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About this Episode

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Where Ideas Launch. Tillman.

Tilmann Vahle  1:28  

Thank you, Katherine. Great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:30  

Great to have you.

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

Tilmann Vahle  1:38  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:25  

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

Tilmann Vahle  3:30  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:16  

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

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

Tilmann Vahle  5:31  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:31  

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

Tilmann Vahle  7:43  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:52  

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

Tilmann Vahle  10:19  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:24  

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

Tilmann Vahle  13:37  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  15:55  

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

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

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

Tilmann Vahle  17:24  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  19:32  

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

Tilmann Vahle  19:48  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  20:05  

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

Tilmann Vahle  20:22  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  22:20  

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

Tilmann Vahle  22:33  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  25:19  

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

Tilmann Vahle  25:23  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  27:26 

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

Tilmann Vahle  27:33  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  28:06  

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

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam

Karen, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Karen Adams  1:33  

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:34  

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

Karen Adams  1:50  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:35  

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

Karen Adams  4:56  

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

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

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

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

Karen Adams  8:17  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:57  

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

Karen Adams  10:11  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:06  

Who does Kaia Clothing target and why?

Karen Adams  12:10  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:09  

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

Karen Adams  13:18  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  15:31  

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

Karen Adams  15:49  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  16:03  

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

Karen Adams  17:04  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  18:21  

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

Karen Adams  18:30  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  19:08  

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

Karen Adams  19:16  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  20:11  

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

Karen Adams  20:30  

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

About this Episode

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

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

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Episode Transcript

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

Lola Fernandez  1:29  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  1:36  

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

Lola Fernandez  1:49  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:12  

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

Lola Fernandez  3:34  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:30  

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

Lola Fernandez  5:42  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  6:27  

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

Lola Fernandez  6:35  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:21  

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

Lola Fernandez  7:30  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:51  

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

Lola Fernandez  8:01  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:38  

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

Lola Fernandez  9:48  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:17  

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

Lola Fernandez  11:29  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:12  

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

Lola Fernandez  12:21  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:31  

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

Lola Fernandez  14:39  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  16:03  

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

Lola Fernandez  16:12  

Absolutely, absolutely.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:15  

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

Lola Fernandez  16:22  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  17:35  

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

Lola Fernandez  17:44  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  19:15  

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

Lola Fernandez 19:34  

Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:13 

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

Tessa Clarke  1:21  

Thank you, great to be with you.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:23  

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

Tessa Clarke  1:33  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  2:53  

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

Tessa Clarke  3:04  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:34  

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

Tessa Clarke  3:42  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:28  

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

Tessa Clarke  5:47  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:58  

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

Tessa Clarke  8:12  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:02  

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

Tessa Clarke  9:19  

Thank you. Yeah, we love it, too.

Katherine Ann Byam  9:22  

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

Tessa Clarke  9:31  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:15  

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

Tessa Clarke  11:41  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:24  

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

Tessa Clarke  12:30  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:28  

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

Tessa Clarke 13:32  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:39  

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

Tessa Clarke  13:51  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  15:39  

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

Tessa Clarke  15:43  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  18:31  

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

Tessa Clarke 18:39  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  19:10  

Perfect, thank you so much for joining us today.

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  1:21  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  1:28  

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

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

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  2:10  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:29  

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

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  4:17  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:57  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  6:03  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  6:28  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  6:55  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  8:07  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  8:29  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  10:22  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  10:31  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  10:50  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  11:03  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:48  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  13:04  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:06  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  14:16  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  16:13  

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

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey  16:19  

Thanks so much, Catherine.

Katherine Ann Byam  16:24  

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

About this Episode

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

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

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

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

Alice Schmidt  2:01  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  2:04  

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

Alice Schmidt  2:23 

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  4:35  

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

Alice Schmidt  5:23  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:58  

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

Alice Schmidt  9:00  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:12  

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

Alice Schmidt  11:32  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:50  

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

Alice Schmidt  12:20  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:26  

Right. Yeah, exactly. And, you know,

Alice Schmidt  12:29  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  12:48  

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

Alice Schmidt  13:16  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  13:28  

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

Alice Schmidt  14:06  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  18:55  

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

Alice Schmidt  19:32  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  21:10  

Yeah. It is easier to grasp for sure.

Alice Schmidt  21:14  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  22:34  

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

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

Alice Schmidt  23:48  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  27:24  

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

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

Alice Schmidt  28:11  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  30:28  

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

Alice Schmidt  30:51  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  30:58  

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

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

  Gordon, welcome to where it is.

Gordon Olson  1:23  

I appreciate you having me here. Catherine.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:25  

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

Gordon Olson  1:31  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  2:39  

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

Gordon Olson  2:46  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  4:00  

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

Gordon Olson  4:10  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:06  

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

Gordon Olson  5:19  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  6:35  

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

Gordon Olson  7:17  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:10  

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

Gordon Olson  9:51  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  10:56  

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

Gordon Olson  11:28  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:41  

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

Gordon Olson  11:57  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:23  

So Gordon, how can people support your mission?

Gordon Olson  14:27  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:52  

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

Gordon Olson  14:59  

Yeah, both Yeah. Okay, worldwide

Katherine Ann Byam  15:01  

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

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

 Mark, welcome to where it is lunch.

Marc Wheatley  1:05  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  1:07  

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

Marc Wheatley  1:19  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:14  

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

Marc Wheatley  3:25  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:56  

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

Marc Wheatley  8:23  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:19  

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

Marc Wheatley  9:43  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  10:15  

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

Marc Wheatley  10:32  

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

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

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

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

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

Marc Wheatley  13:52  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  18:32  

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

Marc Wheatley  18:57  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  21:16  

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

Marc Wheatley  21:32  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  21:57  

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

Marc Wheatley  22:01  

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam  22:05  

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

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

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

Melissa Hobson  1:40  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  1:42  

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

Melissa Hobson  1:51  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  4:15  

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

Melissa Hobson  4:51  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  5:00  

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

Melissa Hobson  5:20  

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:50  

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

Melissa Hobson  8:01  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  9:48  

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

Melissa Hobson  10:04  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:02  

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

Melissa Hobson 11:41  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:27  

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

Melissa Hobson  14:40  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  15:48  

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

Melissa Hobson 16:23  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  18:29  

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

Melissa Hobson 18:34  

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  21:25  

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

Melissa Hobson  21:34  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  22:50  

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

Melissa Hobson

Whereabouts are you?

Katherine Ann Byam 

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

Melissa Hobson  23:56  

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  26:00  

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

Melissa Hobson  26:40  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  28:01  

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

Melissa Hobson  28:11  

Thank you for having me.

About this Episode

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam  0:03  

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

Sally Giblin  1:46  

Thank you so much for having me, Katherine.

Katherine Ann Byam  1:49  

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

Sally Giblin  2:00  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  3:15  

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

Sally Giblin  3:22  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  4:26  

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

Sally Giblin  4:37  

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam  7:29  

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

Sally Giblin  7:56  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  10:06  

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

Sally Giblin 10:16  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  11:34  

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

Sally Giblin  12:20  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  14:18  

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

Sally Giblin  14:31  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  16:10  

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

Sally Giblin  16:24  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  17:21  

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

Sally Giblin  18:33  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  20:38  

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

Sally Giblin  20:47  

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

Katherine Ann Byam  20:53  

Perfect. Thanks so much for joining me, Sally.

Sally Giblin 20:55  

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