it from a pre sales or advanced, made to order type model or just trying to drum up sales and trying to be more innovative with your marketing both organic and paid and doing some of those things. But I know it's tough.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:43 It is definitely tough. And it's a journey that I think a lot of people are just contemplating right now given the economics of the situation today and probably even people turning away from, from their small businesses because of the anxiety involved in it, all right, so it's definitely a challenge. So I want to move into your big goals, your key milestones, what you think is gonna happen for a closeted or what you'd like to happen for a closeted in the next couple of years.
Selina Ho 15:11 Yeah, when it comes to goals, I just want to get bigger, scale up, really scale our impact, that's really it, we just started a YouTube channel. So just making sure we continue to grow that, obviously growing our podcast, growing our clientele. And at the end of the day, I just really want to make sure that we move the, the needle in the industry where it needs to go. And I really think that we just need to keep doing what we're doing. We just need to put the gas to it. And yeah, so that's really the big, hairy, audacious goal just get better, and get bigger and just scale up.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:45 Are you currently doing any impact reporting?
Selina Ho 15:47 Yes we are. And so that's also something I really want to do in the next year or so as well, because a lot of our clients, we do a lot of the sustainability consulting for them in terms of like water usage, and dyes and all those things, and I would love to aggregate it, and then kind of show like our overall impact, because I think that would be so cool to see. But it's, it's just just a matter of time and resources and just finding that but that's definitely on the list.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:14 Yeah perfect, that's a really solid way to demonstrate right. And it's really good for for potential customers for potential investors as well, super. So let's move now to tips. And I want to do this in two directions to consumers interested in sustainable fashion, who may be looking for, you know, ideas and how to develop their wardrobes, etc. And to business developing clothing brands, who are also curious about what they can do to have more reach and more impact with their campaigns and sales.
Selina Ho 16:44 Yeah, so let's start with consumers. So consumers, I really think first of all, you need to educate yourself, if you aren't already educated. So watch the true cost, you can check out our handbook, it's just recloseted.com/handbook There's really no excuse, there's so many resources out there. And then the first step I like to say is just to figure out your why. So which part of the harmful fashion industry resonates with you so that you're intrinsically motivated to do something about it. And then the second step, I always like to say too, is just accept, you're going to be imperfectly sustainable, because otherwise, if you want to be perfect, you're gonna get really, really overwhelmed and probably give up. So just understand, it's not going to happen overnight, but you can take baby steps, and that's okay, so maybe the first step you take is you don't buy new clothes for six months, and you try that out and you see what happens. Or maybe the first step you take is you thrift clothes for a year and you don't buy anything, and you issue those fun challenges to yourself. And maybe that inspires your friends or your family members. But I really think you need to start somewhere and be okay with what you have in your wardrobe already. Just accept it, be fine with it and just move on and try to just buy less as much as possible. That's something that I always encourage. And then for the brands that you are buying from just make sure they align with your values. So yeah, I hope that helps. But just accept that you're not going to be perfect, that's okay, and just figure out what's going to motivate you to keep going. And then from a brand perspective, I always always always talk about taking a customer first approach. So figuring out who your ideal customer is, and knowing that inside and out through market research, surveys and interviews, and that way you can figure out the pain point that they're struggling with, and then create a product to solve that pain point. Because we do not need more product just because people want to make another t-shirt or sell another pair of pants, we just don't need that anymore. But we need innovative things that solve problems. And when you have a product that solves a problem, people will quite literally give you their credit card because they're like, I need this in my life, right. And so it's really, really important to take that customer first approach. And when you do that, from a strategic perspective, your marketing, your campaigns, everything does line into place. But you do need to take the time to really understand your customers and be strategic and intentional about what you're producing.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:02 It's interesting, and I always find myself at this point of a conversation with anyone in the sustainability space, around scaling up and growth and the conflict around what growth is potentially doing to our lives and our environment. Right. And, of course, we want more sustainability, we want more brands that are like ours to grow. But still, ultimately, consumption has become overwhelmingly part of the problem. What, how do you reconcile that?
Selina Ho 19:32 Yeah, it's something that myself and a lot of our clients think about and keeps, I know keeps a lot of them up at night. And so the first piece of advice I have is to get clear on how big you want to get. Because in business and in hustle culture, if you will, you always are pushed to scale you're always pick, really pushed to like 2x revenue 5x revenue and I think that's really, really unhelpful because if you don't want to grow to become a $50 million business, then you don't have to, if you're happy growing and scaling up to a million, and that's going to be able to give you, your employees, your families enough income, then that's what you need to aim for. But you don't need to then feel stressed to then have to reach 10 million, 20 million, like if you don't want to. And so the first thing is getting really clear on where you want to go and how big you want to go. And then the next step is to work backwards to figure out what's the best and most conscious way you can go about it. And one thing I always like to say too is, there is actually no such thing as a truly sustainable business, because if you want it to be truly sustainable, you wuldn't even start a business to begin with. So the name of the game really is about balance, how do you balance your business activities, making a profit, but then also minimising your impact on the environment. And so I think Patagonia, for example, does a really good job of that they are very transparent about their shortcomings and their limitations. And they have scaled up to be quite a big brand I think all of us can agree on. But they try to do it in the best manner possible. And at the end of the day, I think the best thing you can do is try, the best thing you can do is do the best with your time, your resources and your budgets. And you just have to do that. Because the alternative is you don't do your brand you give up and everyone else gives up and then we're left with only fast fashion brands, right. And so I think it's really important to get clear on how big you want to get what you can do to get there and the best way you can do that, and just make peace with it.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:30 Yeah. And finally, how can my listeners get in touch and engage with your work? I know you've already shared about the podcast, but how else can we get on board?
Selina Ho 21:38 Yeah, I mean, we're pretty much everywhere. So if you want to check out our website, it's just recloseted.com we have a tonne of free resources on there. So please take advantage of them. We are also on all social media channels pretty much so it's just at recloseted. We are on YouTube. We also have the recorded radio podcast so please reach out. We would love to hear from you. If you have any questions about anything I mentioned, I am happy to answer them so you can shoot us a DM you can send us an email at Hello@recloseted.com we really are here to help transform the harmful fashion industry and support everyone. So please, please, please reach out.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:14 Awesome. Thank you Selina. It's been such a joy meeting you and chatting to you today.
Selina Ho 22:18 Thanks so much, Katherine. This is so fun. And I hope that this is really helpful to your listeners.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:26 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.
082 The Full Freezer
About this Episode
Kate Hall is the Founder of The Full Freezer™ and author of the e-book ‘The Full Freezer (Save Food, Save Time, Save Money)’.
Kate helps households to reduce their food waste and cook from scratch more easily by using their home freezers more effectively. Unlike batch cooking, The Full Freezer Method is completely flexible and allows families to easily enjoy a wide variety of meals without any waste.
Kate has been featured by BBC Food, Steph's Packed Lunch, Prima Magazine, and The Telegraph and has collaborated with more than 50 creators within health & well-being, parenting, and sustainability. With over 40,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook, The Full Freezer™ is transforming attitudes towards food waste and empowering parents to cut down on convenience foods and embrace home cooking.
Kate lives in Greater London with her husband and two young children.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:00 But what about the nutritional impact? What if someone says I don't want my food to have a diminished impact? I don't know if my kids will be getting the same level of nutrition. What is your feedback to that?
Kate Hall 0:11 If you've decided to cut out what I do, and literally just go straight to the supermarket aisle and buy frozen, you're actually most likely going to be enjoying produce that's of a higher nutritional value because it is frozen so close to the source so soon after being picked. And my position when it comes to what I do is that you know, you can if you want to be in control of the nutrition if you're very conscious of the nutritional value, the most important thing is to buy as local as you possibly can and to freeze as soon as possible, because basically, the older that the food is, the more the nutritional value will deplete.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:45 I'm so pleased to bring Kate Hall's perspectives on how to freeze your food and save the planet, as well as save money, tune into this episode now. 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. Kate Hall is the founder of The Full Freezer, and author of the ebook The Full Freezer; Save Food, Save Time and Save Money. Kate helps households to reduce their food waste and cook from scratch more easily by using their home freezers more effectively. Unlike batch cooking, the full freezer method is completely flexible and allows families to easily enjoy a wide variety of meals without any waste. Kate, welcome to Where Ideas Launch, it's a pleasure to host you on the programme.
Kate Hall 2:28 Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. I'm so, so excited to chat to you today.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:32 So I've seen that you've been on BBC, you've been on TV, tell us a little bit about the journey to create The Full Freezer. Why, what inspired you to not just freeze all your food but to make it an actual business.
Kate Hall 2:46 So it was really the lockdown and the pandemic that pushed me to take this from just doing it in my own home to making it a business and sharing it with the world. And it was essentially the fact that I was put on furlough from my day job. And that was when I wrote the ebook because my instinct was, this is going to be useful to people, this has been so helpful to me in my own home developing a combination of methods of essentially freezing individual ingredients to kind of press the pause button on them. And give me a bit longer, particularly as a busy mum and as someone who was working, to be able to use that food. And I felt like if I could get all of it written down and in one place, then I could help other people to benefit in the same way. So I did that. I did that in the first couple of weeks of being on furlough. And then, I basically was made redundant from my day job, and said, you know what, I don't want to go and do another day job, I want to do this, I want to teach more people because I'd given away that ebook, initially, sort of the first month, six weeks, I gave it away. And the feedback I got was essentially, this is really interesting. This is really useful. And I thought actually, if I can teach people this on a deeper level, because I found a lot of people will take a little bit of what I do and then go, oh, yes, I know how to do it now. And they run with it. But there's sort of me in the background going. But if you do it this way, it'll be quicker or it'll be more convenient or it'll be safer. And so yeah, I started to do a few one to ones and build up my course and create content, and then go on to help corporations as well to sort of educate their employees and working with brands now as well, which is great fun. So it's it's been a very gradual progression. But really the thing that made me want to change it from being in my own home to being a business was just that instinct that I just felt it was something that would be useful to people that it would, and it's simple, it's a simple thing to change.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:48 Yeah, it's incredibly magnetic. I've been on your Instagram page and all your videos are so well done and really professionally done. Easy to follow on like, it's it's a page that you want to go back to so that, that's probably a really, really well done.
Kate Hall 5:01 Thank you.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:02 So I want to move to two things, actually. Because right now we're going through this massive energy crisis. So people are thinking about their freezers, their heaters and everything. But at the same time, what we, what we know from the research done around sustainability, etc, is that food waste is the number one thing we can do as individuals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Because it literally it takes a landmass the size of China, to grow the food that we actually don't eat, which is massive. What are your thoughts on all of this and how people can navigate this?
Kate Hall 5:42 I completely agree with with that whole premise of this being the you know, the number one thing we can do, because in comparison to other things, which I'm not saying we shouldn't do the other things as well, of course, we should reduce our plastic or drive less or eat less meat. But this is something that we have so much control over. Because we don't need a government to change any laws, we don't need corporations to change how they package things, literally by just stopping throwing things in the bin, and eating them instead. So, you know, you think, well, that's a benefit in itself that I actually eat the food that I buy, you know, we can we can benefit the planet, and we can also benefit ourselves financially, you know, average families are wasting a huge amount of money. So that's something that I think when you add it together, it's like, well, if I can, in my instance, freeze the food to give me a bit more time, then it just makes sense to do and as you say, you know, the impact of this is enormous. People sort of think, well, it's just a bit of food, it just rots down, does it really matter? But actually, that, remembering that when we throw food away, we're not just throwing away the food, we're throwing away all the resources that went into producing it, all of a sudden, it becomes so much more substantial. I think that was one of the things that when I started The Full Freezer, I wasn't thinking about it that way, I was thinking about it from the financial perspective, and also from the guilt, because I kept buying food with good intentions, and then it would just end up in the bin and we'd end up getting takeaway or convenience foods. And when I learned of the impact of food waste, and how bad it was, and how substantial the problem was, it was like, well, I can't, I can't actually turn my back on this now, I can't throw away a banana without feeling horrendously guilty, because I know that's not just a banana, that is all of the water, the land, the energy, the transportation, it might even have packaging, you know, all of those things have gone in to creating that food just for me to watch it go off on the side and throw it in the bin and buy more. And I think we have just gotten into this habit of thinking well, because there's more food and because it has previously been very affordable, then does it really matter. And actually, the more that people are realising that this does have a huge environmental impact, and it does as well, when food rots, it releases greenhouse gases as well. I believe the overall impact, there was a study from the waste Resources Action Programme, that have found that the impact of food waste is six times bigger than global aviation, or six times the size of global aviation. So you know, people say, Well, I take my holidays in the UK, I don't get on a plane. It's like, Yeah, but if you're wasting food, you know, you're still having a really negative impact. And I think, you know, we can change so that we eat less meat or so that we eat wonky vegetables, but if we buy those things, and then we throw them in the bin, we're not achieving what we want to by doing that. So I think that's something that we've got so much control over, and particularly as the stats in the UK show that 70% of food waste actually comes from our homes. So we have got that control. We don't have to have, you know, yes, supermarkets and restaurants should be doing it too. But actually, we need to step up and take responsibility too. And I think when you start to do that, it's so satisfying. It's nice, because you see, you're not wasting the food, but you're also saving the money and you're getting to enjoy what you've bought. Just makes sense.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:19 No, you're absolutely right. But what about the nutritional impact? What if, what if someone says to you like, I don't want my food to have a diminished impact? I don't know if my kids will be getting the same level of nutrition. What is your feedback to that?
Kate Hall 9:33 That is a fantastic question. Because I mean, it's it's complicated from the perspective of what I do, because you don't know at what point you're going to freeze the food so the nutritional value will decrease over time. But if for example, you bought frozen produce if you decided to cut out what I do and literally just go straight to the supermarket aisle and buy frozen, you're actually most likely going to be enjoying produce that's of a higher nutritional value, because it is frozen so close to the source so soon after being picked, that actually that nutritional value is locked in. So you might not be able to use the product in the same way you might usually want to, you can't make a salad with it, for example, unless you roast the veggies and everything. But the quality of the food and the nutritional value is actually exceptionally good with frozen food. And my position when it comes to what I do is that you know you can, if you want to be in control of the nutrition, if you're very conscious of the nutritional value, the most important thing is to buy as local as you possibly can. And to freeze as soon as possible. Because basically, the older that the food is, the more the nutritional value will deplete. So if you freeze it, as soon as you get it, you are going to have a better nutritional value when you eat it. Assuming in both instances you were cooking it, if you eat it fresh straightaway, you're going to have the highest benefit. But you know, if you if you freeze it sooner, you're going to enjoy that nutritional benefit rather than letting it sit in your fridge for a week and then eating it. Or even worse, letting it sit in your fridge for a week and then throwing it in the bin because then you don't get any nutritional value from that food. So it really freezing is nature's pause button. We don't have it, you know, there's no need for any additives or preservatives. It is literally just nature, keeping our food safe until we're ready to eat it. So it's, it's a great compromise if you're somebody that wants to eat well, but sometimes finds that time and life stop you from doing that.
You've convinced me, at the time of this when, you've sort of surpassed I guess 10s of 1000s of followers on Instagram, where are you at now?
I think just over 34 and a half 1000 followers, I think that's on my main account. But I do have a second account as well. Can I freeze it? Which is I think at over 14 and a half 1000 for that.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:05 Wow. What do you think more people don't, don't already know? And what feedback do you get from your followers? And since they've been engaging with your work?
Kate Hall 12:15 You know what I find it really fascinating because, to be completely fair, I didn't know before I started doing it before I got to a point where it was a problem. And I think that's the thing that it's not necessarily, well, actually it is that people don't know, because the amount of shock like in answer to your question, you know, the number of times I get sent the mind blown emoji, people just going what I can freeze eggs, I can freeze nuts. Like, what?
Katherine Ann Byam 12:45 What I can freeze eggs?
Kate Hall 12:47 Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This is exactlyit, it's like, but a lot of the time, it's, it's simply something that none of us have thought about, or that we've had any need to do, because food's been plentiful. And it's been affordable. It's not something we've ever had to be taught. So most of us, I mean, to be fair, freezing is the only preservation method that I'm truly familiar with. But it could be you know, there are families who grow produce, and they are familiar with dehydrating and canning and pickling. Because it's something that was necessary. And that is necessary to reduce that food waste to make sure that food doesn't go to waste when so much effort has been put into producing it. So I think it's the fact that we've become so disconnected with how much work goes into producing our food. And therefore, we've become complacent. And you know, that's not me being judgmental of anybody I know, in my time I have wasted a horrendous amount of food. Prior to doing this, you know, I was incredibly wasteful because I didn't value the food because it was affordable. And you know that? Well, I'll just go to the shop. And I'll buy more what's the problem? But I think it is, I think awareness is, is slowly and surely increasing. So we've seen over the last couple of years. Two years ago, they introduced the waste Resources Action Programme introduced food waste Action Week. So that's starting to raise the profile and we're seeing more and more supermarkets committing and I think that's helping to sort of raise the profile as well for individuals we've seen this year. And over the last year, the sort of increase in supermarkets taking away best before dates off produce where it's really not necessary. So we with we're seeing more mainstream stuff when I first started, literally, nobody really knew or cared what I was talking about. It was not the priority. But definitely, I think between seeing climate change in very real terms in terms of weather changes and everything and even more so with the cost of living crisis, people are becoming so much more aware that we just really need to stop wasting food. It's just unnecessary.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:08 Yeah, I remember when I first met my partner, this was 10 years ago, he pulled out this, this bottle of meat from under his cupboard that had been there for three years. Like literally it was it was being preserved for three years in a mason jar. And I was like, what? Like, you can't give that to me to eat? What are you telling me? And then and then he told me that this was a tradition like his his father would would hunt, he would literally go into the forest and hunt. And then he would prepare the food and store it, and he would have it for years. So I was, I was really impressed and this, these are just things that I mean, okay, come I come from a very, very hot country in Trinidad and Tobago. So it's not the kind of thing that would be typical, necessarily, nor nor do we go out hunting. So I was really impressed. And what I realised is that, you know, there's a whole array of things that you could do to preserve your food. Mason jars are magnificent, right?
Kate Hall 16:04 I think it's something I mean, even you know, that sort of thing terrifies me if I'm totally honest, because it's like, oh, how do I know like, with freezing, I feel very confident because I, you know, I understand the science of it, that if it's minus 18 degrees, the bacteria cannot develop. And that's it. It can't, it can't breed. But when it's something like dehydrating or pickling, or storing mason jars, or canning, any of those things, I'm like, I understand the science in the sense of if you've removed the moisture, or if you've removed the oxygen, but I'm still really nervous. But that's something that I know I need to learn as well, like, that's another area that as, as The Full Freezer progresses, maybe there'll be a full pantry as well, I don't know? One day somebody can teach me other ways to help us avoid this food waste.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:51 So if I were to do this today, let's see, let's assume that I'm an average family, two kids, partner, how much could I save if I started to do this? You think?
Kate Hall 17:03 So there was a study by the waste Resources Action Programme that found the average family's wasting about 720 pounds a year, so about 60 pounds a month, buying food that literally just gets thrown away. And that's not scraps, that is bread and milk and cheese, and you know, all the good stuff. So yeah, an average of 60 pounds. And then I always like to highlight with that the fact that, that is just the food that's been thrown away as well. So if a family is listening, that know that they're quite guilty of throwing stuff, they've also got to take into account what are they buying to replace the stuff they're throwing away, and how much people are relying as well upon the convenience options that we tend to lean for, you know, when we can't be bothered to cook, and it's like, oh, well, I'll leave the food in the fridge for another day. Let's get a takeaway. Let us grab something from the supermarket, we can sling in the oven. And like, again, there's no judgement here. I've done it myself, every so often, I still do it in terms of, you know, getting the takeaway and whatever, but I don't throw away the food that's in the fridge. And that's the difference for me. And I think that's the thing that, you know, if people look at, how much are they throwing away, but actually, also how much more are they spending because of what they're throwing away. And that can be, you know, well into over 1000 pounds a year for some people. So it's potential, really substantial savings.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:32 Yeah, that's, that's important in this time of sort of economic crisis. So definitely good to look at this. So your work has garnered much interest from the press internationally. What's next for The Full Freezer?
Kate Hall 18:45 Oh, my gosh. So I've got some really exciting stuff going on. At the moment, you'll know this feeling of the pressures of book writing. So I started writing a book well over a year ago, and was planning to self publish, and then got approached by an agent, who asked if I would be interested to work with her and pitch to literary agents and literary sorry, traditional publishers rather. And we are, we are literally just in the last throes of getting my proposal together to pitch to publishers.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:20 That's amazing.
Kate Hall 19:20 So hopefully, anyone who's listening to this, you will, you know, hopefully I will be in a situation of panicking about actually writing the rest of the whole of the book. But if that doesn't happen, then I will still to be honest, be working on getting everything together for the book because, again, I just feel it's something that is really helpful to have broken down into a step by step process. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully a book will be on the cards on a wider scale. I've got my courses launching again. I'm now converting the Freezer Geek Academy, which is my six week programme, into a sort of self, kind of self led course so that people can do it at any time. Because it really frustrates me that I've previously launched twice a year and worked with groups of ladies so far, to take them through the process. And it's really frustrating not to be able to kind of help people to do that throughout the year. And when I need to say, I'm really excited to launch a course that allows people to do that. And then just continuing with creating my free content as well, working with corporations, and I've got some exciting brand collaborations coming up as well, which is, yeah, it's really good fun. So it's a busy time, a busy time, and especially with, you know, all Christmas festivities and everything, there's, there's a lot to be done around, you know, celebrations and getting the family together and having your freezer there as a tool to make that less stressful and less expensive as well.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:57 This is, this is amazing. This is really congratulations. And I want to I want to tip into this business aspect of it as well, because when did you start?
Kate Hall 21:07 During the pandemic. So it was 2020.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:11 Right? So that's, that's just around two years now. Yet, you're doing so fantastically well. So what, what do you, what would you say contributed to your success? And what were your challenges?
Kate Hall 21:24 I think, I mean, I think my biggest challenge in the early days was self confidence and self doubt. And, really, although I was, I felt confident that what I do would be helpful to people. But I really struggled to communicate that and to believe that anyone would actually want to pay me to teach them, or work with me, collaborate with me. So I think that that self doubt was by far, my biggest challenge. And I really overcame that by working with other entrepreneurs investing in myself with training and coaching. Working with, I had a support pod, through the course that I did, who were great at kind of cheering me on and encouraging me to just keep going. And I think the biggest thing that's actually converted into the success has been taking that and being consistent, and, you know, consistently, confident, quietly confident that, you know, what, even if this reel that I put out only helps one person that's worthwhile, even if this blog article that I write only helps one person that's worthwhile. So I think, you know, having that attitude, that because I knew it had helped me, that it would eventually help other people that other people would eventually start to pick up on what I was doing. And that's something that, you know, running the Freezer Geek Academy massively helped to kind of secure for me, because all of a sudden, I was actually getting feedback from students saying, h, my gosh, like, I got a I got a message, because we have a WhatsApp group on the most recent round. And I got a message from one of the ladies at 11 o'clock at night saying, I'm so sorry to message so late. But I had to message now, before I forget, and literally had sent me this long message, saying how much it had changed her life and you know that she's talking to everyone, she knows about it now. And they're looking at her like, She's crazy. In the same way, people were looking at me in the early days, like I was crazy. But she's still talking to them, because she knows it can help them because she knows it can make a difference. And that thing of the excitement that I now see from the people that I've worked with, and the people in my community who are getting it, who are getting addicted to that freezing, and using the frozen food and saving the money and saving the food is just like, that just lights me up. So I think you know, to anybody who is in a situation with your business, where you're thinking, oh, my gosh, when you know, is this ever gonna work? Is this ever gonna be successful? You just have to keep going. You just have to keep showing up, being consistent. And I think, you know, if it's something that helps people, then it's going to, it's going to catch on, it's going to get there, but it's yeah, you just got to keep going with it, really.
Katherine Ann Byam 24:22 Great advice. So three tips that you'd give to families listening to this and learning about your work for the first time, what would you say to them on how to, on how to get started?
Kate Hall 24:33 Sure, so I've got three tips that are sort of bundled up into one action. So the one action is to keep a food waste diary, which sounds really unsexy and really boring and a little bit like keeping, you know, a diet diary and things where you're like, I just don't want to actually write this down because I don't want to face up to the truth. But it makes such a difference to see things written down on paper, and I think being as honest as you can, about just how much you're throwing away is the first step to making a change into tackling it. And then the the three tips that come into that, and it could be that you start by just jotting down the first thing I'm going to say, and then the second and then the third, rather than trying to write down all the things you're wasting initially. Because if you do that, you might be just put off and horrified and go and curl up in a corner. So the first thing is to just throw, is to just write down things you are throwing away, that are unopened, you've not touched them, you've not got to them, you know, fruit, vegetables, things in the cupboard, whatever it is, just jot down those things as you throw them away. What that will allow you to do is see, could you have just not bought as much? Are you buying some things on autopilot just because they're on your shopping list? And actually, you don't get through them that often. So you could just buy less? Or are they things you want to always have in stock, and therefore maybe you could freeze them which I'll tell you where I've got tips on how you can do that which are totally free. But then you know, once you've got that sense of what you're throwing away, that's whole, you can move on to the next stage, which is looking at things you're throwing away that are part used. So do you always open a jar of pesto and put it in the fridge? After using just one tablespoon? And then discover it, you know, six weeks later with mould growing on it? Do you always use some of the tomato puree and then it goes in the fridge and gets forgotten about? Do you always put, even things like leftovers, you know, are you using some of your food but then letting the leftovers go bad in the fridge or ingredients like using part of an onion or maybe some ginger or Chili's or anything like that. Anything that you're using a bit of for a recipe. And then it goes in the cupboard or it goes in the fridge and it goes bad, write those things down. And then figure out could you freeze them instead, which is also what I can teach you and share with you and I I've got lots of videos on that that are totally free. And then the final thing is looking at what scraps you're throwing away. So when you've tackled the first two, and don't try and do this until you've tackled the first two, unless you are somebody who is like properly on a mission. So looking at the scraps, it might well be that there are things you're throwing in the bin that you can actually eat. So I've seen people throw away broccoli stalks, cauliflower leaves, things like the tops, I've seen tops of spring onions thrown away, which was very strange to me, because they just they're al,l it's all edible, it's all fine. So looking at things like that, and seeing actually, you know, and like literally a quick search online, can I eat this bit of the food, and you'll find that there are things I mean, if you really want to take your food waste seriously. And I'll admit, I am not at this level, because I have two small children and I'm running a business. But one day, I might get to this level that you can, you can cook banana skins and eat banana skins, you know. So there are things that we don't always think of as edible that actually, with the right preparation, I believe you can cook and I think you can candy melon rinds as well, something like that. So there might be things when you get to that level, if you want to push your food waste reduction even harder, that you could be eating that you're not eating. And if you're you know, if you've got things that just aren't avoidable, then the thing I, you know, I think is a given that should always be said is to compost as much as you can. If you've got the space to have a compost pile, that's great. Make sure that you look at how to do it properly. Because again, I'll confess our old house we have the space for a compost pile, we have no idea how to actually do it. So we just ended up with a, you know, a pile of dirt. Basically, there wasn't, it wasn't in any way useful. That didn't rot down properly. So definitely, you know, do the research to find out how to do it properly. There are hot composts that you can buy as well. I think it's a green Joanna or something like that, that's worth looking into. I think there's there's various different ways that you can process that food waste. And the simplest if you have a compost collection service in your area is to use it for your food. And especially if you are still at a stage where you're throwing away Whole Foods. At least if you're going to throw it away or at least take it out of the packaging, put the food in the food waste bin and put the packaging in the recycling if it can be recycled, at the very least as a first step. So I think you know, taking those three steps of breaking it down, don't feel guilty about it. Don't feel I can't face this. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Like step back from it and start to see the money you're saving. Start to see the food you're saving the food you're getting to enjoy. Take it as the positives of the things you're saving rather than punishing yourself about what you have been wasting, because that is history. And you can change where you are, you can totally change it, and you can totally do it. So, yeah, that's what I would say.
Katherine Ann Byam 30:10 Thank you. Thank you for sharing these steps. This is a really great place to start. I think so, so wonderful. How can everyone get involved with the rest of your work?
Kate Hall 30:19 So the best places to find me are on Instagram at Full Freezer, or I mentioned before about having some videos, so at Can I freeze it? I have all my videos. And if you search on YouTube, for The Full Freezer, you'll find all my videos on there as well if you're not on Instagram, and then on Facebook, I have a free group which is called The Full Freezer Family. So I would love to see anyone come and say hello, let me know you've joined through Katherine. And yeah, you can get tips and advice, ask questions and share your wins. So yeah, please do come join us.
Katherine Ann Byam 30:50 Perfect. Thank you so much, Kate, for joining us. This has been wonderful and best wishes with your business for the rest of this year and for next year as well.
Kate Hall 30:58 Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Katherine. It's been great.
Katherine Ann Byam 31:01 And good luck with the book. 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.
080 Youth Perspectives 2 - Sustainable Periods
About this Episode
Sara Udin is a client, friend and absolute go getter and one for youth voices in celebrating on the podcast.
Sarah is the founder and CEO of Amala Periods, Cambodia’s first sustainable period underwear and education company.
She spoke to me about what it's like being a Brit starting a business based in Cambodia.
"These were all huge things for me to both emotionally, and obviously commercially to overcome when starting a period business in a country where periods are not spoken about periods are not considered clean they are to do with your beauty and intelligence.
It's shown me that the period of education is missing. And that's why we're going to provide it.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01 Sarah Udin is a client, friend, and absolute go getter, and one of four youth voices I'm celebrating on the podcast. She spoke to me about what it's like being a Brit starting a business based in Cambodia. Listen to this clip now.
Sarah Udin 0:16 These were all huge things for me to both emotionally, and obviously commercially, overcome when starting a period business in a country where periods are not spoken about, periods are not considered clean, they are to do with your beauty and intelligence and all of the other things. Really for me, this has been a real big learning curve. And it's shown me that the period education is missing. And that's why we're going to provide it. Another thing is that only one of the 15 girls that we interviewed could tell us why they got a period. So that again, was a huge factor for me when we said, actually, we're not just going to make this a sustainable business that solves a waste problem, we're going to make this a social impact change, change these women's lives.
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.
Today, my guest is Sarah Udin. She's the founder and CEO of Amala periods, Cambodia's first sustainable period underwear and education company, Sarah, welcome to where ideas launch. It's such a pleasure to host you on this programme and to hear your story.
Sarah Udin 2:16 Thank you so much for having me, I feel absolutely honoured that you've invited me on as a guest.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:22 So how does a girl from Cambridge end up founding a startup in Cambodia? Tell us about your journey?
Sarah Udin 2:28 That's a great question. Thank you. It's a very, very random story and a very long story. So I'll try and keep it nice and short and to the point, but, I don't know from a very, very young age, I always knew that I was going to live abroad, or I always dreamed of living abroad, let's say, I didn't know it was going to happen. But I made it happen for myself. So I started learning foreign languages. When I was about three years old, I continued with that. And I always, I always knew that, that was going to be my way to leave England, was actually learning foreign languages. So I ended up studying a French and German degree, which really helped me build that confidence. But I actually started travelling alone when I was 16.
So I was travelling over to France, to Germany. And I'd been working since I was 13. So this was all money that I'd earnt and that this was all that I wanted to do with it. So I started coaching gymnastics when I was 13 years old. And it really opened a lot of doors to me. And it showed me that I can actually make decisions to visit places around the world that actually, I always just dreamed of. So I was, I feel very blessed that I had that opportunity. And I first came to Cambodia when I was 18.
So I did the classic gap year I had three jobs, I worked very hard to get enough money to travel the world and I did it. I came over to India, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and I absolutely fell in love with Cambodia. On that trip, I just, the language, the culture, it made me feel calm, it's a more calm version of Thailand, but it's a little bit more lively than Laos, say, and it just felt like somewhere that I knew I was going to come back to and I ended up coming back after studying abroad in Germany, I met some friends there, one of my friends had moved here. And so I said, of course, I'll come visit you on holiday. That would be great. Thank you so much. So we came out, a group of the girls, and we had the best trip ever. And also just being able to see the lifestyle out here and realising that this dream was actually a reality for somebody that I knew. And this was something that's no longer just a dream. It was something that was within my grasp.
So I came back home to England, and I carried on with my nine to five and I, to be honest with you, I was miserable. I actually got diagnosed with depression and anxiety at that time, and I realised that this was not the place for me. And it was a really, really tough decision. But having a friend out there really helped me. So I managed to book that flight and leave everything I knew and loved. And I didn't have a return ticket and that was in January 2020 just before the pandemic, woho! It was a scary decision and at that point I wasn't really sure if I should stay or not. So when I first arrived in Cambodia, I got a job as an English teacher. So I've actually done lots of different jobs. I've been a gymnatics coach, I've been a ski resort manager, I've been a wedding and events coordinator, I've been a data analyst for Amazon, I've been lots and lots of different things.
So I thought actually teaching is a good way for me to use these skills. Schools in Cambodia are run like businesses and it made me not very happy to be a part of it, because I didn't feel like the education was being accessed by the children in the way that I wanted it to. So I basically wanted to find a way out of that. And I was talking to the TAs and the teachers at school about period panties, because I had tried them once before, and I was wearing them that day. And I was telling everybody about that in that nice, oversharing way I have, and nobody had heard of them. So I was quite confused by this. And I thought, Oh, what do you mean, nobody has heard of them, so I kind of explained them, I showed everybody, everybody seemed really interested by this product. And I thought, actually, this could be a possible opportunity for me, because this is a sustainable item and I've always dreamed of running a sustainable business myself, like this has been something that I've always wanted as my own baby. And I just thought this is something that makes sense.
So then that was basically where it started, I so, I researched a lot, I got some support from people like, of course, Katherine, and from Lara and I basically, I just started asking around and selling to my friends and selling at local markets. And that's the point at which the business started to take off. So I couldn't run a business alongside a full time teaching job. So I then switched back over to my coaching. So I then started a dance school, at the same time, I've been coaching gymnastics at the dance school, while running the business, and also coaching other sports in other locations around the city. And that's kind of the short version of the random journey that brought me to being the CEO of Amala Periods.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:42 This is insane. Like, how old are you now, if you don't mind me asking?
Sarah Udin 6:46 No, that's fine. I turned 28.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:47 Right, and in that space of about 10 years, you've basically done like 10 jobs explored so many different aspects of yourself as well, finding out what you liked what you didn't like. And I think this is such a great empowering story, both from a career perspective, but also from, you know, the sustainable transition perspective, and I think being in Cambodia is a bit of an eye opener on many different aspects of life. Very, very different from the UK. I've been there myself, roughly around 10 years ago, maybe. And I think it's such a change and a shift from what we would expect. So I want to touch on something that you said, So you talked about the education system in Cambodia and being run like a business, etc? Would you say that it is tilting toward a more western standard of education? What are your thoughts on it?
Sarah Udin 7:37 So I would say the schools in Cambodia being run like businesses is kind of an independent issue, it just was the final trigger for me to realise that this was, I didn't want to just fit into something that was set up for to make profit for somebody else, that was not actually supporting children in a good educational way, it was more of a profit building situation. And that's not how I felt comfortable teaching. It also felt like we had to just tick a lot of boxes and take a lot of photos rather than actually teach the children. And so that's also part of what I've put into the period education workshops is that I don't want to do it so it's just to tick boxes and to take photos for people and all of these things, because that's how the education system worked.
So although I can't say exactly that this was the trigger, what, I've, what I'm doing is I'm making sure to take all of this information from working in the schooling system in Cambodia to make sure that when we do our period education programmes, which is we've started doing now, we aren't doing it in the standard Cambodian way. And we're actually doing it in a much more dynamic, entertaining, fun, sports coaching style way, which makes people just much more comfortable about learning about this very taboo topic.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:44 And just in terms of the whole relationship with women's health, in general, like I think if I were to speak for myself, and I'm a bit older than you, but I don't think we received the level of education that you receive today in terms of period health and how to manage those things. It's also because, you know, we're learning more about the whole topic as well. But what would you say is one of the reasons for the big gap in knowledge that you found there?
Sarah Udin 9:11 I totally know what you mean, actually, by that, I would say it does feel a little bit like we are living in the past, in, not in a bad way, but it does feel like you know, the way that we live certain ways in Cambodia that still like lots of things that would have been acceptable in the 70s and 80s, in the UK, and in the western world, that is how we live over here now. And I think that the education system reflects that where there's still things that are just not spoken about, there are just tick boxes that people have to fit into. And also women's health is not spoken about because it's not relevant because it's not important as part of society, and it's, it's deemed to be shameful.
So it's not something that is very important as part of the education system. I would definitely say that. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I was actually talking to one of my friends about that the other day, she said I'd never thought of it like that, but it's literally like we're living in the 70s like we are doing what our people like in the 70s were doing, but we're doing it in the 2020s, this is strange, but I think that that is definitely reflected in the, in the gender equality and the way that women are viewed as well. So actually, I have a very short, little anecdote that I can tell you about from the other day.
So I went to the Miss Universe Cambodia event. And I, one of my friends was competing. So I went to support my friend. And I'm really pleased I went to support it. And I thought, it's a very strange idea, this whole beauty pageant thing I'm not, I'm not 100% sure if I actually support the idea of it. But I'm very happy to support my friend. And she did an amazing job. But at the end of it, there was a little altercation. And there was basically a guy following one of the contestants around with his phone, and he was harassing her. And he was following her and shouting at her and nobody was doing anything. So I stepped in. And I stopped him from filming her. And I didn't understand what was going on. And to me that, that was the most shocking thing in the world, because these, this is one of the women, I would have expected to actually have been able to say something and to have actually been able to stop this. But this was a really clear image for me about how this gender inequality is so still here and then when nobody else was willing to step in to stop this harassment, of a contestant that has just been celebrated on national television, and I was the only person that stepped in, it accidentally went viral on Tiktok as well. But at the same time, I still I stand by it, because I would much rather step in when I can see something like that happening.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:29 That's insane. And again, yeah, it's a great example of the challenges that you're facing actually dealing with this. So I want to, I want to go directly into that question. I mean, how have you sort of adjusted and accommodated all the cultural learnings that you've had to have in order to run this business? Tell me a little bit about how that went?
Sarah Udin 11:49 So again, great question. I yeah, I'm not gonna lie. It's been challenging. Of course, learning a new culture and learning a new language is always going to be challenging, especially when it's very, very far away from your own because I am very much not Cambodian. And I don't have any Cambodian cultural heritage or anything. My, my ancestors were Indian, but it's not something that we actually carry in our family particularly. So learning the language during the pandemic, of course, has been the biggest struggle just because meeting people has been difficult. We've then kind of tried to counteract that by working with combined marketing teams and translators, which has been expensive, but then obviously worth it to connect the audience more authentically. But honestly, the biggest thing is that the cultural taboos, has been huge.
So even when I started talking about this, like some of the TAs were, too, they were too embarrassed to talk to me, even though they have spent, you know, all day every day hanging out with me. They know all about everything we do. We know everything about each other, that was still not something that they felt super confident until everybody was interested and everybody came over, and to have a look and things like that. What I found really interesting is that me and my business partner, we interviewed 15, Khmer women about their periods. So these were my students when I, was an English conversation class teacher. So adult students in tech, so they were very intelligent, very, you know, well, well established women and listening to them talk about the cultural taboos around periods was absolutely fascinating. So they said things like when you're on your period, you're not allowed to eat bitter foods, sour foods, spicy food, or salty food, or pickled or preserved food, and Cambodians favourite food is sour mango, with chilli and so they were, all it's like, they were all crying about that they were like, I can't believe my mum doesn't let us eat this when we're on our period, kind of thing.
So I thought that was really crazy. It's like stopping us from eating chocolate in the western world, on our period, you'd be like, what! You can also not drink iced coffee or coconut, because this apparently might affect your period length, or heaviness, and it also can affect your beauty. So these are big cultural things that I had to, I really struggled with, and I was really shocked by when I was first talking about them. Apparently, as well, another one is that your period and your beauty are directly related. So you only can be beautiful if you have a healthy period, which I personally believe is a really, really toxic view, because actually your period is not necessarily reflective of anything like that, and your period can change in so many different ways for so many different reasons, that's a, that's a scary one, for sure. But for me, the most kind of powerful one was the one where they said when you get your period, you are now ready for marriage and children - like that's it. That's what happens once you've had your period, you are ready for marriage and children.
These were all huge things for me to, both emotionally and obviously commercially, overcome when starting a period business in a country where periods are not spoken about, periods are not considered clean, they are to do with your beauty and intelligence, and all of the other things that, there's a lot of falsities around it as well. But actually, for me, this has been a real big learning curve. And it's shown me that the period education is missing, and that's why we're going to provide it, another thing is that only one of the 15 girls that we interviewed could tell us why they got a period. So that again was a huge factor for me when we said actually we're not just going to make this a sustainable business, that solves a waste problem, we're going to make this a social impact thing and actually change, change these women's lives for the better, and actually help them learn about their bodies. Because once you know about your body, you have so much more increased confidence, you can actually go to the doctor, if you know there's a problem. If you've actually been told about it, all of these things that we don't even consider. But when there is this, these cultural taboos around this natural process that's happening, it really changes the way that people access information as well. So people just don't have the information to access is the biggest problem. So that's another thing that we're trying to solve.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:33 Yeah. No, that's great and the two things that you touched on that I think we haven't yet covered. So just for the for the benefit of my listeners, can you share why period panties are a thing today?
Sarah Udin 15:44 That's a very good point. Yeah, absolutely. So period, period pants. I actually don't love that term period panties. But the, UK, if I say period pants in this country, people think I'm talking about trousers. So I will call them period panties, or period underwear. But basically, they are this really amazing system where it looks like a normal pair of underwear. But each one of the underwear has got this special four layer system, the top layer is moisture wicking, so it keeps you nice and dry. So wicks away the moisture. The second layer is odour proof. So it' stops the smell. The third layer is super absorbent. And then the fourth layer is leak proof. So these four layers work together to keep you clean and dry for up to 12 hours.
This can be huge, especially for girls that, for example, can't afford to buy pads to wear, and they can actually go to school for the whole day. These can also be huge for people that don't want to create plastic waste, and also have any other problems with things inside their body or outside their body. So anybody that can't use a tampon or doesn't want to use a tampon for any reasons, the hugely beneficial solution as well. And in my opinion period underwear, period panties are better than reusable pads even because reusable pads move around. And as a person that does sports all day, every day, I need something that doesn't move around when I am moving around as well. So that's what period underwear is. I can also tell you kind of why I care about them so much as well, if you like I can tell you a little personal story. So for me period, underwear is such a passion because I've actually suffered from terrible periods for a very, very long time I started my period when I was 12.
And I was taking weeks off school from that time with really bad period pain, really heavy bleeding, really just a terrible experience. It gave me hormonal mood swings a lot of the time. And I've been on hormonal contraception since I was 12. Even despite this, I've had irregular erratic bleeding, sometimes up to two weeks at a time. And it's just been horrendous in terms of obviously, self esteem, it doesn't make you feel good when you can't understand what's happening to your body like this. But in terms of waste as well, this was huge, especially when I, in 2019 I read the Paris, the Paris treaty, and that was, that was a real turning point for me in terms of sustainability. It was before that, it had always been something that I was aware of, but for me, I was like in 2019 this is something I need to take charge of. So, I basically searched around and searched around and I found that you could have these period underwear and that saved me so much money and so much waste, it just, because when you suffer like that you can't help but use so many tampons and so many pads, so for me period underwear was just an absolute lifesaver. I know that not everybody has such a terrible experience with their period, but it's something that you don't even realise how life changing it can be until you try it.
So that is basically the, for me as well though period underwear is so important because actually plastic pads and tampons are not a good solution. At the moment in Cambodia, over 80% of women use plastic pads. Tampons are not used over here, because if you use a tampon, then it's considered to lose your virginity. So it's not part of the culture to use tampons, so pads, I will, I can talk about pads. And in Cambodia alone there's over 1 billion pads thrown away each year, one person can throw away up to 150 to 200 pads themselves per year. And 80% of a pad is made out of plastic. And these can take up to 800 years to decompose. So this is obviously a big issue. We need to be solving and period underwear as, is a solution to that. And it's a really good solution that's actually really good for your body as well. Because not only is plastic bad for the environment, surprise, plastic is bad for your body as well. So if you're putting plastic pads up against your vulva for extended periods of time, it can actually lead to an increase in cancer and other terribly terrifying diseases. So actually, this is a very good solution in terms of vaginal health as well, especially if girls are using pads for a really long time. Bacterial infections, especially in a hot humid country like this, are rife. So it kind of solves all of the problems there's, there's no discomfort, you feel clean, you feel dry, your, your, the smell is protected. You can do all of the things.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:59 What would you say have been your successes so far?
Sarah Udin 19:53 I would say probably, obviously the biggest success would be, we've actually sold over 500 pairs of underwear since we started last year, so that is huge. This was exactly on target, for me, that was exactly the goal. And that was, I was really pleased about that. So that's been huge. We also had a really, really successful first big donation event, where we have donated 60 pairs of underwear to a village in a place called Stone Minjae in, just outside of Phnom Penh, whereas basically, it's a, it's a village, run by the Cambodia Children's Fund, and the world housing organisation, and it's called the girls to Granny's village. And there's 200 females that live there, and they're kind of from any age, up to Granny's age. And they all live together in a community. And we thought that would be a really good first place for us to do our donations.
Just because that's the safe space for us to talk about periods. And it's a good place for us to make sure it's a female safe environment. So we had such success. We had such a good time, we had a really successful period education workshop, and at the end, the girls all had questions about, you know, is this normal? Oh, my gosh, are you sure? And you could see the, the smiles on their faces just by saying, yeah, no, that's normal, this is fine. And we realised then that that was a form that they just had never had, because a lot of these girls don't necessarily live with their own parents as well. So they wouldn't have had that conversation with their mum to say, Hey, Mum, is this normal? So that was, that felt really amazing to actually say, this is a way that we're able to give back to our community. By providing this sustainable solution to people, we're actually also able to put massive smiles on girls faces as well. So that's been absolutely huge.
Now, another massive success that I had was actually when I expanded the team. And I am just gonna very quickly talk about my business partner, Angelique, who joined last year in October. So she's a brand strategist and UX design consultant. And she's from South Africa, she's got experience running her own business. And she's also worked as a teacher before, and she basically is in charge of everything creative. So she has been my brain behind the change from Athena to Aluna to Amala. And she's basically now transformed us into a brand that really resonates with my audience. So that has been a huge success, as well as in the rebranding with Angelique has been huge. The only thing is, we still don't have a Khmer team member, so we really, we really, really would love to have somebody Cambodian on our team as well, because it doesn't feel right that we're trying to connect with a Cambodian audience without actually having people on the team. So we've been working with our Cambodian friends, our Khmer friends, we still haven't found that, you know, that trifecta effect, we haven't found our, the missing piece of our triangle.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:28 Congratulations. I think that's really great news, and very proud of your success, and happy to have seen it grow. Because I've been working with you for just under a year, I guess is for some time.
Sarah Udin 22:38 I think that's when I joined the community, was when I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be a woman in sustainable business. And my friend Decra was part of the group. And so she recommended, so yeah, so you've been on this journey with me the whole time. And you've watched it go from Athena to Aluna to Amala. And now we are definitely sticking with Amala. Because the Amala means clean, or lack of impure, in Sanskrit. So yeah, that one really resonates with me and the audience so much.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:05 That's really great. So the next question is going to take us to another angle of your experience in Cambodia and some, and around the whole sustainability topic. Now, just to, for the audience listening, I've also been to Cambodia just once, I went for a weekend to Siem Reap, because I heard I had to see Angkor Wat if I was in that area. So I flew from Malaysia to Cambodia. And I was shocked when I arrived because we stayed in this five star hotel, very plush place with loads of people waiting and serving you. And when you looked out the window across the street, there was this floating village where the rest of the people lived without proper sanitation, without a lot of things that you would consider very normal in the West, in the Western world. And I couldn't understand how this could coexist. How this place of abject poverty can coexist with this five star hotel, like it made no sense to me at all that this could be happening. And then we took a bus journey from Siem Reap route to Phnom Penh and I have never seen so much waste on the streets, as in Cambodia, at that time, I mean, I'm sure there are other places that that struggle as well with this, but I was really shocked and impressed, in a bad way perhaps, of the level of waste and rubbish and lack of cleanliness, as we talk about, about being clean. So I wanted to touch on this because I think you being there in Cambodia, in this time is relevant for so many reasons, I wanted you to reflect on what you've seen in terms of big corporations and how are they being socially relevant to the people of Cambodia today?
Sarah Udin 24:51 That is, yeah, absolutely, spot on. I would say I had a very similar experience. I first came to Cambodia nine years ago and I was absolutely shocked by the amount of trash. But then I, I don't remember it being any more than there was in Thailand or in Laos, I just remember being shocked in general, how much trash there was this side of the world. At that time now, obviously, it's now nine years later, and lots has changed. But I am going to be honest with you, the trash problem hasn't really changed. They have only recently started with waste management companies here in the city of Phnom Penh, which is, of course, the capital city of the country. And there was actually recently a strike. So within the last year, there was just a strike, and all the trash collectors stopped working. And you really saw the problem at that point, because they didn't collect trash for a week. And there were piles bigger than houses, it was extremely shocking, because Cambodia is a dumping ground for the rest of the world as well as its own citizens. So recycled waste, it doesn't get recycled, it gets shipped to Cambodia, and it gets dumped in Cambodia anywhere, it gets dumped on the side of the streets in Cambodia.
So there's already a problem. And so I think that, I don't know this, but my personal opinion is that maybe when you're overloaded with that amount of trash, it is very difficult to see how your own personal impact can or your, your own personal choices can make an impact. Because actually, if there's piles of trash bigger than your house, and you're thinking about whether or not you should try and recycle that one plastic bottle, it's a really, really confusing feeling. Because we all know, we should, we should be creating the least waste possible, we need to be absolutely reducing, reducing, reducing, but it's really difficult when there is no running water that's drinkable. And your only option is to go and buy a bottle that has been created by these big corporations that just don't care and could actually be creating different options, maybe reusable fountains and reusable, there are solutions possible that they could choose to channel their money into instead, like setting up vending machines that actually you just fill your bottle, and you could even have branded everything in that same way.
But they're, I don't know, that's, that's a little bit of a tangent anyway. But that's just a idea. But I would say yeah, absolutely. The waste management problem is still huge. And recycling, there is only one glass recycling plant in the whole city, in the whole country. And so we have to ship it from Phnom Penh. And we have to pay for that. So those are kind of big issues. But in terms of big corporations, I would say stop sending your waste to Cambodia, please stop creating things that are wasteful, because when they are the only option available, it's not fair, it's really not fair make make there be different options available for people that don't have access to running water and don't have access to drinking water. Don't give the, this as the only option. I would say that basically the infrastructure in Cambodia is amazing. It just needs a lot of investment. And Cambodia in general needs a lot of investment it needs a lot of development it is still very much a developing country in development. And there's loads of growth opportunities here. But people need to actually invest in things that are going to be sustainable, long term. Because at the moment, there is a throwaway culture here. And it's being perpetuated by these big corporations that are just saying by this, quick, try and become more like the West, quick, when actually this is an opportunity for big corporations to choose to do it a different way. So they could choose to actually say, hey, we've seen how much we've messed up over here in the UK and in France and in Germany and in the US and in Australia. How about this time, we do it differently. And we don't destroy the environment, every single aspect just by trying to, because you can still make profit, this is the thing, they can still make profit without destroying the environment. So maybe those are the, I got more emotional about that than I thought I would actually.
Katherine Ann Byam 28:39 I totally support your points, when I see big corporations trying to make change and come up with something innovative and pioneering etc. They start in places like Japan and South Korea more because they're trendsetting, then because they're relevant. And there's so many relevant situations that we can do tests in and we can change the protocols. And we can do something that really allows people to live a more fruitful life without going through the same loops that we went through in the west of learning, right. And it's disappointing that it's not pursued enough. So I totally support you. The other thing I want to sort of pivot to is if you could receive any funding now, what would you prioritise?
Sarah Udin 29:19 Haha, I mean, I have a list longer than my arm obviously, of all of the things that I would need to prioritise. But I don't know, I think probably the first in my opinion, the first thing that I would like to properly invest in if we got a big amount would be investing in designing and manufacturing our own period underwear here, because that obviously leads to job creation that's better controll of the quality, much more increased profit margins and way more sustainable in terms of packaging, shipping, all of the things that I would be in full control of, so that would be my main priority, and that's something that we are definitely talking about with other local sustainable businesses in Cambodia. So we have started that conversation. We are very excited, we are now just trying to find the funding for. And the other thing we are looking for is actually we're planning on developing an English and Khmer period app to make our information much more accessible. So that would be another thing that we, would put some investment money into. Because I think that those are really the key points, it's making sure that we're being the most ethical and sustainable we possibly can be and actually creating this education platform that actually does serve the community in a productive way. So those would be my main priorities. And also, being able to pay us some salaries at some point might be nice perhaps, purchasing some stock in bulk, hiring a Khmer person, I can go on. Those would be I think, the most exciting things to actually spend the money on, and they would definitely be some of our priorities as a team.
Katherine Ann Byam 30:46 Perfect. So what I want to ask now, how could my listeners support you given that the majority of my listeners are not, yet, Cambodian? Maybe I will get some after this interview.
Sarah Udin 30:56 Absolutely. I mean, the best way to probably support us from the UK is talking to people about sustainable periods. That's, that's our message is let's have sustainable periods. But for real for real, you can go to our website, www dot Amala periods.com. We have a donation button that's there and available. We are also planning on shipping worldwide shortly. So we, once we have that all set up on the website, you will be able to purchase our sustainable period products on our website. So we will have period underwear, reusable pads, cups, and also waterproof pouches for all of those things. And they will all be available and beautiful and sustainable. And available for sale online. You can also like us on Facebook and Instagram. And we will soon be releasing a Tik Tok. So you can also find us on there. And any kind of liking, sharing, supporting, commenting is always really helpful for small businesses. So anything like that would be amazing.
Katherine Ann Byam 31:53 Wonderful, Sarah, it's been such a pleasure to have you. I have loved your story and your transformation and your growth over the last year. And I just want to see it continue. So all the best wishes. We're going to chat again very soon this week. But, But best of luck for the future.
Sarah Udin 32:09 Thank you so much. And Katherine, I honestly, I must say I couldn't have done it without you. You have been an absolute rock in my journey on this. So thank you so much.
Katherine Ann Byam 32:17 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 handcraftin, artisinal work, or you're a social media manager supporting purposel 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.
074 The Adventures of Scout
About this Episode
The three engineers are on a mission to supply a book to every Primary school in the UK and encourage readers and children to join Scout’s team (the book protagonist) to help better the planet.
Let me introduce you to the 3 Engineers. They are:
Nick – Chartered Senior Systems Engineer - 10 years at Babcock International
Matt - Chartered Assistant Chief Engineer – 14 years at Babcock International – Lead Technical lead for several large programmes
Katherine Ann Byam 0:00 Have you heard about the adventures of scout? The three engineers have applied the science and the tools and technology of engineering to their process of creating a children's book, I interviewed the three engineers and I asked them what they would change about the education system. Here's what they said.
Matt 0:17 I think the first thing we have to do is figure out what's important, we'd have to identify what's really important, is it that children need to be able to spout off facts in a about a specific subject in a exam, or is it that we need to teach our children how to live their lives as best they can.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:43 The Adventures of scout is one of the most interesting and engaging children's books I've had a look at recently. And it really encourages positive action positive momentum for the planet. Tune into this really insightful episode, and give the three engineers and the Adventures of Scout a follow, make sure to go download or buy your copy of The Adventures of Scout today. 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 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. The three engineers are on a mission to supply a book to every primary school in the UK and encourage readers and children to join scouts team, the book protagonist to help better the planet. Let me introduce you to the three engineers they are. Nick is a chartered senior systems engineer at Babcock International. And Matt is a chartered Assistant Chief Engineer, also at Babcock International. John is a chartered project engineer at RW G renewables. John is not currently available with us today. But the rest of the team is here. So Welcome guys to where ideas launch. Hello, nice to meet you, Katherine, great to have you both. So let's get started. So can I just say this is the first time I'm interviewing a group of men doing a sustainable project. So typically, I get groups of women or I get women who are really trying to make change happen. But I don't often get recommended men who are making changes in this space, and doing it as a side gig. So what are your thoughts on that?
Nick 3:09 I think from our perspective, we've done it just independently, we didn't really consider too much beforehand what we were going to do we got together as a team to do something different. And what happened was we quickly realised that what was important to us and our values, were the environment, health and well being and technology. And then we looked at the amount of time that we had and resources to be able to dedicate that to this idea. And that's how the book was born.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:39 So tell me a little bit about the project and what drove you out of your niche. So you're both working in sort of big engineering type operations? What made it happen if I direct my question to Matt, perhaps,
Matt 3:54 Our work, we were all working together in the same place at the time. And on Friday afternoons, we used to have Friday afternoon off, so we didn't have to work past 1230. Normally, we'd just all meet up and hang out and go to the pub or something like that. And one day, we sort of said, Oh, we should probably do something more important with our time other than just sink a few beers. So I set up five meetings, basically I said, right, instead of, we're still gonna go to the pub, we'll have a purpose to it other than just socialising and try and figure out whether we're going to do something different and meaningful with that spare time that we've got. And yeah, that's just out of those five meetings. That's how Nick, John and I sort of formed together as the three engineers.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:39 And do you guys have kids?
Nick 4:41 Yep, I've got a 13 year old.
Matt 4:44 Yeah, I've got a six year old and a three year old.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:49 And what sort of stimulated you from doing this project from that perspective. What were you seeing in terms of the kind of material or curriculum that your kids are experiencing that made, you want to do something a little bit different. Maybe I go to Nick this time,
Nick 5:06 We didn't really set out, like we said, to come up with books, we came up with lots of different ideas. And as engineers, we've got lots of processes and tools. So we've decided that whatever we do, will stick to those processes and tools, and we'll basically map out an idea. So we came up with lots of ideas, scored them in a matrix. And I think each of us had individual sort of ambitions. So I wanted to improve career advice to school because mine wasn't as good as I had hoped, Matt really liked tech stuff. So he really liked the idea of having forums or websites and blogs and things like that. And John came from a different angle where he wanted to design sustainable products. And combining and merging all of those ideas together, I think Matt came up with the idea of having how can we have the biggest impact. And we all decided that with the time that we had, if we could pull it off, if we could write some kids books, about some of the topics that were personal to us. So for example, I particularly don't like litter, I pick up litter, and Matt is from sort of from the countryside down south. So he really remembers his childhood as like with bees so we kind of tried to link them all to our sort of personal touches. So yeah, so
Matt 6:13 At the time, when we formed back in 2018, my three year old daughter, she wasn't even born, my son, we were in the midst of like, he was just consuming literature, like reading stories to him. It was like dozens of stories every day. And I think that's where one of the ideas that well, we had a couple of ideas in our Scoring Matrix were to write children's stories. One that it's about solving problems, one that was for promoting women in engineering. They were the two ideas. Yeah, that sort of they say it sort of came about because my, I could see how my son was just consuming information, and really thinking about what was being told in these stories. And like Nick said, we wanted our project to make the biggest impact. And by, like, sort of feeding in those messages at such an early age, you can have an impact, not just at that age range, but like a three year old is more than happy to tell an adult to pick up litter because it's bad. So teaching their parents, their teachers, their siblings about this message. We just felt well, why wouldn't we focus on that area. And so that's where it did influence from my kids anyway,
Katherine Ann Byam 7:35 I've just recorded an episode with Susan Krumdieck. She's a transition engineering specialist, she's based out of Heriot-Watt in Scotland, in Orkney. And one of the things that she talks about in her work and in the book that she's written, actually, is that engineers are really the engine room of the of the economy, even though probably engineers don't even see it that way. And she applies this to sort of past major shifts that we've had to make. So things like I don't know, solving water problems, or different types of solutions that we've had over the time of our evolution, and how engineers are actually the ones who make stuff happen, who apply certain methodologies, certain scientific principles, etc. Whereas economists operate more like sharman. It's a really interesting episode. And I thought she was really funny. But I wanted to tap into this, because you mentioned that you have a Scoring Matrix, and you had this sort of discipline of how you were going to tackle this problem. Tell me a little bit about those tools that you've been using.
Nick 8:48 Matt is a pure systems engineer, he's got lots of experience. So he brought to the table Venn diagrams and kind of mind mapping exercises where we could really hone down on a particular idea, but also really expand and understand how wide a range if we're looking at our environment, everything that we could possibly think of regarding the environment to make sure that the stories, made sure they link consistently back to what we wanted to do. I suppose moving a bit forward on from once we captured the idea, we had no idea how to write books. We are all engineers, we prefer maths over English. I'm sure Matt will agree. And we decided to try and design it. So we had no idea how to rhyme. So we went to some bookshops. So we spent four months basically writing up all the books that we could find the best rhyming books. And then we did some pattern analysis and sort of book structure and syllable counts on all of the rhyme such that we could then try and find our own winning formula. And yeah, that was a really fantastic way for us to learn because we were then able to sort of critique our work as we went along with some form of confidence that if we kept that formula, we will have something at the end we'd be happy with.
Katherine Ann Byam 10:01 Oh my god, I've never heard of someone writing a book using a mathematical algorithm. You sound like my partner who's a data scientist. Let's go into a bit about the journey. So in terms of conception to production, you talked about the four men sort of doing the research and background. But I think doing an illustration and children's book takes a bit longer than that. So tell us about that journey from conception to production.
Matt 10:24 Yeah, so the illustrations were a funny one. Really, the original plan was to do everything off of our own backs. If we needed to learn a new skill, learn a new piece of software, find something new, we would do it ourselves. illustrations, when we first tackled illustrations were like, right, okay, let's, let's have a go ourselves. So we did actually do some drawings ourselves. And I think I bought like digital, like art pads that you can get to plug into your computer for, I bought two of them, one for me, and one for Nick and John sort of share between them. So we could have a go at digital artwork, and we produce some pictures. But it takes so long, it's such a like if you haven't been doing it and the hours that you have to put in to master it and to get great at it just weren't good enough. And it didn't really live up Nick, did it to our expectations, we had a picture in our head of what it should look like. And then when we tried to draw it, it was appalling. It was abysmal. So we went through like looking at different illustrators. So we just sort of, we wanted to choose a style. So we had a couple of friends who are into illustration. And I have a friend of a friend that I talked with, and we did a couple of sort of meet and greets, and, oh, here's our idea. Draw, what do you think this would look like? And it didn't quite work out, letting the artist sort of just finding an artist and letting them create it. So we decided to trawl the internet basically for styles that we liked. So we almost did a bit of a, not a Scoring Matrix, but we assessed and evaluated what it was we liked about different types of illustration, and different colour palettes and things like that. And we we came together and we sort of chose, it's really difficult to find a common style that we all liked between the three of us. But we had some like ideas that we thought yeah, it needs to be bright. It needs to be detailed. We like the detail it needs to be digital art not sort of natural art, like drawn. And then, Nick, through hours of trawling the internet, found a lady in Georgia, in the country, Georgia. And we reached out to her, we had a look at her website. And it was fantastic. And then I don't know how many months you spent Nick trying to bend her arm into taking on our project.
Nick 12:57 Six months, got turned down four times.
Matt 13:01 So yeah, we were persistent. And we finally got her on contract to do the first one. And, yeah, we couldn't have been happier in terms of how she visualised Scout. Lots of what you see in the illustrations is actually in the first book, especially is coming from us. So we have designed what it should look like in the perspective. And then we sort of do a really naff pencil sketch, and then send it to the illustrator. And then she does a better pencil sketch, we sort of back and forth on that. And then she does a colour digital image that's sort of blocky, so we know what colours she's going to use. And then when we're happy with that, she will then do the full detailed drawing like, over 40,000 brush strokes per picture. Basically, there's hundreds of 1000s of brushstrokes digital brushstrokes in the book. The second book, we've let her have a bit more creative flair, let her do her own thing a bit more. We've got our working relationship going. But the interesting thing is we've never physically spoken to her. So Nick does it all through Facebook Messenger. So yeah,
Nick 14:18 Hundreds and hundreds of texts a day. But we we do also to add to that we've got a really detailed kind of storyboard description. So down to almost exactly what the characters are kind of like doing, their kind of like expressions, easter eggs, and because we design and wrote all three books first, we were then able when we came to the illustrations to think we're way ahead and be able to basically make references to each book throughout each book. So hopefully when we have our second book out, people will certainly see and start spotting those kin of easter eggs and kind of correlations between them.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:55 That is brilliant though and the illustrations are absolutely wicked. So for my listeners, if you really want to go check out these books, they are awesome. They're fantastic visual content as well as, you know, reading content. So let's move to some of the critical reviews you've received so far. So I know that you're working with schools, and you're having some some different types of collaborations with with education facilities and buddies. What has been sort of the feedback you're getting and what's garnered the most interest?
Nick 15:25 We've had, we've had a bit of a yeah, getting feedback from, our perspective, who are not authors is quite tricky. And it's kind of hard to take, I think we first sent our scripts out to some librarians who literally tore them apart. And said they didn't rhyme, said, why have you got a poison dart frog as a friend and kind of really hit us back and we were going like, we just kind of too close to this. And maybe we can't see that it's any good. But then we tested it a lot with schools and kids and fundamentally, like kids love it. They love finding Vinnie, they love rhyming. And that's kind of why we chose rhyming, because we it's such a powerful tool when it's done right. And yeah, and obviously, you've seen the illustrations, they're just, you know, so essential to have good illustrations, like I've just actually applied for the Guinness World Records to see if they will actually take it as a, or consider it as a world record for the most digital brushstrokes in a book and trying to credit Ann. And because I couldn't see it on their website. So I thought we have to go for it because it's, yeah I think there's 483,000 brushstrokes, in it and it took 11 months full time to illustrate. It's just a piece of absolute stunning work.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:32 Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. And what have been the reactions from kids? So let's, let's ask Matt, this one,
Matt 16:39 They've been really good. In general, we've done quite a lot of virtual book readings, to schools. And we've started doing like physical book readings, now we've been to a number of schools physically. And we were down in Plymouth a few months ago, or a couple of months ago for Plymouth children in poverty, where that charity donated our books to all the schools. And we went round for World Book Day and read to various schools and then did a litter pick at the end of the day. And we read to different age ranges as well. Year one, two and three normally, are the classes that we read to in primary. But yeah, generally the children have had positive feedback, especially if you engage them on the pictures like if they find they've got Vinny to find on every page, like the poison dart frog, and also the message we've got in the back of the book. And each book will have like a glossary. It's like a description of questions that you can ask about the topic of the book. So it allows after you've read the book to really explore the message and the action that Scouts trying to get everyone to take. My own children personally, have been fantastic. Before we had the book, like physically, they liked it, and they went along with it. And then as soon as you have a physical book, it's great to have them say, like I said, on our bookshelf at home, and it's great when I pick it.
Nick 18:00 We also want to add further to that we've had a number of kids basically dress up as Scout for World Book Day, which was incredible. And we get basically sent posters all the time and pictures of basically kids, you know, taking action and actually joining Scouts team and and actually litter pickingin. And yeah, we've got from an educational perspective, we've got so much like material coming in from schools. It's just fabulous to see.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:21 That's incredible. So is Scout going to become a Disney character anytime soon, Nick.
Nick 18:27 Yes. I basically, I think, from our perspective, we wanted her to be as world widely recognised as Dora the Explorer, but also kind of had that Captain Planet feel, which was kind of a cartoon back in the day, that really sort of was a positive role model. Instead of all the stuff we see now just we just kind of like always fighting and sort of we want we want to see some more positive action. Yeah, once the three books are out, we've got great ambitions. And we'll certainly be pushing it under the noses of people to see if they would like to consider it as cartoons, hopefully, or other things like that.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:02 Now, this is great. I do think you have that potential. So like, really good going, guys. So how are you juggling all of this with your day jobs?
Matt 19:12 Not gonna lie. It's quite tough. We both work full time. So five days a week, we don't work four days a week and have the odd day to dedicate to it. Obviously, I have two small children. I've also moved into a house that was empty for 11 years before we moved in. So it's got a lot of work that needs doing to it. So Nick does a fantastic job at keeping the momentum on the project going his energy is what what keeps us going really, I only step in when Nick's energy drops a little bit and he needs a little help himself. I try and step in to help with that. But yeah, it is tough is tough. We used to every We used to meet up every Friday afternoon. And then when the pandemic happened, obviously we couldn't meet physically and then meeting virtually just isn't quite the same. And then now I've moved out of Bristol. I am not as close to Nick to just, on an odd evening, just meet up. So, yeah, we're looking to meet up physically more, but it's yeah, dedicating that that time really don't know if you've got anything to say on that, Nick.
Nick 20:22 Yeah, it is extremely tough. I'm sympathetic with Matt and John's sort of situations with the young kids. We've all got really busy jobs with, you know, big teams, that some of us lead I even had to move home for two years, back to my parents to fund the project, which has been extremely difficult. But yeah, ultimately, like all things, for persistence, you've got to just find energy. But like, if things don't work, like it's acceptable to sort of have those low moments, I'll be sprinting and then the mat sort of bolster me up or when I'm on my lows. But we're certainly looking to sort of get people more involved we're sort of looking to get, let's say, a third engineer back involved a new drummer, let's say the ambition sort of project manage and give me that energy that I need. Yeah, I suppose when you reach a goal, when you've actually published something, it's fantastic. And it kind of the wheels come off then. And it's, it's just trying to make sure that you grind out it's so tough with the day job.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:16 I know what you mean, you touched on this probably before we started recording, but I just want to, you know, put that in front of my listeners as well. But you started as three and and now you're sort of two and a half. Tell me a little bit about that.
Matt 21:29 Yeah. So like I said, when we started in 2018, there was the three of us, Nick, John and I, and we all had the same energy, the same input, we were still, we were keen to make this project a success and make it happen. And we were having a lot of fun. I can't remember what year it was, Nick. But we, it was getting to the crunch point of having to form a business rather than just do it as a as a hobby. And that commitment. And like Nick had a real drive and ambition to make this go, to make this go really far. I was sort of in between John was just happy coming up with ideas and dreaming, that it could be a big thing, but not actually necessarily doing something to make it happen. That sounds a bit harsh, but he'll own up. It's like the commitment is high. And it was we had a lot of discussions together when we were forming the business about how are we going to split it who's going to be responsible for what, what are we going to do. And John was just honest with us and said that he was happy to be involved in helping write books and be part of the story. But in terms of the other stuff around it that we were doing. He wanted to do other things with his time. And he was just had a newborn baby as well. And similar sort of house renovation things. He's now gone part time as a stay at home dad. So who knows? He might find some time, but I doubt it.
Nick 22:57 Yeah, I think we actually had, so there's multiple times where we sort of had to sort of reflect on how we were driving it forward. It's hard to sort well, with one person having a vision, bringing everyone along equally. And it caused not any not resentment, but it kind of did cause some form of resistance, because as we were trying to sort of take this forward, we had to have a look kind of like my leadership style to see whether if it was my leadership style, which was causing it say energy to sort of like lower, and whether or not other guys could step up. And I've really like, take my hats off to the guys, we've done really well to be able to manage those conflicts and come out the other side. And, and like Matt said, John, pretty much was just being fantastic and honest, you know that he understood what he wanted from the project, which made things super easy in our first objective was always, whatever we do, we must remain friends after the end of this. And that sort of still is embedded in us really, we need to make sure that that's the last reller.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:58 That's brilliant. And thank you for sharing. And I know that, you know, it's probably tough to sort of experience this and go on the journey that you're going on with so many big dreams and goals. And you know, working with friends, it's there's always tension. There's always creative abrasion, as they call it when you're coming up with creative projects as well. And yeah, so kudos for learning how to manage that. And you know, bringing everyone along till the end. So my next question is going to be what does growth look like for you guys? So we've already touched on sort of the Disney books. So what's immediately next in line for Scout?
Nick 24:36 So we've got three books. So that's where the second book is almost published. And then we've got, we've managed to secure the illustrator for the third book, which is just amazing. What we started, what we wanted to try and do as each book was designed such that we could have this educational resource but also trying to encourage taking action. And we then decided that we wanted to partner with people that were taking action. And to make sure that that message was coherent throughout. And what we want to do is we want to set up charities, that the books can actually fund and we can apply for different funding to the charity that we then can support those kinds of causes that are in the books. There's so many amazing people out there dedicating their time and volunteering to litter picking. They're inspirational for me. And same with with bees with partner colonise, they pitcture dreams where we want to get the book into every school in the UK. So that's number one priority. And we're sort of talking to lots of big organisations to understand whether they would like to participate in that for their social sort of responsibilities within the communities, I really wouold like the idea of basically creating resource sheets that are free for schools to download, because we're currently encouraging STEM because Scout's a problem solver, what we really want to do is be able to use the imagery of Scout as a scientist, as an engineer, as a mathematician. So when the kids see that positive role model, they might then look at maths and go, Oh, wait a second, I could do this too. So we're working with STEM quite closely around the country really, and basically trying to look at different opportunities where we can create different resource sheets. And then globally, I'd love to be able to do that and tailor like curriculums in different countries with those kind of resource sheets. And really grow with partnerships, really. So there's so much to do. There's so much to do.
Katherine Ann Byam 26:21 If for some reason I had a really important listener on this programme, in terms of a big company that you might want to collaborate with. Who would that be?
Nick 26:31 Oh, we've approached quite a few friends of the earth we wanted to sort of approach them to start off with because they had a fantastic bee saver kit. And it was a kind of everything that we wanted to create, which they already had. So we would love to partner with them, especially with the book that we've got which is about the bees, that would just be the perfect partnership. Yeah, well, I suppose we're not really focused on any particular one. It's kind of like, you know, how can we work with, you know, create a good relationship that sort of promotes Scout but also helps other people with their organisation? So, Matt, have you got any?
Matt 27:05 Well I don't know if, like Chris Packham from Spring watch, or David Attenborough foundation would listen to your podcast. But our third book is about loss of habitat of like animals, specifically UK, endangered animals, and how we can help take action to improve the habitats of local animals and recognise the problems that with having astroturf grass and things what that brings to, to our local wildlife. And yeah, it'd be great to be able to have even a testimonial from, from any of those guys, I'd love to go on spring watch.
Katherine Ann Byam 27:50 That's brilliant. So I want to ask another question. And this is more to do with our education systems as a whole. And like, I know, this is a really fun project. And it's a very engaging one. It's very problem solver oriented as well. Do you think that the way we educate kids today needs to radically change? And would you like to see more sort of problem solving and sort of situation creation in the classroom?
Matt 28:16 Wow, that's a really tough question. Because we are not teachers. And we have friends like my next door, neighbours, both my next door neighbours are both teachers. And they work incredibly hard at their jobs. And I know how tough it is to be a teacher of the schools that we've been in as well, in terms of what education are they getting, from what I've seen, there's quite a lot of red tape for teachers to be able to, before they actually get round to teaching. And the message, I think the messages are really good in most schools at the minute and they're tackling lots of different issues. And there's so many things that need to be looked at, when you're educating young people, diversity and inclusion, religion, the environment as, health and well being. I don't think it needs to change the actual structure, because I don't know as much about it. But I think more funding needs to go into it to help it be as good as it can be.
Nick 29:11 Yeah, and I think, from what I've seen in schools is there's certainly a really large commitment by schools to sort of have eco committees and get kids engaged early with the environment, which is fantastic. And I think most schools then try and aspire to join eco schools and the green flag sort of award system. And I think I might have to just basically err on what Matt said, and I think it just comes down to funding you know, when we have more funding and more publicity and marketing focus around those subjects. I think that's when you'll start seeing a bigger commitment level and then change hopefully in schools.
Katherine Ann Byam 29:44 If this scenario was that we could not do schools the way we do them. And we had no more funding, you guys are problem solvers, remember that? What would you do, what would you change, how would you reshape it? What would you do? a radical question?
Matt 30:02 How would we change the educational system? Right? Okay. (Not a biggie!) I think the first thing we'd have to do is figure out what's important, we'd have to identify what's really important. Is it that children need to be able to spout off facts about a specific subject in a exam? Or is it that we need to teach our children how to live their lives as best they can, whilst exposing them to focus areas and like maths or science to allow them to go into those subjects, if they choose? I, that's what I would do. There's so many graduates and things that we see at work as well that come out. And some of them, they can do so many sums and integrate these crazy formula. But can they boil an egg? I don't know. But life skills, I think are so important. And teaching those in schools needs to be something that changes I think.
Nick 31:10 That was a great answer. Yeah, it's leading towards to problem solving, I think problem solvers. And being able to physically basically recreate and learn through activity, I think that's such a big thing. And I think we are actually seeing that in schools, a lot of that, instead of us just creating sort of standard resource sheets, like colouring in, but they're not that teachers are far more open to activities where the kids are getting involved by building sort of spaghetti bridges and trying to work out whether they're gonna hold them or marshmallow spaghetti towers, and it's that creative hands on approach, which I think is definitely more beneficial for children, rather than, like Matt said, you know, having to sort of study for exams, I'm trying to think that's where I would naturally sort of lean towards, but it comes down to again, what matters is what is important.
Katherine Ann Byam 31:57 Yeah, perfect. Thank you. I had to squeeze that out of your story. So how can people engage with Scout and your work,
Nick 32:05 We've got a number of social media platforms, we've got our Instagram account, which is called Stop underscore dropping underscore litter. And that really showcases how incredible our talented illustrator is you can see almost, her penwork and how she does it on an iPad, which is just crazy. Like, I saw pictures of her doing some work. And she's just sat there at a football pitch with her son doing work, which is just crazy. So definitely worth a look there. Our website is where you can basically get the book. And that kind of gives a good overview of who we are, the project and things to come, let's say, and I think we might have some long term kind of ambitions to get the book on other platforms as well, to make it more accessible to people globally, because we've had a huge amount of interest globally, through Facebook groups. But we don't currently send the books abroad. So yeah, we'd certainly love to do that.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:02 Much Any closing words from you?
Matt 33:04 I'd just like to say, thank you very much, Katherine, for having us on. It's, always great to talk about our project and reflect on it. I think we've achieved so much in the time that we've had; been able to dedicate to it. We really believe in the message in our books. And we get so much fulfilment out of like visiting schools and like teaching kids and things like that. It's great. So anything like this, I absolutely loved it. Thank you very much.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:32 Okay, so I'm gonna do something that I that I didn't tell you about before. So it's rapid fire questions. So I'm gonna ask you a question. And you just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind as quickly as you can favourite animated movie,
Matt 33:44 The Little Mermaid?
Katherine Ann Byam 33:45 Would you choose a car or a bike?
Matt 33:48 Bike.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:49 Wind or solar?
Nick 33:51 Wind
Katherine Ann Byam 33:51 Book or audio?
Nick 33:54 Audio
Katherine Ann Byam 33:55 Why do you choose Audio? You have a great illustrated book. Tell me about this one,
Nick 34:00 I just Yeah, like Matt loves reading books. And I've never been someone to read books I've always like, had a different way of learning through audio and visual so that it was more alien for me to write some books. It really was compared to other people. I just generally read textbooks. And that's about as far as my literature sort of aims and ambitions go,
Katherine Ann Byam 34:20 Which really explains why this is going to be a Disney movie at some point. Great, thank you so much, guys.
Matt 34:28 We get asked that question a lot in schools, what book are you reading at the minute and Nicks says; I don't read
Nick 34:36 Systems functional engineering.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:39 That makes sense. Thank you so much, guys, for joining me today.
Matt 34:42 ckThank you very much, Katherine.
Nick 34:44 It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:48 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 women in sustainable business, or follow the podcast where ideas launch on Instagram to find out more
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About this Episode
Marie Lockwood is a teacher and the founder of Rebyl Vybes
Rebyl Vybes - Helping you to enjoy life's little pleasures in a sustainable way.
She and her mom prepare and ship home kits for those looking to start on their eco journey and pamper boxes so that you can indulge in some guilt free pleasure on a subscription model basis.
Sam Pitman is an occupational therapist and the Co-founder of Eco Essex, an online community supporting you on your eco journey.
Tune in to learn more about how they are making an impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:00 I've just had the most brilliant conversation with a teacher and an occupational therapist two business owners who are helping you modify your views and your approach to plastic. Let's hear a little bit about why this matters.
Marie Lockwood 0:13 My class, there's 26 children and all 26 children now reuse their water bottles that we used to bring in plastic bottles to school. And over the last couple of years, we've sort of tried our best to change their opinions on that through education and allowing them really to find the facts themselves. So 26 Children now bring a reusable bottles in my class, and added that up, that is something like 5122 plastic bottles saved by my one class in a year. Now, times that by all the classes in the school and all the schools in the country it's huge.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:58 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.
Marie Lockwood is a teacher and the founder of rebyl vybes, rebyl vybes helps you to enjoy life's little pleasures in a sustainable way. She and her mum prepare and ship home kits for those looking to start on their eco journey and pamper boxes so that you can indulge in some guilt free pleasure on a subscription model basis. Sam Pitman is an occupational therapist, and the co founder of eco Essex, and online community supporting you on your eco journey. Hi, Marie and hi, Sam, it's great to have you both on where ideas launch.
Read Lockwood 2:33 Thank you for having us, lovely to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:36 Wonderful to have you both. So I'm going to start with the truth. So I feel guilty every week when I take my trash out. And it's full of recycling and landfill waste. Still, even with my greatest efforts to look at things in my kitchen, look at things in my bathroom, I'm still producing a significant amount of waste to landfill. And even just buying a lot of plastics that are single use in some cases, because I can't seem to find another option. Or it's just not a convenient option. Why do you think it's so hard for people who care about the planet to give up their comforts? And what can help us take the next step? That's the usum.
Sam Pitman 3:20 I think there's so many reasons why we don't want to make those changes. And I think some of it is generations and generation of lifestyle. But you can't just change that overnight, you know, our parents generation the way they were brought up, you can't change that overnight. And I think however many years it takes to, for us to have been moulded in this way, it's going to take time to mould us back out of that way. But also, I think there's so many things about our lifestyle that are just easy and convenient. And the lifestyle we have now you know, in Western society, is so consumer based, but you know, we're driven to also think that things make us happy. So if we buy things that'll make us happy, which it does for the short term, right? But it doesn't give us long term joy, but that's what we believe. And so we believe that these things give us comfort and that we need them. And actually, it's really hard to give up that when that's almost what you've been led to believe - I need these things in my life. I think the other thing as well is it can be scary. So even if you want to change your comforts, sometimes it's easy, well it is, it's easier to conform with others isn't it? Always it's easier to conform than it is to actually stand up for what you believe in and be the odd one out. So I think there's so many challenges that we have to face in order to make these changes.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:39 What do you think was the simplest steps for you to take when you made your initial changes I know with a family as well. You know, it changes the game a lot. So there's a lot more things that you need to balance and juggle.
Sam Pitman 4:53 I think being realistic and not aiming for perfection. So for example, when I did cloth nappies, I used cloth nappies with all of my children. But I won't ever say that I used cloth nappies 100% of the time, because it came with it's own challenges. And I didn't want to go out and like have to carry the loads of cloth nappies that are bigger, it's just loads of these reasons; there's more washing, you know, we've twins I have enough washing to do, I did not want more washing. So, you know, rather than us thinking that we have to be black, and we have or we have to be white, it's okay, just to do your best. So I say I use cloth nappies, I don't know, maybe 75% of the time. And that's all I could manage. And it's the same with anything, it's almost like, you know, to be vegan as well, like, amazing if you can be that dedicated to be fully vegan, and I'm not there yet. I'm not at that stage of my own journey. But I'm trying to eat vegan most of the time, there's, I think, as well, if you can be realistic, and not have to aim for perfectionism, that will be really, a really good goal.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:57 So Marie, tell me a bit about rebyl vybes, because I invited you to the show, because I really like the idea of what you're doing. And I want to get into what was behind starting this brand for you, how you came up with the idea, how you decided to do it.
Marie Lockwood 6:13 So I just like to start by saying, I totally agree with Sam starting to make changes any way that you can. And being realistic with them is absolutely one of the most fundamental things you can do because I am not a perfectionist. And I don't, I don't want to come on here and portray myself as somebody that is absolutely plastic free. Because I'm certainly not I'm not there either. And it's convenient at times. And in a busy lifestyle. That's sometimes it's a lot's that takes over. I did start rebyl vybes, because of a frustration that I was becoming more and more aware of during lockdown, there was a huge rise in subscription boxes. And probably like Sam said, because you wanted to make yourself feel good. And you bought something nice, cause you couldn't go out of the house, you know, you did something to make yourself feel better. And to get something nice delivered through the post was was great, if that's what you wanted to do. But I was getting more and more frustrated, because so many subscription boxes I was seeing online, were absolutely filled with single use plastic waste from the packaging of them and the contents of them. And I was actually discussing it with my mum. And we were saying, you know, why are people not looking for something different? So we decided at that point that actually, okay, we had an idea why were we just gonna keep discussing it? Why didn't we do something about it? Because if somebody else can start a business up and get lots of sales for all this plastic waste, why can't we do the same for something that's more sustainable, and really, that is where rebyl vybes started. The name itself, which chose rebel as in rebellion. So rebellion against plastic waste, particularly single use plastic waste, and the logo was really created because we live in a very rare location, we're very close to the sea, we're surrounded by the forests, lots of pine forests here, the Merrylands things like that. So the logo, we wanted something that sort of represented us, where we come from, and therefore that's, that's where our actual logo came from. But we do want to provide an alternative. I think getting a gift box through the post is a great idea. Getting a sustainable gift box is an even better idea.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:37 I absolutely agree. I think that receiving any box anything in the mail that's not a bill, there's a lot of excitement, right? It's actually generates a lot of positive energy and to have something that's actually useful that's not going to make you feel guilty. Is really important I guess what I tend to get like people still like giving gifts you know and giving gifts as a nice idea but when you get the 15th tiny bottle of cream that you're never going to use, you know you're going to just lose it in your handbag again, you know versus you know, getting a little package that's biodegradable that you can plant some seeds, you know, something like this, it just changes completely how you feel about that box. So what's inside your subscription box? What's the potential impact to someone like me who wants to sort of cut waste overall? Tell Tell me about your box.
Marie Lockwood 9:31 Okay, so we have two different boxes. We started off with a pamper box. So inside that is a range of different products. They are bath products, beauty products, body creams, soaps, shampoo bars, something nice maybe like a nice, scented bodywash. But everything inside the box is single use plastic free. It's also bought from other small businesses. So it's sourced from within the UK to try to limit the carbon footprint that we have. And also, most of the bottles, for example, the body wash, for example, is glass bottles. So they're reusable, I reuse mine for lots of different things, I would totally say that anything that can be used is included in it. So the boxes we reuse the boxes for school. So I'm a school teacher as well as business owner. So I have a couple of people at school also that buy our boxes and we use them at school for lots of storage. And things such as that. The other box is a new one it is, it started out to be an equal sort of box where each month will be something different. And this is where Sam comes in. So I met Sam, just through a group on Facebook, and we got chatting, and we decided that Sam would be a really good addition to the box. And she was going to be able to provide people with the sort of educational side of things or tips and useful. Hence, she runs her own group successfully. And we thought that, that would be a really good twist on a different type of box. So in our home boxes are a range of different sustainable products that you might have as an easy swap for essential items. And they are really things that you would use in everyday, like scrubbing brushes, reusable Kitchen rolls, things that you might be able to make a really useful equal swap with, they are going to change. Okay, so we we don't want to be in a situation where we're recreating lots and lots of waste. And I think I've quickly learned that, actually, although the idea behind our box was a really good one to start with, it needs to evolve into something better. So instead of having our original idea, which was going to be a different box per month, so ultimately kitchen box, and then maybe a bathroom focus, we're going to change it to actual home kits. So you have a starter kit, and Sam will still be a part of that box, where this kit will set somebody up for an equal journey. So you're going to be able to get a box delivered, which will have lots of different sustainable options. It'll be ideal for if you're maybe for example, if you're moving house, or you're getting your first house, it could be ideal for a student or somebody that wants to start out when more sustainable journey. So that's the way that we're going. And by doing that it also limits any unnecessary waste, because we don't want to be adding to people's purchases and buying multiples of other things when actually, we're trying to do the opposite.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:57 Yeah. And are we allowed to kind of pick and choose what goes into a box every month? Like is that an option?
Marie Lockwood 13:03 At the minute it's not, but it is something that I am looking into. Because what I would eventually like to do is have a selection whereby you can decide whether or not you need certain items, things such as I mean, I have just recently I've started changing as I go, my plastic scrubbing brush that I've had for a long time is out, but not until it was needing to be put out. And now I've got my more sustainable options. So things like that. So yes, eventually, we would like to give options for people to use and choose what they need.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:39 And Sam, what is your contribution to the box. So I know that there aren't many people probably listening to the show who are used to subscription boxes like this, they're probably used to maybe who gives a crap. So they will order the toilet paper and it will arrive every four months or six months or whatever. Or maybe their used to Gusto or HelloFresh to order some food. But what is your contribution from a service perspective to this box? And how does that work?
Sam Pitman 14:06 Well, I mean, I kind of say to people, I'm in the box. I don't have a product in the box, because I don't sell products, but I sell myself in a way that I want to support people I have learned from my own journey and from supporting others and observing others that are making these changes because they are lifestyle changes. And this is, it's about gaining huge lifestyle information to change the way you think about life and you know, the way we live, there's so much to it that actually it can feel overwhelming and daunting for people and you know, that anxiety of like, I do want to do something but I don't know where to start and I don't really have anybody else to talk to about this because, you know, none of my family care about these issues. And so my aim is to support people through mentoring, whether that's one to one mentoring, if they want that tailored support, I come from an occupational therapy background, you see. So I'm very much used to working with people on a one to one basis in order to help people reach their goals. But at the moment, I offer monthly mentoring sessions, which is an idea that I came up with last year. And I wanted to offer that each month that because it's a more affordable option for people because money is, you know, money is important to people, you know, especially at the moment. So the idea is that I can provide support, tips, as well as giving people a community. And I think I've learned so much over the recent years about how important it is to feel part of, and feel connected to, other like minded people. And I try and keep the vibe positive, because this isn't a happy topic, climate change is not a happy topic. But I very much try and keep it as light hearted as I can, when it comes to making sure people end with an action, you know, let's think of something positive you can do. And maybe let's just, let's maybe reflect on something positive you have done this month, because actually, we can always go, Oh, I didn't do very well at that. And I still use loads of plastic, and I still use my car. But again, that's negative. And that's not helpful. So try and keep it positive. And as down to earth and as straightforward as possible. Like, I'm not into complicated words. And things, I just want to make it useful for people that are starting out on their eco journey, really.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:27 That's perfect. And I want to touch on something that you kind of brought up but didn't fully. So you're both collaborating on this. And what I want to say is that a lot of times when you decide to take this journey, whether it be in your personal life, or in a business decision, like you both have made business decisions around this as well. It can feel quite lonely and the decision fatigue, the need to be in integrity with what you're selling, and promoting and stuff like that can can really be daunting. How important is it to have a collaborator, let me start with Marie,
Marie Lockwood 17:03 Really important, I would say I have learned so much from Sam. So I knew a lot of things beforehand, I was really passionate about what I wanted to do, I had a clear idea about why I wanted to do it. And then Sam came along like a breath of fresh air, and really made me think personally about my own life, and what I was doing in it but also looking for my business. And so Sam's really helped me a lot. She's given me sort of a direction. Almost like she's been my personal mentor on this journey as well. And I've joined her groups and know exactly where she's coming from, I know what she does, and how friendly and approachable she is and I knew exactly that she was definitely the right person to collaborate with, we're on exactly the same wavelength. And I feel like she's somebody that offers a real good balance to our business.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:01 And, Sam for you, what has it been like?
Sam Pitman 18:05 Well again, like Marie said, I think when you find somebody you share values with. And you know, you can bounce ideas off each other and support each other. It's really nice, because, I mean, I sit at home for hours a week, on my own on my computer, and I've got so many ideas. I don't know where to start, you know? And yeah, like you said, decision fatigue is like, and so actually the idea of having somebody to share those decisions with and to have conversations with and bounce ideas with people is really lovely. And not just not to feel alone. Yeah, of course, there's financial benefits if you have a successful business, but I don't even think that's why most people do it is because we just genuinely want to make as big an impact as possible. So, you know, you widen your audience, don't you? You know, you can support more people. So I think it's win win. Really?
Katherine Ann Byam 19:00 Absolutely. So, Marie, I'm gonna go back to you. And in terms of the reception of your boxes, so far, what has been the positive sort of feedback and reinforcements in people's behavioural changes that you've seen,
Marie Lockwood 19:15 We have had some really, really lovely positive feedback. Lots of people have commented to say how excited they are when they receive a box. Now, they really look forward to it coming each month, because they don't know what's going to be in it. But they know whatever it's going to benefit, it's going to be something that's going to help a little bit with either self care, or with the other boxes, it would obviously help with a sort of lifestyle choices. They also I hope anyway, that our boxes, inspire people and educate them in some way, shape or form, whether or not it's through Sam involvement in her maintenance sessions or whether or not it just makes them think, you know, I didn't try that before. Maybe, maybe I should try this one now. Because everybody's learning, I'm learning on the journey as much as everybody else is I'm still finding different choices that I can use, I'm still trying out different products, and I'm finding which ones work best for me. So I think it's I'm hoping anyway that our boxes are educating, inspiring and giving a little glimmer of something nice in amongst our busy lives really.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:26 You know, it starts with a spark, right? That's, that's what everyone really says. And when you light that fire, it ripples and ripples after a while, it's similar to me starting this journey where ideas launch as a podcast, when I started it, my aim was to sort of influence my friends, if I'm being honest, like I come from a big corporate background, and you know, all of my friends work in companies who actually have the power to make change, but probably aren't necessarily as passionate about the change. And I wanted to sort of nudge them, right that was my idea behind the podcast to kind of nudge them, let them see that there's, there's possibility not just from a technical standpoint, in terms of, you know, what the great thinkers are doing, and from a business perspective, as well, but also small entrepreneurs, small businesses, people who are just fed up and deciding to do something about it like yourselves, and I think that I didn't know it immediately, because, you know, the initial feedback was great, but then it was like, oh, maybe people aren't listening as much. It's not as big as other podcasts. But today is like, even though it's still a very niche podcast, you know, I have such good feedback, like, the quality of the feedback is just improved and improved. People are really excited to hear these stories, and you know, they really engage in what I'm doing. And it doesn't matter what level they are right from, from the CEOs, to someone who is, you know, just picking up a business for the first time, everyone's excited about what the story and the message is. So I think, definitely, you have to keep going. You have to keep going. And you have to find more ways to collaborate and interact with as many business owners and people as possible. So I'm going to switch to another question now. And there are many who like to challenge the idea of the Sustainable straw and the sustainable toothbrush. So let's explore this a little bit. So I've seen the documentaries of you know, the straws, and in a turtles, turtles throat and you know, getting stuck, etc. Yet, we know that straws aren't the biggest problem in the ocean, right? Like, the actual biggest problem in the ocean is probably the fishing nets. If we really think about it like that, even though the way that we fish the way that commercial fishing is done. Or if we look at things like the toothbrush, typically, we still got plastic in the bristles, right? There's still nothing that we can yet do about that. So what are your thoughts about putting these products together and transitioning to sustainable products? Even knowing that, you know, it's not, it's not fully there, what are your thoughts on that?
Sam Pitman 23:09 I have two views it's like do the stuff that's really easy, that's not going to stress you out and overwhelm you. But also, as you don't stress about all the little things just do something really useful.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:19 Yeah, you know, I see it in two ways as well, I see that making these small changes is symbolic as well. So this is one of the things one of the reasons I'm excited about Marie's box it's like, this is a symbolic, I am making a shift. And every time I go to the bathroom, and I see this wooden toothbrush, or I see my soap dish that's now you know, there when it's little loofa to absorb some of the soap droppings, so that I can reuse that soap that drops off the soap bar, you know, every time you see these things, it's a reminder of what I've committed to, and having them as things that you deal with every day reminds you of that commitment every day. So it's not just about the item itself. It's about what the item represents. I don't know if you share that, Marie?
Marie Lockwood 24:06 Yeah, absolutely. And in my sort of opinion, I think that all change efforts are positive change it's better than no change at all. As I said before, I'm also a teacher. So through education wise, we are really keen to try to turn that sort of tide on the use of plastic with children that we have in our own classes. So anything that we can actually have an impact with so for example, my class there's 26 children in it and I added up the other day that all 26 children now reuse their water bottles that they used to bring in plastic bottles to school. And over the last couple of years we've sort of tried our best to change the opinions on that through education and allowing them really to find the facts themselves. So 26 children now bring a reusable bottle to my class. And when I added that up, that is something like 5122 plastic bottles saved by my one class in a year. Now times that by all the classes in the school and all the schools in the country is huge, absolutely massive. So, in my opinion, one small change, as long as it's a change for the good is better than nothing. And I think I always like to go back, there's a quote that says I am only one said 7 billion people, I love that. And I think that is absolutely spot on hits the nail on the head.
Sam Pitman 25:42 I think what I like about that Marie is that you've not just inspired like one person, though, you've inspired all that whole class, and I'm guessing your whole school, and all of those families. And that's almost where it's bigger, isn't it, because you can start with one thing. That's what I was saying earlier. Like, if I just do that, but never talk about it, I'm not going to have a huge impact. But when one person does it times, you're whole school. And then that those children have inspired all of their parents and all those families, it ends up having this bigger effect.
Marie Lockwood 26:11 Yeah, and children are sometimes the best people to pressure parents, because they nag at you, and they tell you why you should change it. And they're very honest. And they show you the facts and the figures, and they make you feel a bit guilty. So you tend to want to change. So at the minute, as well as my own class, which they are really on board with everything. I've also got another school, further down the country who's also starting out on a plastic free schools journey. So we're going to do a little bit of collaboration, hopefully, so it will spread. And that's the bigger picture that will join the plastic free schools programme. And we'll try and get our message out across as many people as possible.
Sam Pitman 26:59 But I almost think, for most people, that's almost the obvious starting point, isn't it, of like to get them on board is actually making those simple steps because they are easy, and like the subscription kit, you're gonna have like, it's just easy, there's almost another reason to do it. Because you're taking all the pressure off. And it's easy to do that.
Katherine Ann Byam 27:17 That's awesome. I want to switch now to sort of regulation. So I'm going to tell a story before I comment on this regulatory change. So I've been in London last couple of weeks, cat sitting for a friend of mine, and in an area where you know, the families are well off. So at the schools in the neighbourhood, all the cars that were pulling up were Tesla's. Now, one of the reasons I think that is, is that, you know, London has recently introduced this ultra low emission zone, so you have this additional charge, you still have the congestion tax. So there's loads of charges now for having a car for driving around in a car. And that has prompted a wide scale change and switch to electric cars. So this is why a lot of the mums in this neighbourhood are now driving these electric cars. Now, there's a lot of debates. And you know, I have a friend who's been on this podcast, who really talks about the sustainable mobility transition. And we can argue that, you know, maybe they don't need a car, they can just walk with their kids, perhaps that would have been a better switch. But knowing that people have these hard encoded habits, then perhaps electric vehicles are a nice interim shift, and regulation that supports that preserves the economy, and also promotes, the better behaviours for the planet. Now, we know that the UN has recently reviewed its Environment Programme, and recently passed a resolution to deal with plastics throughout its lifecycle, so forcing companies to sort of deal with their plastic throughout the life of the product. How do you see this impacting how business is done today?
Marie Lockwood 29:07 I think that it's a really good thing that's happened, actually, I think that it's gonna make a lot more businesses accountable, and a lot more transparent. Because at the end of the day, we'll reach a point in this time, where it's actually at crisis level, it's, gone beyond what is ever going to be acceptable. And if something doesn't happen now, then there's gonna be a disaster, that's looming ahead of us, really. I mean, I was looking at facts and figures just a few days ago. And even though I knew how bad the plastic production is for our planet, when you actually look into the facts and figures of it, it's absolutely astounding. And the more worrying thing is the forecast and their predictions for what it might become. So for example, I think it was 400 million tonnes of plastic produced at the minute but its potential as to double by 2040 if nothing was to happen, and given that at the minute, we have a huge problem with plastic pollution entering the seas, I think something desperately needed doing. So I think as much as for some businesses, it might be a struggle to make that shift. I think really, in realistic terms, it's the only way forward, because we're heading for disaster otherwise.
Katherine Ann Byam 30:29 And Sam, your views,
Sam Pitman 30:30 One of the things I'm realising is that small businesses especially don't necessarily see how sustainability is relevant to them. If they're not in and they're not selling the toothbrushes or electric cars, it's almost like they can't relate to it. It's not relevant to their business. So I, you know, the more we can do to enforce businesses to do things or follow these policies, I mean, we have to, like Marie said, we, it's kind of we can't be gentle anymore. You know, yes, it is going to have impacts for business. But I almost see as no choice now we have to, these changes have to happen and businesses have to take responsibility for products, you know, the fact that not only 9% of plastic that can be recycled is actually recycled. And that's a crazy figure like that. That's not on, like in theory, like no plastic ever needs to be virgin produce, again, we have enough plastic to make everything. So yeah, I agree that businesses have to start doing more now.
Katherine Ann Byam 31:24 Okay, so I'm gonna move to rapid fire questions to sort of close this out. I'm gonna, alternate between between both of you. And I did not prepare you for this. So I'm gonna with Marie. So my rapid fire question to you is, what's the most transformational sustainability book you've read?
Marie Lockwood 31:48 Oh, my goodness, you really put me on the spot now because my memory is shocking. To be honest, you know, I don't read books are such I read online documents, and probably one of the ones that really hits home to me as one from the United Nations. It's called pollution to solution. And that is full of really good information, facts and figures that support everything that's really behind my business, everything that I strive to try to do, and it really hits home. Why every business needs to change, not just me as a small business, but huge businesses, everybody. You know, it's our responsibility it's everybody's responsibility, because we've all created, we're all we've all created waste. We all do continue to create waste.
Katherine Ann Byam 32:42 And Sam moving to you. What's your favourite documentary? And why?
Sam Pitman 32:46 Oh documentary? Ah, the one that sticks in my mind the most? I've probably watched in the last month is SeaSpiracy. I mean, it was a bit controversial when there was criticisms after it came out, but you know, there's gonna be there's always somebody's gonna say something negative about these shocking facts, I've never actually eaten fish, because I have some kind of random phobia, thing. But if I did, I would never have been able to eat fish again, after watching that. And I like, Katherine, you said something only about actually, the biggest pollution in the sea is actually not the plastic straws. It's the fishing nets. And actually, the devastation from fishing nets I never knew. And that was a real, real eye opener.
Marie Lockwood 33:29 I actually cried after watching that it was horrible, in a really shocking way, but one that I needed to listen to.
Sam Pitman 33:36 Yeah, exactly.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:38 Marie, what's your greatest lesson? In this whole journey?
Marie Lockwood 33:43 My greatest lesson is probably to not strive for perfection. But to know that actually doing something is better than doing nothing and knowing that what I am doing is as good as I can do at this moment in time. And that is, okay. It's, you don't need to be perfect. You know, we all have our flaws. But we're all trying to learn as we go, and we do what we can.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:11 And Sam what's your biggest dream?
Sam Pitman 34:14 My biggest dream? Oh, wow. Well, obviously, just to reverse climate change completely. Obviously, my dream would be if we could keep under this 1.5 degree. You know, heat rise would be amazing. But if I looked at more personal journeys, my role would be about actually feeling like I actually am making a big impact in within Essex and beyond, which is a subjective goal, which I don't know if I can ever achieve. They can't measure it. But yeah, my dream is to have real real impact in Essex to make differences to individuals and businesses to be more sustainable.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:54 Wonderful, ladies, tell my listeners how they can connect with you. Let's start with Marie.
Marie Lockwood 34:59 So you can find me on Instagram under rebyl vybes or via Facebook. Or you can alternatively you can go on and have a look at my website, www dot rebyl vybes.co.uk
Katherine Ann Byam 35:13 And that's vy BS vibes.
Marie Lockwood 35:16 It is it's slightly different, so it's R E B Y L V Y B E S, we had to be very careful when we were looking into trademarks.
Sam Pitman 35:25 And you just wanted to be a rebel and spell rebel, wrong?
Marie Lockwood 35:27 We just wanted exactly that.
Sam Pitman 35:32 Yep, so, yep, Facebook, Instagram. Eco Essex.
Katherine Ann Byam 35:38 Wonderful. Thank you, ladies so much for coming on the show. I know it's late at night. We had to get the kids to bed before before we did this. Thanks so much for spending the time with me. Thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thank you.
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069 Waste to Wealth
About this Episode
Roz Edwards has been a business owner now for 30 years, initially in African Art and now with a collection of thousands of mannequins rescued from landfill.
Roz started Mannakin from nothing, not even the mannequins, but she was determined to use her business acumen and creativity to create a meaningful sustainable business. Whilst researching mannequins she found an opportunity to create a business out of hiring them, to provide for her children while freeing herself from the restrictions of poverty.
Today, Mannakin Hall in Lincolnshire houses a vast collection of mannequins to hire, the majority of which has been diverted from landfill. The unusual scenery within the grounds has created a popular film location, and a major source of Roz’s wealth and business growth. Roz has also started Club Mannakin to help independent, creative business owners grow and scale.
We talked about:
Her growing youtube following of people inspired by her story (over 1mn views)
What it's like starting an idea (circular economy) way before it's time had come.
The challenges and successes in growing and scaling the business
Tips for sustainable business owners just getting started
Katherine Ann Byam 0:03 Roz, welcome to where Ideas Launch!
Roz Edwards 1:37 Hey, Katherine, thanks so much for having me on here. So exciting.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:40 Really great to have you. And great that your video on YouTube is absolutely blowing up, right? How many views are you up to today?
Roz Edwards 1:47 And I've not checked because I thought I'd just give it a bit of a break. Because I have been constantly checking. It's going up by about 3000 views a day, which is just a It's just incredible. So I think the last time I checked it was on 1,011,000 and something so oh
Katherine Ann Byam 2:06 my goodness, it's incredible. So what we're talking about listeners is that Roz had a film crew come up to her mannequin empire. And it's just been off the charts how people have been responding to what she's been doing. So So Roz, I'd like you to share with my listeners, the origin story of mannequin and how you got started.
Roz Edwards 2:27 And there's a deliberate misspelling of the word mannequin. And there's a little story behind that. And that is, I was going to be a retail consultant. I had no intention ever of working with mannequins, it never even entered my mind. But I was putting content on my website all about retail strategy. And I thought, well, mannequins are a big part of retail, but I've never worked with them. So let's start researching.
And I basically put a page on my website that said, I've got mannequins to hire, which I didn't have my telephone number, and then just some pictures of some mannequins that I knew well, I could buy some, you know, if it was just like, let's let's just put this out there on the internet and see what happens. within 24 hours, my phone started ringing with people wanting mannequins, like in London next week. And of course, I didn't have any, so I had to sort of lie and just say, Oh, I'm terribly sorry. They're all out on hire at the moment. So then, it basically carried on and you know, for the last was for nearly 14 years now.
The phones never stopped ringing. But in those early days, I was operating off of Roz Edwards, just my own website. But I thought, No, this is it needs its own name. So being a little bit of an expert with websites, and SEO and everything, my initial thing was, well, I should try to get mannequins, the correct spelling, you know .com.co.uk and all the rest of it. So of course, that domain name had gone. So I went for misspellings. And then when I saw that, I could do Mannakins spelt quite phonetically. And then I broke that word down into two, which was Manna Food from heaven. And kin - kindred spirit. And I just thought that this is perfect name is absolutely a perfect name for it. Because I was literally I had nothing. I was living in a council house on benefits. No job. I'd returned from Milan after living in Malawi for 10 years. And really low self esteem. But I had all this business experience. It's like, nope, we're going to, we're going to rebuild, we're going to do something. And it probably took me about two years before I believed that I could actually I can make money out of dummies. And but it's yeah, it's it's a wonderful gift from heaven. Basically,
Katherine Ann Byam 5:02 Congratulations on all your success, it's immense how you've managed to turn this into a mannequin empire, tell us a bit about the business model or models that your mannequin operation uses, and how your success has been over the years.
Roz Edwards 5:16 So I mean, obviously, in the early days, it was taking very, very little money. And the biggest turnover we've ever had in the year is just shy of half a million pounds, which is phenomenal, really, I mean, even I couldn't quite believe that. And but basically, the way that mannequin works is, it has a huge collection of mannequins, so they're all tidied up, you know, made to look beautiful. And then they're advertised on my website for hire.
And we do sell some but the, I'd say maybe 70% of the business is hiring. So they all look lovely, and they go out in boxes get delivered lead a much more exciting life than I do. And then when they come back in, of course, they've got fingerprints all over the maybe some of the joints that they've got a joint for example, that fits the the arm and the hand together, you know, maybe that's been busted, you know, whilst they're using it, they haven't quite taken good care of it. So then they come back in, and I've got what we call the, the fixing room, for want of a better name.
But in the early days, my children nicknamed it Dolby city, because I actually used to do this in my kitchen from home, fix the mannequins and get them all ready to go back out again. So in actual fact, on the doors to the fixing room, it doesn't say Dolby city because you know, my kids name that after the TV programme.
So they all get prepared. So that can involve Yep, putting bits back together again, sanding them down, cleaning them. And then I've got a spray Bay. So they go into the spray Bay, they're wheeled on, like clothing, Rails, those are, they're all hanging upside down.
And they go in front of the spray, they they have a new coat of paint, if they don't need all of it, they might just need a waft over some of the more than others. And then they get packed. And they go back into their boxes again, and they're ready to ready to go and have fun.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:17 What challenges have you faced or because it sounds like you haven't had challenges, what would you say has been responsible for your success.
Roz Edwards 7:25 So a really, really big challenge that I met. And I didn't find a huge amount of help out there for this either, was, you find that you get to a certain stage with a business. And you have got a certain amount of turnover, as well, and a certain amount of burnout. So you find yourself doing everything because you're, you know, you're a sole trader, but it was a limited company, but a sole person working within that business.
And so there was a point where I'm driving vans into London to deliver like big quantities of mannequins. But I've got my headset on with connected to my phone, because I'm also the receptionist. So then I would get to a lay by and if I couldn't answer the phone in time, I would obviously phone them back my little notepad and pen in the van, and writing all of that down, and then having to come back.
And obviously I've got to, you know, replenish the stock after it's been used. And it was quite exhausting. So my biggest challenge really was, I can't do any more myself, this can't go any bigger. But it can go bigger because the demand is there. So then it was a case of right and compartmentalising as the right word to use everything. So okay, let's have someone on the reception and doing know answering the phone, doing the sales doing all of the admin, right, that's one person's job.
Now let's get someone fixing the mannequins. Now let's get someone spraying the mannequins. And so at one point I had about 10 staff. But that is another thing, again, is bringing all of these people in because all of a sudden, you've changed from being this kind of really exciting times of running your own business and making money, too.
I've got to be like the staff police now. You know. So anyway, what I did is I went and took a course in management and that helped enormously. But I found my role had changed, you know, because I'm really I'm now properly the director, and I'm directing everything. So that that was a big challenge, but a huge amount of success and you know, massive amount of wealth came out of that just at the right time. So it all pays off. It all pays off. Nothing's easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:54 Absolutely. No. And I totally get that it's a big jump once you start bringing people on because as you say it's a completely different job. It's a completely different role. And not all of us want to do that role.
Roz Edwards 10:06 Yeah. And we don't have the experience, we don't have those skills. I mean, there were times where I really felt that How the hell am I going to do this? You know, because I don't know how to manage somebody. So I learned. That's what you do. So you've just quickly get on and you learn,
Katherine Ann Byam 10:22 Really outstanding. And I want to tap into the circular economy principle that you're running your business on, I can imagine that when you started, there wasn't a lot of talk about the circular economy, how did you influence clients choices in this way.
Roz Edwards 10:36 So it that is actually quite an ongoing battle, because it can come down to price. But it can also come down to almost like people's greed with things, they want to possess things. So they don't necessarily see until you know, I've spoken to them, how hiring can benefit them. And of course, as I've just explained that process, you know, the mannequin comes in, it goes here, here, here, and it goes out again. So they're constantly spinning round and round and round that there isn't more of a circular business model there, I think to show. But the whole mannequin industry is linear.
Let's go and get them all made in China quite often, somewhere in the Far East, there are other places that make them but that's, you know, the main manufacturing point, let's ship them all that way, right across the world. And then we'll have them in the shops. And then usually, maybe I think the cycle is gone longer now, but it used to sort of be every four years, right? Okay, we'll get rid of those mannequins now.
And then we'll go and get some more. So you've just got them, they're all doing this journey like this all the time. And what hiring does, is what we've already got the mannequins here, let's cut out all of that transport. We don't need it, because they are here. And getting that message across is easier with the smaller independent businesses. But when it comes to the big guys, they can't quite see it.
Some can some of you know someone now working with doing it. But generally, it's, you know, like I said, they they've been transported, they'll be used for however many years, and then crushed and go to landfill. So my job very much is persuading my clients that look, they're here. They're, they're beautiful. And in actual fact, because we're renovating them all the time, every time they you know, they've been out and they come back in, they're better than these ones that you can buy, you know, from from the Far East.
And then let me see what I can do about all of this waste and this rubbish. So I got a phone call from someone who said, Oh, I see what you're doing. We read this as quite a few years ago now. But I see what you're doing. We've got about 100 mannequins that are going to go in the bin. But the owner doesn't really want that to happen. They want them to be reused. Would you take them? So I said, Well, yeah, of course, how many again, he said, 100. And then over the space of the next four months, and this is what I was buying mannequin Hall as well at the time.
So thank goodness, because 25,000 of them turned up. There was one Arctic Chuck after another. And I remember phoning him and just saying, Are you having a laugh? And he said, Well, do you not want them because they are going to be crushed if you don't want them? And I said, Well, okay, send them. Because there's an issue here. There's a problem. And I want to fix it.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:36 It's so amazing. I just love this story. And I want to talk a little bit about mannequin mountain and and that location in Lincolnshire, can you tell my listeners what they can experience when they visit?
Roz Edwards 13:48 And we've had a couple of horror films made there. So you can imagine, really, it's it's most horror films, they start with maybe you know, two girls are in a car, and the car breaks down and it's raining, and it's dark. And they live too long. They find this place, I think, Oh, well go in there and use the phone because you know, it's out in the middle of nowhere, and there's no one there, their phones aren't working and all the rest of it. And then they obviously they wander in and discover that they've made the wrong you know, they've taken the wrong term, basically, it's very much that kind of vibe to it. So there's some beautiful big gates that you drive through.
And then you're just hit by which one of my friends said it's a visual assault, basically, that's what it is. You don't notice the mountain when you come in because like you come in and it's just to the left of you. So quite often people come in and then when they're driving out, they go, Oh my goodness. All of those may say Yeah, and so there are the buildings themselves that used to be a secret airbase for the Americans during the Second World War.
So that's all quiet exciting story as well, and but there are literally like, you know, mannequins all over some sorted some waiting to be sorted. And then yeah, there's all sorts of creepy looking buildings. fantastic views out the back when you get round to the back. Absolutely gorgeous views across the Lincolnshire ridge. And so it's a really beautiful location. And then yeah, and then you would wander around or drive around because you can drive all the way around. And then there's just the biggest pile of mannequins that you've that anybody has ever seen. I mean, I'm sure not many people have even seen a small pile. But this is it's colossal. I think someone recently told me you can see it from space
Katherine Ann Byam 15:42 for. And I know that you also have a Halloween feature as well.
Roz Edwards 15:47 Yeah. So we get people in and in the daytime, and, and almost everybody says it. And that is, I bet it's really scary here at night. And so I went, I went down to Somerset, and it was at the time it was 2015. And it was the time when Banksy had launched Disneyland. So I went in and had a look around there and totally fell in love with the whole thing. And I looked at the size of that site and thought, Well, that's about the same size as mine, I could do something like this.
And then that would provide the solution, if you like for all of those people is that I bet it's scary here at night. So what I did is I followed banks his whole way that he promoted it as well with you know, there's trip hazards, there's no lighting, you know, there's no toilets, all of this kind of thing, come with a torch, you know, prepare a little survival bag, you know, in case you get abducted by mannequins, and people loved it. They absolutely loved it.
So that's, you know, gone on for several years, when it came to 2020, of course, and all the fun that we've had there. We were all in the tears at that time. And everyone had to still stay in the family bubbles. Somebody said to me, you're going to do the Halloween this year? And I said, Well, I can't. How can I do it? So we've got this road, which at the time, obviously had loads of mannequins in the way. So I said, right, let's go clear that because people can drive round.
And that's what we do. We had a really successful event that year. And so many people thanked us for it, because we'd all been shut in for such a long time. The whole feeling that they could come out and be safe as well. I mean, I made up a story that there are child mannequins on the loose with teeth, you know, and they're very dangerous. So do not get out of your vehicle. I mean, obviously, I had the environmental health people at the council phoned me obviously have concerns with an event going on during COVID.
And I had them in absolute fits of laughter. They just said, we've got nothing to worry about with you, Ross. Just go ahead with it. It sounds brilliant. And then last year, we people were able to walk around again. So good. It's good.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:02 I want to wrap up with a final question, which is there are a lot of people who want to start sustainable businesses or have started them, and they're struggling with their growth.
Do you have any advice from the journey you've been on? Bringing the circular principle to life?
Roz Edwards 18:18 Yeah, so one thing that I think we can all do, which perhaps we don't, is just constantly be on the look, if you haven't already got a product that could be circular. Just keep your eyes peeled, because there are things out there that nobody is actually doing yet. And what's been great about mannequin is, man, I remember when I started someone saying, Oh, you say you're going to do shop fittings now and counters for shops and things. And they said, No, I'm not going to get distracted by all of this.
It's just going to be mannequins. Because I mean, even within that niche, there's no other film location, Halloween events, and people being able to stay over in the mannequin graveyard at night. That's one of my next things I'm about I'm about to launch. And then just establish that really sort of simple, easy brand, right from the beginning. I mean, when I started, I thought if this isn't going to go big, I'm going to know quite shortly. And so I can change the idea and start to do something else. So yes, I'd registered the domains. I registered it as a limited company.
And I also bought the trademark as well. So I own the word mannequin, because nobody on this earth was going to get in my way, you know, so I was very, very determined. And all of those things are just so important. I've seen that they you know, a few people that are they haven't taken those steps, which you know, and it because they didn't know they weren't advised that that's what they should do. And then they've got so far with their business.
I need to find that there's someone bigger out there doing it. They're not the same but very similar. And they've trademarked the name. So what do you do that You know, how can you move forward, you've got to change and rebuild. And that, you know, having to get to that point is, is devastating, actually. But also, the other thing is to, is to think big. So interestingly, with my business, I knew that there were other manikin companies turning over in excess of a million. So the numbers game for me was, it's open, there's no, I only need this amount of money or what have you.
But interestingly, what happened is, yes, the turnover hit, you know, half a million, I've got all of these staffed worry about, it turned into this other thing, and I could see it going into something that I didn't necessarily want. And so I have actually scaled it back now, you know, with lots of different processes in place, so that, like all the automation, or the website is automated for people to go and hire mannequins and everything. So it's so important that we don't just start something and, and just get carried away in the here. And now we have to have that vision, we definitely have to have that vision and those solid foundations of things like, yes, it's a limited company.
Even the VAT return, I've registered for VAT when I was turning over 100 pounds a month, you know, the VAT threshold is obviously it's 85,000 pounds or something. Most people wait until they get to there. But then you've got to either add 20% onto your prices, or you've got to absorb that, you know, because it's an extra cost. So all of these sorts of things, but there's got to be foresight in it. You know, there's got to be a vision there of actually why why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?
Katherine Ann Byam 21:40 And I guess if you're if you're selling to companies, or hiring to companies, etc, then having that fact charges negligible to them. So it all makes sense if you design it that way. So finally, tell my listeners how they can find you.
Roz Edwards 21:53 So mannakin.com, so that's MANNAKIN because everyone has a problem with spelling, even the correct word of mannequins. And I've got a really, really beautiful lead magnet that explains why the mannequins are sustainable and circular. And what kind of mannequin you would need for different situations. And then a reference to the extra bits and pieces that I've got going on including club mannequin as well.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:24 Wonderful. I'm going to leave all the links for them. Thank you so much Ross for gracing us with your presence today. I know you're a very important YouTube superstar. Thanks for joining me.
Roz Edwards 22:36 Thank you.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:40 Season Four of where radius launch was brought to you today by Katherine Ann Byam business resilience and strategy consulting services. Katherine provides business assessments and strategic support to help guide your business toward a netzero future. Get in touch with Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn
