Should companies focus exclusively on maximising profit? Nothing in life is that straightforward, and certainly not today when our understanding of how our world works has had quantum leaps. In this episode I explore the legacy of Milton Friedman with some needed food for thought on profit vs purpose.
What does the raging debate around ESG actually mean to you as an economic actor in society?
I’ve been buried in research for my upcoming book - Do What Matters - The Purpose Driven Career Transition Guide, as well as completing a course from University of California, Berkeley - School of Law on ESG, and preparing micro learning on sustainability for the team at Mind Channel.
What’s been central around discussions of late is the role of purpose in organisations, and whether or not boards or shareholders have the right
Since pursuing learning on ESG matters, I've read much on the role of Milton Friedman on the theory of shareholder primacy and the profit maximisation purpose of companies. I've referred often derogatorily to his doctrine, but I’d never read it end to end until recently.
I quote now from his article
“In a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation and his primary responsibility is to them.”
Now in that quote he talks about the basic rules of society as embodied by both law and custom, but this idea of custom doesn’t work the minute an organisation crosses borders, and even the law isn't uniform, and this again leaves the door open to fuel and incentivize irresponsible corporate action.
Milton Friedman also scoffed at the idea of corporate responsibility - as corporations don't have responsibilities except to the law that created them. but individuals do. Either way, the flaw in much of this article in my opinion is in a lack of integrated systems thinking.
I've listened to countless debates among professors that argue that even when shareholders act in the interest of profit maximisation, they are more likely to develop solutions that address long term social and climate concerns because it is fundamentally within their interest to do so, once ensconced in an appropriate tax structure that considers negative externalities.
Others argue for director primacy, challenging boards to embrace a north start or purpose in balancing the interests of all stakeholders in determining their actions.
You will see from Friedman’s article that he believes this role assigns boards powers they do not have. Whilst Friedman's arguments are interesting and worthy of some design consideration, The arguments remain as academic and removed from real life as are the doctrines of economic theory itself in my opinion.
When economists, lawyers, historians and politicians debate these issues, they are ignoring fundamentally important disciplines from their discourse. We live in a series of interconnected systems. From the individual, the household, the community, the state/county, the country, the global economic system, and all of these are bounded by biological, geological and atmospheric systems that support existence itself.
If we want to debate what's right, appropriate, legal, fair, just, we can't do it in the same bubbles we have in the past, we need the voices of engineers, biologists, botanists, geologists, chemists, artists, physicists, statisticians, theologians, activists and a host of other siloed characters before we even understand how the system works in order to improve it.
We live in the Anthropocene; a widely disputed fact of geology (don't worry I'm not oblivious to the contradiction in this statement), which means that humans now more than any other factor are impacting on climate and other major geological systems on the earth, and increasingly in space. That this is happening isn't inherently a problem; risk always walks in the hands of opportunity.
With the capabilities we have today on data, technology, systems science, modelling, design, we can create a new trajectory for humans within the context of society and natural systems to correct, and potentially reverse the damage we've done by the weaknesses of our past understanding. It will take a strong and compelling desire for a legacy of having a continuously livable earth, at the expense of individual egos.
When Andrew Winston and Paul Polman speak of net positive, this I believe is what they challenge us to envision. When Kate Raworth discusses doughnut economics, I believe she also addresses these gaps. Have a read and share your thoughts below.
“The purpose of business is to profitably solve problems of people and the planet, and not to profit from causing problems.” The British Academy
Perhaps this is the simple idea that we can all get behind!
Marie Lockwood is a teacher and the founder of Rebyl Vybes
Rebyl Vybes - Helping you to enjoy life's little pleasures in a sustainable way.
She and her mom prepare and ship home kits for those looking to start on their eco journey and pamper boxes so that you can indulge in some guilt free pleasure on a subscription model basis.
Sam Pitman is an occupational therapist and the Co-founder of Eco Essex, an online community supporting you on your eco journey.
Tune in to learn more about how they are making an impact.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:00 I've just had the most brilliant conversation with a teacher and an occupational therapist two business owners who are helping you modify your views and your approach to plastic. Let's hear a little bit about why this matters.
Marie Lockwood 0:13 My class, there's 26 children and all 26 children now reuse their water bottles that we used to bring in plastic bottles to school. And over the last couple of years, we've sort of tried our best to change their opinions on that through education and allowing them really to find the facts themselves. So 26 Children now bring a reusable bottles in my class, and added that up, that is something like 5122 plastic bottles saved by my one class in a year. Now, times that by all the classes in the school and all the schools in the country it's huge.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:58 This is season five, the great debates of our times, Season Five will be centred around the great debates. And we will be comparing and contrasting different viewpoints on various topics that are consuming the public discourse at present. The reason I've decided to take this approach is because we, or at least many of us, are losing the skill of debate. And I think this is an essential skill for us all to practice once more. I don't see how we get to the point of saving the world and saving our planet. If we don't know how to discuss our differences. I also think that the solution to most of our challenges is somewhere in the spectrum of views but never a type of extreme. I will be working with guests to curate the content and discuss beforehand, I will understand their positions their areas of genius, and navigate my questions around that so that the conversation is challenging and stimulating without being combative. I hope you enjoy season five of where ideas launch the Sustainable Innovation podcast.
Marie Lockwood is a teacher and the founder of rebyl vybes, rebyl vybes helps you to enjoy life's little pleasures in a sustainable way. She and her mum prepare and ship home kits for those looking to start on their eco journey and pamper boxes so that you can indulge in some guilt free pleasure on a subscription model basis. Sam Pitman is an occupational therapist, and the co founder of eco Essex, and online community supporting you on your eco journey. Hi, Marie and hi, Sam, it's great to have you both on where ideas launch.
Read Lockwood 2:33 Thank you for having us, lovely to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 2:36 Wonderful to have you both. So I'm going to start with the truth. So I feel guilty every week when I take my trash out. And it's full of recycling and landfill waste. Still, even with my greatest efforts to look at things in my kitchen, look at things in my bathroom, I'm still producing a significant amount of waste to landfill. And even just buying a lot of plastics that are single use in some cases, because I can't seem to find another option. Or it's just not a convenient option. Why do you think it's so hard for people who care about the planet to give up their comforts? And what can help us take the next step? That's the usum.
Sam Pitman 3:20 I think there's so many reasons why we don't want to make those changes. And I think some of it is generations and generation of lifestyle. But you can't just change that overnight, you know, our parents generation the way they were brought up, you can't change that overnight. And I think however many years it takes to, for us to have been moulded in this way, it's going to take time to mould us back out of that way. But also, I think there's so many things about our lifestyle that are just easy and convenient. And the lifestyle we have now you know, in Western society, is so consumer based, but you know, we're driven to also think that things make us happy. So if we buy things that'll make us happy, which it does for the short term, right? But it doesn't give us long term joy, but that's what we believe. And so we believe that these things give us comfort and that we need them. And actually, it's really hard to give up that when that's almost what you've been led to believe - I need these things in my life. I think the other thing as well is it can be scary. So even if you want to change your comforts, sometimes it's easy, well it is, it's easier to conform with others isn't it? Always it's easier to conform than it is to actually stand up for what you believe in and be the odd one out. So I think there's so many challenges that we have to face in order to make these changes.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:39 What do you think was the simplest steps for you to take when you made your initial changes I know with a family as well. You know, it changes the game a lot. So there's a lot more things that you need to balance and juggle.
Sam Pitman 4:53 I think being realistic and not aiming for perfection. So for example, when I did cloth nappies, I used cloth nappies with all of my children. But I won't ever say that I used cloth nappies 100% of the time, because it came with it's own challenges. And I didn't want to go out and like have to carry the loads of cloth nappies that are bigger, it's just loads of these reasons; there's more washing, you know, we've twins I have enough washing to do, I did not want more washing. So, you know, rather than us thinking that we have to be black, and we have or we have to be white, it's okay, just to do your best. So I say I use cloth nappies, I don't know, maybe 75% of the time. And that's all I could manage. And it's the same with anything, it's almost like, you know, to be vegan as well, like, amazing if you can be that dedicated to be fully vegan, and I'm not there yet. I'm not at that stage of my own journey. But I'm trying to eat vegan most of the time, there's, I think, as well, if you can be realistic, and not have to aim for perfectionism, that will be really, a really good goal.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:57 So Marie, tell me a bit about rebyl vybes, because I invited you to the show, because I really like the idea of what you're doing. And I want to get into what was behind starting this brand for you, how you came up with the idea, how you decided to do it.
Marie Lockwood 6:13 So I just like to start by saying, I totally agree with Sam starting to make changes any way that you can. And being realistic with them is absolutely one of the most fundamental things you can do because I am not a perfectionist. And I don't, I don't want to come on here and portray myself as somebody that is absolutely plastic free. Because I'm certainly not I'm not there either. And it's convenient at times. And in a busy lifestyle. That's sometimes it's a lot's that takes over. I did start rebyl vybes, because of a frustration that I was becoming more and more aware of during lockdown, there was a huge rise in subscription boxes. And probably like Sam said, because you wanted to make yourself feel good. And you bought something nice, cause you couldn't go out of the house, you know, you did something to make yourself feel better. And to get something nice delivered through the post was was great, if that's what you wanted to do. But I was getting more and more frustrated, because so many subscription boxes I was seeing online, were absolutely filled with single use plastic waste from the packaging of them and the contents of them. And I was actually discussing it with my mum. And we were saying, you know, why are people not looking for something different? So we decided at that point that actually, okay, we had an idea why were we just gonna keep discussing it? Why didn't we do something about it? Because if somebody else can start a business up and get lots of sales for all this plastic waste, why can't we do the same for something that's more sustainable, and really, that is where rebyl vybes started. The name itself, which chose rebel as in rebellion. So rebellion against plastic waste, particularly single use plastic waste, and the logo was really created because we live in a very rare location, we're very close to the sea, we're surrounded by the forests, lots of pine forests here, the Merrylands things like that. So the logo, we wanted something that sort of represented us, where we come from, and therefore that's, that's where our actual logo came from. But we do want to provide an alternative. I think getting a gift box through the post is a great idea. Getting a sustainable gift box is an even better idea.
Katherine Ann Byam 8:37 I absolutely agree. I think that receiving any box anything in the mail that's not a bill, there's a lot of excitement, right? It's actually generates a lot of positive energy and to have something that's actually useful that's not going to make you feel guilty. Is really important I guess what I tend to get like people still like giving gifts you know and giving gifts as a nice idea but when you get the 15th tiny bottle of cream that you're never going to use, you know you're going to just lose it in your handbag again, you know versus you know, getting a little package that's biodegradable that you can plant some seeds, you know, something like this, it just changes completely how you feel about that box. So what's inside your subscription box? What's the potential impact to someone like me who wants to sort of cut waste overall? Tell Tell me about your box.
Marie Lockwood 9:31 Okay, so we have two different boxes. We started off with a pamper box. So inside that is a range of different products. They are bath products, beauty products, body creams, soaps, shampoo bars, something nice maybe like a nice, scented bodywash. But everything inside the box is single use plastic free. It's also bought from other small businesses. So it's sourced from within the UK to try to limit the carbon footprint that we have. And also, most of the bottles, for example, the body wash, for example, is glass bottles. So they're reusable, I reuse mine for lots of different things, I would totally say that anything that can be used is included in it. So the boxes we reuse the boxes for school. So I'm a school teacher as well as business owner. So I have a couple of people at school also that buy our boxes and we use them at school for lots of storage. And things such as that. The other box is a new one it is, it started out to be an equal sort of box where each month will be something different. And this is where Sam comes in. So I met Sam, just through a group on Facebook, and we got chatting, and we decided that Sam would be a really good addition to the box. And she was going to be able to provide people with the sort of educational side of things or tips and useful. Hence, she runs her own group successfully. And we thought that, that would be a really good twist on a different type of box. So in our home boxes are a range of different sustainable products that you might have as an easy swap for essential items. And they are really things that you would use in everyday, like scrubbing brushes, reusable Kitchen rolls, things that you might be able to make a really useful equal swap with, they are going to change. Okay, so we we don't want to be in a situation where we're recreating lots and lots of waste. And I think I've quickly learned that, actually, although the idea behind our box was a really good one to start with, it needs to evolve into something better. So instead of having our original idea, which was going to be a different box per month, so ultimately kitchen box, and then maybe a bathroom focus, we're going to change it to actual home kits. So you have a starter kit, and Sam will still be a part of that box, where this kit will set somebody up for an equal journey. So you're going to be able to get a box delivered, which will have lots of different sustainable options. It'll be ideal for if you're maybe for example, if you're moving house, or you're getting your first house, it could be ideal for a student or somebody that wants to start out when more sustainable journey. So that's the way that we're going. And by doing that it also limits any unnecessary waste, because we don't want to be adding to people's purchases and buying multiples of other things when actually, we're trying to do the opposite.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:57 Yeah. And are we allowed to kind of pick and choose what goes into a box every month? Like is that an option?
Marie Lockwood 13:03 At the minute it's not, but it is something that I am looking into. Because what I would eventually like to do is have a selection whereby you can decide whether or not you need certain items, things such as I mean, I have just recently I've started changing as I go, my plastic scrubbing brush that I've had for a long time is out, but not until it was needing to be put out. And now I've got my more sustainable options. So things like that. So yes, eventually, we would like to give options for people to use and choose what they need.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:39 And Sam, what is your contribution to the box. So I know that there aren't many people probably listening to the show who are used to subscription boxes like this, they're probably used to maybe who gives a crap. So they will order the toilet paper and it will arrive every four months or six months or whatever. Or maybe their used to Gusto or HelloFresh to order some food. But what is your contribution from a service perspective to this box? And how does that work?
Sam Pitman 14:06 Well, I mean, I kind of say to people, I'm in the box. I don't have a product in the box, because I don't sell products, but I sell myself in a way that I want to support people I have learned from my own journey and from supporting others and observing others that are making these changes because they are lifestyle changes. And this is, it's about gaining huge lifestyle information to change the way you think about life and you know, the way we live, there's so much to it that actually it can feel overwhelming and daunting for people and you know, that anxiety of like, I do want to do something but I don't know where to start and I don't really have anybody else to talk to about this because, you know, none of my family care about these issues. And so my aim is to support people through mentoring, whether that's one to one mentoring, if they want that tailored support, I come from an occupational therapy background, you see. So I'm very much used to working with people on a one to one basis in order to help people reach their goals. But at the moment, I offer monthly mentoring sessions, which is an idea that I came up with last year. And I wanted to offer that each month that because it's a more affordable option for people because money is, you know, money is important to people, you know, especially at the moment. So the idea is that I can provide support, tips, as well as giving people a community. And I think I've learned so much over the recent years about how important it is to feel part of, and feel connected to, other like minded people. And I try and keep the vibe positive, because this isn't a happy topic, climate change is not a happy topic. But I very much try and keep it as light hearted as I can, when it comes to making sure people end with an action, you know, let's think of something positive you can do. And maybe let's just, let's maybe reflect on something positive you have done this month, because actually, we can always go, Oh, I didn't do very well at that. And I still use loads of plastic, and I still use my car. But again, that's negative. And that's not helpful. So try and keep it positive. And as down to earth and as straightforward as possible. Like, I'm not into complicated words. And things, I just want to make it useful for people that are starting out on their eco journey, really.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:27 That's perfect. And I want to touch on something that you kind of brought up but didn't fully. So you're both collaborating on this. And what I want to say is that a lot of times when you decide to take this journey, whether it be in your personal life, or in a business decision, like you both have made business decisions around this as well. It can feel quite lonely and the decision fatigue, the need to be in integrity with what you're selling, and promoting and stuff like that can can really be daunting. How important is it to have a collaborator, let me start with Marie,
Marie Lockwood 17:03 Really important, I would say I have learned so much from Sam. So I knew a lot of things beforehand, I was really passionate about what I wanted to do, I had a clear idea about why I wanted to do it. And then Sam came along like a breath of fresh air, and really made me think personally about my own life, and what I was doing in it but also looking for my business. And so Sam's really helped me a lot. She's given me sort of a direction. Almost like she's been my personal mentor on this journey as well. And I've joined her groups and know exactly where she's coming from, I know what she does, and how friendly and approachable she is and I knew exactly that she was definitely the right person to collaborate with, we're on exactly the same wavelength. And I feel like she's somebody that offers a real good balance to our business.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:01 And, Sam for you, what has it been like?
Sam Pitman 18:05 Well again, like Marie said, I think when you find somebody you share values with. And you know, you can bounce ideas off each other and support each other. It's really nice, because, I mean, I sit at home for hours a week, on my own on my computer, and I've got so many ideas. I don't know where to start, you know? And yeah, like you said, decision fatigue is like, and so actually the idea of having somebody to share those decisions with and to have conversations with and bounce ideas with people is really lovely. And not just not to feel alone. Yeah, of course, there's financial benefits if you have a successful business, but I don't even think that's why most people do it is because we just genuinely want to make as big an impact as possible. So, you know, you widen your audience, don't you? You know, you can support more people. So I think it's win win. Really?
Katherine Ann Byam 19:00 Absolutely. So, Marie, I'm gonna go back to you. And in terms of the reception of your boxes, so far, what has been the positive sort of feedback and reinforcements in people's behavioural changes that you've seen,
Marie Lockwood 19:15 We have had some really, really lovely positive feedback. Lots of people have commented to say how excited they are when they receive a box. Now, they really look forward to it coming each month, because they don't know what's going to be in it. But they know whatever it's going to benefit, it's going to be something that's going to help a little bit with either self care, or with the other boxes, it would obviously help with a sort of lifestyle choices. They also I hope anyway, that our boxes, inspire people and educate them in some way, shape or form, whether or not it's through Sam involvement in her maintenance sessions or whether or not it just makes them think, you know, I didn't try that before. Maybe, maybe I should try this one now. Because everybody's learning, I'm learning on the journey as much as everybody else is I'm still finding different choices that I can use, I'm still trying out different products, and I'm finding which ones work best for me. So I think it's I'm hoping anyway that our boxes are educating, inspiring and giving a little glimmer of something nice in amongst our busy lives really.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:26 You know, it starts with a spark, right? That's, that's what everyone really says. And when you light that fire, it ripples and ripples after a while, it's similar to me starting this journey where ideas launch as a podcast, when I started it, my aim was to sort of influence my friends, if I'm being honest, like I come from a big corporate background, and you know, all of my friends work in companies who actually have the power to make change, but probably aren't necessarily as passionate about the change. And I wanted to sort of nudge them, right that was my idea behind the podcast to kind of nudge them, let them see that there's, there's possibility not just from a technical standpoint, in terms of, you know, what the great thinkers are doing, and from a business perspective, as well, but also small entrepreneurs, small businesses, people who are just fed up and deciding to do something about it like yourselves, and I think that I didn't know it immediately, because, you know, the initial feedback was great, but then it was like, oh, maybe people aren't listening as much. It's not as big as other podcasts. But today is like, even though it's still a very niche podcast, you know, I have such good feedback, like, the quality of the feedback is just improved and improved. People are really excited to hear these stories, and you know, they really engage in what I'm doing. And it doesn't matter what level they are right from, from the CEOs, to someone who is, you know, just picking up a business for the first time, everyone's excited about what the story and the message is. So I think, definitely, you have to keep going. You have to keep going. And you have to find more ways to collaborate and interact with as many business owners and people as possible. So I'm going to switch to another question now. And there are many who like to challenge the idea of the Sustainable straw and the sustainable toothbrush. So let's explore this a little bit. So I've seen the documentaries of you know, the straws, and in a turtles, turtles throat and you know, getting stuck, etc. Yet, we know that straws aren't the biggest problem in the ocean, right? Like, the actual biggest problem in the ocean is probably the fishing nets. If we really think about it like that, even though the way that we fish the way that commercial fishing is done. Or if we look at things like the toothbrush, typically, we still got plastic in the bristles, right? There's still nothing that we can yet do about that. So what are your thoughts about putting these products together and transitioning to sustainable products? Even knowing that, you know, it's not, it's not fully there, what are your thoughts on that?
Sam Pitman 23:09 I have two views it's like do the stuff that's really easy, that's not going to stress you out and overwhelm you. But also, as you don't stress about all the little things just do something really useful.
Katherine Ann Byam 23:19 Yeah, you know, I see it in two ways as well, I see that making these small changes is symbolic as well. So this is one of the things one of the reasons I'm excited about Marie's box it's like, this is a symbolic, I am making a shift. And every time I go to the bathroom, and I see this wooden toothbrush, or I see my soap dish that's now you know, there when it's little loofa to absorb some of the soap droppings, so that I can reuse that soap that drops off the soap bar, you know, every time you see these things, it's a reminder of what I've committed to, and having them as things that you deal with every day reminds you of that commitment every day. So it's not just about the item itself. It's about what the item represents. I don't know if you share that, Marie?
Marie Lockwood 24:06 Yeah, absolutely. And in my sort of opinion, I think that all change efforts are positive change it's better than no change at all. As I said before, I'm also a teacher. So through education wise, we are really keen to try to turn that sort of tide on the use of plastic with children that we have in our own classes. So anything that we can actually have an impact with so for example, my class there's 26 children in it and I added up the other day that all 26 children now reuse their water bottles that they used to bring in plastic bottles to school. And over the last couple of years we've sort of tried our best to change the opinions on that through education and allowing them really to find the facts themselves. So 26 children now bring a reusable bottle to my class. And when I added that up, that is something like 5122 plastic bottles saved by my one class in a year. Now times that by all the classes in the school and all the schools in the country is huge, absolutely massive. So, in my opinion, one small change, as long as it's a change for the good is better than nothing. And I think I always like to go back, there's a quote that says I am only one said 7 billion people, I love that. And I think that is absolutely spot on hits the nail on the head.
Sam Pitman 25:42 I think what I like about that Marie is that you've not just inspired like one person, though, you've inspired all that whole class, and I'm guessing your whole school, and all of those families. And that's almost where it's bigger, isn't it, because you can start with one thing. That's what I was saying earlier. Like, if I just do that, but never talk about it, I'm not going to have a huge impact. But when one person does it times, you're whole school. And then that those children have inspired all of their parents and all those families, it ends up having this bigger effect.
Marie Lockwood 26:11 Yeah, and children are sometimes the best people to pressure parents, because they nag at you, and they tell you why you should change it. And they're very honest. And they show you the facts and the figures, and they make you feel a bit guilty. So you tend to want to change. So at the minute, as well as my own class, which they are really on board with everything. I've also got another school, further down the country who's also starting out on a plastic free schools journey. So we're going to do a little bit of collaboration, hopefully, so it will spread. And that's the bigger picture that will join the plastic free schools programme. And we'll try and get our message out across as many people as possible.
Sam Pitman 26:59 But I almost think, for most people, that's almost the obvious starting point, isn't it, of like to get them on board is actually making those simple steps because they are easy, and like the subscription kit, you're gonna have like, it's just easy, there's almost another reason to do it. Because you're taking all the pressure off. And it's easy to do that.
Katherine Ann Byam 27:17 That's awesome. I want to switch now to sort of regulation. So I'm going to tell a story before I comment on this regulatory change. So I've been in London last couple of weeks, cat sitting for a friend of mine, and in an area where you know, the families are well off. So at the schools in the neighbourhood, all the cars that were pulling up were Tesla's. Now, one of the reasons I think that is, is that, you know, London has recently introduced this ultra low emission zone, so you have this additional charge, you still have the congestion tax. So there's loads of charges now for having a car for driving around in a car. And that has prompted a wide scale change and switch to electric cars. So this is why a lot of the mums in this neighbourhood are now driving these electric cars. Now, there's a lot of debates. And you know, I have a friend who's been on this podcast, who really talks about the sustainable mobility transition. And we can argue that, you know, maybe they don't need a car, they can just walk with their kids, perhaps that would have been a better switch. But knowing that people have these hard encoded habits, then perhaps electric vehicles are a nice interim shift, and regulation that supports that preserves the economy, and also promotes, the better behaviours for the planet. Now, we know that the UN has recently reviewed its Environment Programme, and recently passed a resolution to deal with plastics throughout its lifecycle, so forcing companies to sort of deal with their plastic throughout the life of the product. How do you see this impacting how business is done today?
Marie Lockwood 29:07 I think that it's a really good thing that's happened, actually, I think that it's gonna make a lot more businesses accountable, and a lot more transparent. Because at the end of the day, we'll reach a point in this time, where it's actually at crisis level, it's, gone beyond what is ever going to be acceptable. And if something doesn't happen now, then there's gonna be a disaster, that's looming ahead of us, really. I mean, I was looking at facts and figures just a few days ago. And even though I knew how bad the plastic production is for our planet, when you actually look into the facts and figures of it, it's absolutely astounding. And the more worrying thing is the forecast and their predictions for what it might become. So for example, I think it was 400 million tonnes of plastic produced at the minute but its potential as to double by 2040 if nothing was to happen, and given that at the minute, we have a huge problem with plastic pollution entering the seas, I think something desperately needed doing. So I think as much as for some businesses, it might be a struggle to make that shift. I think really, in realistic terms, it's the only way forward, because we're heading for disaster otherwise.
Katherine Ann Byam 30:29 And Sam, your views,
Sam Pitman 30:30 One of the things I'm realising is that small businesses especially don't necessarily see how sustainability is relevant to them. If they're not in and they're not selling the toothbrushes or electric cars, it's almost like they can't relate to it. It's not relevant to their business. So I, you know, the more we can do to enforce businesses to do things or follow these policies, I mean, we have to, like Marie said, we, it's kind of we can't be gentle anymore. You know, yes, it is going to have impacts for business. But I almost see as no choice now we have to, these changes have to happen and businesses have to take responsibility for products, you know, the fact that not only 9% of plastic that can be recycled is actually recycled. And that's a crazy figure like that. That's not on, like in theory, like no plastic ever needs to be virgin produce, again, we have enough plastic to make everything. So yeah, I agree that businesses have to start doing more now.
Katherine Ann Byam 31:24 Okay, so I'm gonna move to rapid fire questions to sort of close this out. I'm gonna, alternate between between both of you. And I did not prepare you for this. So I'm gonna with Marie. So my rapid fire question to you is, what's the most transformational sustainability book you've read?
Marie Lockwood 31:48 Oh, my goodness, you really put me on the spot now because my memory is shocking. To be honest, you know, I don't read books are such I read online documents, and probably one of the ones that really hits home to me as one from the United Nations. It's called pollution to solution. And that is full of really good information, facts and figures that support everything that's really behind my business, everything that I strive to try to do, and it really hits home. Why every business needs to change, not just me as a small business, but huge businesses, everybody. You know, it's our responsibility it's everybody's responsibility, because we've all created, we're all we've all created waste. We all do continue to create waste.
Katherine Ann Byam 32:42 And Sam moving to you. What's your favourite documentary? And why?
Sam Pitman 32:46 Oh documentary? Ah, the one that sticks in my mind the most? I've probably watched in the last month is SeaSpiracy. I mean, it was a bit controversial when there was criticisms after it came out, but you know, there's gonna be there's always somebody's gonna say something negative about these shocking facts, I've never actually eaten fish, because I have some kind of random phobia, thing. But if I did, I would never have been able to eat fish again, after watching that. And I like, Katherine, you said something only about actually, the biggest pollution in the sea is actually not the plastic straws. It's the fishing nets. And actually, the devastation from fishing nets I never knew. And that was a real, real eye opener.
Marie Lockwood 33:29 I actually cried after watching that it was horrible, in a really shocking way, but one that I needed to listen to.
Sam Pitman 33:36 Yeah, exactly.
Katherine Ann Byam 33:38 Marie, what's your greatest lesson? In this whole journey?
Marie Lockwood 33:43 My greatest lesson is probably to not strive for perfection. But to know that actually doing something is better than doing nothing and knowing that what I am doing is as good as I can do at this moment in time. And that is, okay. It's, you don't need to be perfect. You know, we all have our flaws. But we're all trying to learn as we go, and we do what we can.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:11 And Sam what's your biggest dream?
Sam Pitman 34:14 My biggest dream? Oh, wow. Well, obviously, just to reverse climate change completely. Obviously, my dream would be if we could keep under this 1.5 degree. You know, heat rise would be amazing. But if I looked at more personal journeys, my role would be about actually feeling like I actually am making a big impact in within Essex and beyond, which is a subjective goal, which I don't know if I can ever achieve. They can't measure it. But yeah, my dream is to have real real impact in Essex to make differences to individuals and businesses to be more sustainable.
Katherine Ann Byam 34:54 Wonderful, ladies, tell my listeners how they can connect with you. Let's start with Marie.
Marie Lockwood 34:59 So you can find me on Instagram under rebyl vybes or via Facebook. Or you can alternatively you can go on and have a look at my website, www dot rebyl vybes.co.uk
Katherine Ann Byam 35:13 And that's vy BS vibes.
Marie Lockwood 35:16 It is it's slightly different, so it's R E B Y L V Y B E S, we had to be very careful when we were looking into trademarks.
Sam Pitman 35:25 And you just wanted to be a rebel and spell rebel, wrong?
Marie Lockwood 35:27 We just wanted exactly that.
Sam Pitman 35:32 Yep, so, yep, Facebook, Instagram. Eco Essex.
Katherine Ann Byam 35:38 Wonderful. Thank you, ladies so much for coming on the show. I know it's late at night. We had to get the kids to bed before before we did this. Thanks so much for spending the time with me. Thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thank you.
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067 Systemic and Sustainable Mobility
About this Episode
Today, my guest is Tillman Vahle. Before Joining SYSTEMIQ, Tilmann worked with EY sustainability consulting and auditing - working for several globally leading corporations, smaller companies, and the German Government to support better transparency and trust in sustainability reporting.
Previously he worked at Volkswagen Corporate Foresight, where he developed a Master Thesis on autonomous mobility for his masters degree. He also had experiences with German Development Association GIZ supporting a review of national parks Management of the Philippines and the DESERTEC Foundation. He holds degrees with distinction from University College Maastricht and IIIEE, Lund University.
So tell us a little bit about systemic and what you guys are doing to help us redesign and decarbonize?
Tilmann Vahle 1:38
Yeah, so systemic was founded five years ago, after the Paris Accords, by the then leaders of the sustainability branch of McKinsey, Germany opened home and Martin stata and the original mission and still is, it's really to double down on environmental sustainability. And basically across the board, right, so we look really at high impact stuff. And across natural systems, the rain forest regeneration, for example, on materials management of the circular economy, through plastics, recycling, on our sustainable battery value chains, in the mobility system, and in the energy system as well, where we run especially work on harder to bed sectors.
So that is, you know, the foundational industries of our economy like chemicals, steel, concrete, aviation, shipping, the stuff that is very hard to decarbonize and more sustainable. And that's what systemics mission is, we work globally, we were now 300 peoples, and since we started 2015 16, and we work with, you know, governments, top corporates, innovators, banks, and you know, large organisations like the WWF, or the World Economic Forum to make that happen. Yeah, and that's, that's what we do.
We try to take assistance angles, not only advising one company, but we, when we advise work with companies, we want to look at how they can be part of a better future system? So the system is our client, if you will, and then we run a lot of consultant analytics to underpin these consults. Yeah. And then that is what where we think we are USP lies where you're putting the right players and the right brands together to really put the accelerate the decarbonisation fundamentally,
Katherine Ann Byam 3:25
How did you come to work in sustainability? And was it always in your role since you started working?
Tilmann Vahle 3:30
Yeah, so I mean, ever since starting studies, basically, I had the goal to look at the largest challenge, large challenges of our time and decarbonisation are climate, climate change and the loss of biodiversity they appear to me like the big existential crisis of humanity. And so, you know, with all the modesty of the young student went right into that.
And the way that I that what caught my attention in the beginning, and what brought me on my path that I'm on now is, I read an amazing book by the founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which is called Natural Capitalism, which is all about, if you look at systems from a fundamental angle, I could go back to the physical principles go back to like a proper, deep dive refurbishment of the system. And you can make dramatic improvements with actual cost savings.
You know, when I started there was this belief that sustainability is always more expensive, right? It's a trade off between our wealth to our well being. And that book basically just says, now that's just not true, right? If you do it right, actually, things improved dramatically in all directions, including for economics and for social welfare. And the more I'm in this space, the more you know, we find it's true, right?
Like nowadays, electric cars are cheaper over their lifetime and conventional renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels in almost every place in the world. And so, this is what kind of excites me and which has brought me along over the years. It's like, well, the decade now. And yeah, so it was always in sustainability that I worked. And I think it's a great, great path now, right, and a great journey, because it's really accelerating all around, but you start looking.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:16
Yeah, I don't know, if it's accelerating, you know, but it is definitely several years you worked with EY in sustainability, you know, what a thing.
What is the role of reporting to improve the whole corporate sustainability performance in your view?
Tilmann Vahle 5:31
And so it was kind of two sided. For one, I think it's important to, you know, it kept coming back to this adage, that you what you can't measure you can't manage. I mean, that's the foundation that, of course, you need data, you need the transparency about what happens in industry, what happens in companies actions. And so corporate reporting on ESG topics is super important, like reporting on their financial matters is super important. So like, you know, you can invest into them and have transparency in and can make investment decisions the same for all sustainability topics.
And equally, like the data that you see, or the info that you get from corporates, in the sustainability reports, for example, they, we need to be looking out carefully for what's audited, and what is driving, I think that's, for me, the key takeaway from my time at EY auditing is so crucial. So you can trust the data that you get, right. At the same time, the ESG reports, you know, they have they came from ESG papers from a marketing. And so they aren't a reflection of the strategy of the company, right? So we need to also like, be careful on how to interpret them, and exactly is what you read is what you get.
But it doesn't change the impact of the company fundamentally, right? So there's a limit to what you get out of it. And it doesn't reflect the relative size of the impact to the problem, right? Like, if X amount of co2 is emitted by a company, what does that mean? It doesn't give you a rating, like a framing of it. And so what you need to do is using the data you need to go read and requesting the strategies and the business models fundamentally, like an oil company can never be fully sustainable, like, inherently. And so going back and going to the fundamentals goes way beyond reporting.
And that's where I'm so excited to work at systemic where, you know, we use reporting, but we go through and beyond it, to help these companies improve more and more fundamentally.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:31
So you also worked for Volkswagen, can you share your thoughts and how that company has recovered from the diesel scandal and how it performs now, in terms of facing climate targets?
Tilmann Vahle 7:43
Yeah, when I was at Fox learn, and it was in 2012, and 14 for say, one and a half years or so it was an interesting timing, because it was around the time of the IPO of Tesla. And back in the day, when I talked about Tesla and electric mobility, even with a relatively senior management, it was all Miami, they refurbish these, you know, small convertibles, but know that you could never scale.
This is not for volume, you know, who cares, basically. And I mean, of course, many people had realised that it's fundamentally luminous to where to go, but they didn't see a path for volume manufacture for autos, to actually go there. And so this has changed. So fundamentally, and so the diesel crisis in 2015, I think, was a catalytic event in a way, right, because for one focus on was was sentence in the US, for example, to invest heavily into electric charging infrastructure, which is now coming back as a boon to them, where they're rolling out electric cars, right, because now there's charges where you can actually use them. And so, for one, I think it's helped tilt the perspective and also, of course, unveil the corruption that had happened.
Yeah. And I mean, I'm, I don't want to talk more about that. I mean, it's all in the press and all that. But what's the fact is that folks that are in right now are the largest investor in electric mobility globally. It's like, I think half or something of all the investments that go it's like way beyond 100 billion euros that invest in electric and smart mobility. And so that's a huge, huge drive. And so after Tesla, they're probably runner up in that transition, and of course, being this huge, huge corporation, they have a huge leverage, also, right.
And so they're that strategy, I think right now is probably the most ambitious in the entire Old automotive industry, which is very plausible. It's going to be a hard one, but I think it's quite amazing what they do, and they have a very good comprehensive view. And so it's, it's good to see that, you know, even large incumbent companies can turn around and become really frontrunners in these kinds of talks.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:52
Yeah, no, that's a positive story and I think I had not realised how big they were in that space at this moment. So thank you for sharing that. Sustainability by nature is complex. And there are many angles to examine before we can read something as sustainable. And for example, there has been a report showing that shared Micro Mobility solutions are not nearly as sustainable as we think. So can you share why that is? And what can we do?
Tilmann Vahle 10:19
Yeah, that is a tricky topic, right? I mean, on the one hand, I'm, I'm all for moving away from like, a pure car based mobility system. I mean, it's quite well known, right? That cars have been, I mean, combustion cars particularly have a terrible environmental footprint, not only in the co2, right, I mean, also just a really, waste of space in a crowded city, right? And you move around like several tonnes of material to generally just move one person on average. And that's it.
I mean, we're gonna always use cars to an extent, right, and so electrifying, and I think that's to start off with, like, moving to electric cars is so so important. It must happen very, very fast. Yeah, they're a lot better and the only decarbonization option really on in the mobility system that we have. So that said, like, for cities, cars aren't really in most cities, not that not really the optimal solution, right. And so how to, to have an alternative is, of course, other modes of transport, like the so-called modal shift, moving away from cars to other modes.
And public transport is something that is very institutional and takes a long time to build, to operate, it also tends to have to be subsidised. And, and so there's always going to be gaps that can't be filled with conventional traditional public transit. And so there is this hope that micro mobility, like the scooters, and scooter, shares, and rentals can fill that gap. And so therefore, help people move away from cars to other modes, yeah, and get around cities without that. And so that's great.
The challenges empirically, that's not really what happens. But these scooters and micro mobility options, they tend to be used by people that don't have a car anyway, and would have taken the tram or something. And so it's not really shifting, yeah, it's just changing from a normal car mode to another mode. And that becomes problematic, because these micro scooters, I mean, they've not been around for variables. And they don't, you know, they're not perfect products. Yeah, so they don't last very long.
And I think one data point that I read from one of the large consultancies was that these kick scooters last on average two to three months. And so that's two months, and then you scrap them. And so you have a few kilometres that you take, and then you scrap them. And so that's a lot of battery materials, a lot of steel that you just like, they don't have a lot of use for a long time. And so all that footprint that you had in production, is just wasted after a very short time.
So that is bad. Secondly, to put them in a city, you know, they offer their suppliers and need to drive around and basically relocate, right, and sometimes you see them with a van coming, picking them up and charging them and putting them back out. And these vans around diesel, and you need quite a lot of these to drive around. And so right now, because they are not electrified, there's actually a massive co2 footprint attached to these just from making the system work. And so it's gonna take a while until they improve and actually become a sustainable quote-unquote, mobility option.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:24
I want to challenge you and something, please. You said that we got to use cars, we have to use guys that have to move to electric cars. But do we really need cars?
Tilmann Vahle 13:37
Very good. depends on the location where you're at. Right? Right now 70% of people in Europe live in cities. If you've tried to look at the definition of a city, it's very tricky, like what constitutes a city? Because it's basically always just a matter of local demarcation. Yeah, like what is the city boundary, there's, there's, like a city can just draw a boundary wherever they want, you know, historically.
And so that could be that, you know, a city contains regions where there's really just, you know, the odd dispersed house somewhere where it's really far distances, where you don't have a Buddhist connection. We don't have a tram, let alone a metro. Were really other options. But individual mobility doesn't work. Yeah. And then of course, if you have to say, I want to live in the city flat and generally bike everywhere, but if I need to go to IKEA, whatever, and buy a bookshelf, you know, I do need a car.
I can't put it on my bike. So there will have to be cars. Of course, we will have citizen urban centres, particularly right now. Our use of cars in the western world is obscene and like providing mobility in other parts of the world, like say, India or capital cities and an African in many African countries would just not be feasible. The amount of people putting them in cars like you would probably grow the city tenfold. So that wouldn't work. So yeah, we can use a lot of fewer cars in many, many locations.
And the great thing is that the EU has just passed a legislative package, where they will ask the top 450 cities in the EU to create sustainable urban mobility plans. So basically plans how they can improve their mobility. So everybody will have to reflect Okay, country, you know, improve road infrastructure, bike infrastructure, trams, and Reno improves the options to move away.
That said, we will still have cars all over the place, ultimately for in the long run. So yeah, electrification is priority number one, because you know, what happens now, but ultimately, it's, you know, think President Obama said, former President Obama is like, you know, isn't all of the above options like, yeah, we need to do everything at the same time. So that's not an either or.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:55
So I interviewed Yanis production IQ earlier in this podcast, and one of the things he was talking about is that the minute you purchase a car, you have already spent, I don't know, roughly two thirds of the carbon outlay, just by purchasing it, because of the resources it takes to make it I know, electric cars will be slightly different, because they probably made in electric factories. So it's a little bit less in terms of the carbon way, but it's still extraction of resources.
And that's still a problem. I guess why I'm pushing this is that it's really about, we should be embracing what's happened with the pandemic, and really encouraging less people going to work, which is already creating big savings and teams. I mean, I've used my car probably, I don't know, 12 times for the year 2021?
I don't know, it's not. Right. And I think that there's a real argument here for us to make our next transition. One that is, you know, really using more public transport, it could include things like Ubers, right, because they're just as efficient or, you know, other providers, it's just as efficient as having your own car, because you get them within two minutes, they take you where you want to go, you potentially have the entire coffee yourself. And it's, it's a solution, that means that the car isn't parked up, you know, just sitting around waiting for you. Right, which is one of the biggest problems that we have. So that's why I'm pushing it. I mean, what are your thoughts?
Tilmann Vahle 17:24
Um, yes, no, I work closely with Ganesh and all behind the analyses and messages of the UN International resource panel, right, like half of global co2 emissions come from extraction and manufacturing of materials, and 90% of the biodiversity impacts, it's like immensely important that we lower our resource consumption, right. Doesn't matter if we decarbonize or not, we need to go down with our consumption.
So yeah, 100% and there's also a great opportunity in reducing our travel through I mean, you know, we're on a what is it zoom call now. And that means that the work world has changed fundamentally and permanently, because three years ago, barely a company was using Zoom, and all these hassles, who was allowed to use what and all that, and that's changed, and it's here for good. And so we don't need to travel quite as much anymore, we won't have to fly to work with clients so much anymore. And I mean, systemic has been operating virtually for, for the pandemic, of course, as so many have, and it's been going great.
We do need more people to contact, right. I mean, mentally, like for mental well being. And that's a huge, huge challenge everybody's having. And so we will have to see each other a little bit more right, again, but of course, it's a good change to travel less.
That said, there's these fun rebounds, like, well, then we're all sitting at home, right? And so basically, in the long run, We'll all meet in another room. Additionally, in our flats we have a home office, right? And then you have kids, maybe and your partner's also working.
So you need larger flats. So how do you do that? And then, like, is it really more sustainable, like generally looking at needing to be somewhere you need to heat your place and you have lighting and eating and I don't know, for myself, my heating bill has gone up by a third, just because I'm so much at home. And so I don't know whether that is in the long run really more sustainable that you know, it's going to have to be analysed. But that said, it's great to have better utilisation of spaces and have officers on our vehicles and we definitely need to go there.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:32
Yeah, I mean, I mean, what we can do is instead of working wherever your offices you go down to the neighbourhood office that's now weekend and you use that as a co-working space but I'm gonna let you off the hook on this one I know a lot more analysis than we have time to do on this podcast but
Tilmann Vahle 19:48
but I love by that point let me just jump in what I love that idea Katherine like the decentralised you know, co working spaces. And we have a bunch of colleagues that do this. You know that that works in And then permanently and you know, we just meet occasionally. It's great to decentralise it that way. Yeah, very good.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:05
It's a great solution that I think we need to be thinking more broadly about. But as you say, You guys are the ones doing the analytics. So looking forward to hearing your summaries, what are the current projects you're working on? And what impact are they likely to have on decarbonisation? This year? 2022?
Tilmann Vahle 20:22
Yeah, so one of the large ones that we are currently developing and that will go live in April, hopefully, is the battery passport. That's something that the EU has put in regulation. Last year, that every battery every large battery, so not the, you know, the mobile phone batteries, but like stop storage batteries and car batteries that come onto the market starting 2026 We'll have to have a better passport, basically a little database, and that you could access online, that tells you that so the consumer but also b2b manufacturers and to government, what's the co2 footprint?
Where's the material from? So if there is critical cobalt in it, for example, what share of it is recycled? what chemicals are in there, so you can recycle them better? What's the state of health of the battery? So you can use it for a second life application, for example, after it's not good enough for the car anymore? So very important information for both business and sustainability. And the thing is, it doesn't exist yet. And so the question is, which data in what form? How do you get it there?
So there's a lot of questions that still need to be debated by industry and politics, technically, but also content wise. And so we've put together a consortium of like a dozen leading automotive companies, material companies and science institutes with the Fraunhofer Institute like top researchers, and the World Economic Forum to answer some of these questions and contribute to that.
That's one of the big projects that we're starting. But we're also working with an economic forum on a study on circular economy policy between the EU and China. That's going to come up mid-year and hopefully start a great discussion. And working with a bunch of corporates also on Yeah, taking their perspective on living in that future urban mobility world and improving the full lifecycle impact.
So it's going to be a very, very, very exciting year and wait, yeah, we're growing very fast. We're doubling our team this year. So looking forward to applications as well, we're looking for colleagues.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:20
Right. I'm going to talk to you about that as soon as we finish this. So what are your thoughts on how the battery materials and rare crisis can be resolved? Because I think that this is the growing concern.
Tilmann Vahle 22:33
Yeah. No, and thanks for pointing that out. Right. Because it is definitely and to be honest, it's a matter that isn't only relevant to electric cars but to the whole decarbonisation well pathway overall, right. I mean, if you move from coal power plants to distributed solar, for example, we need a lot more IT infrastructure, a lot more electric motors and a lot more chips everywhere.
And so that's where the wires come in. Right? And just for the foundations that it's often misconceived that electric cars have reversed and the batteries have reversed and it's not really the case like rare earth are in electronics and in electric motors. Yeah. And so they're, like in very small amounts, you have them in very crucial batteries. You have cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese sometimes depending on the chemistry. And none of these is rare. So like also chemically part of the rare earth group but they're also not chemically rare.
The challenge is that they have sustainability issues. And they're not there's not enough around right now. No, cobalt, infamously comes a lot from Congo and child lemons human rights concerns, lithium comes partly from southern America with concerns about water use. And nickel is really expanding. For example, in Indonesia, where there are some impacts on or dramatic impacts on rainforest and oceans. And so that needs to be fixed.
Thing is, right now we like what we're looking at right now. The batteries right now. They're basically what engines were, like 80 90 100 years ago. Yeah, so very primitive, if you will, and right now the innovation is oh, so fast that every like three months, there's new announcements of new chemicals, new new ways of manufacturing, and that we need less and less material to get the same performance.
And, they're getting less and less harmful. And so for example, Tesla's announced that for the big things like the module, model, three, the volume model, they're moving to lithium iron phosphate batteries altogether. And that's important because we talk about cobalt and nickel as the key problem materials. Well, you know, Tesla's already moving away from them, half of the batteries in the cars in China this year already, like 2021.
We already have lithium iron phosphate batteries that don't have any cobalt and nickel in them. So that's a challenge that is real, but it's also that for one limited cost, and for another, not going to be a problem for cars, predominantly in the long run. Yeah, and so it shouldn't be something that blocks this innovation. It's something that we should manage as well as we can. But in the medium term, you know, clean that up and limit and recycle everything that we have. But it's not a fundamental challenge to electrifying cars. So that's very important to keep in mind.
Katherine Ann Byam 25:19
For someone interested in a career in sustainability, what advice would you give them?
Tilmann Vahle 25:23
That is a great question. And to be honest, as I've looked back many times, I am now looking forward. Also, what could I do? What can I do? What can I apply myself to, but the thing is, at least since 2018, with the new IPCC report on the 1.5 degree goal, I think everybody's realised that climate change is real, it's happening, we need to act super fast. I also mentioned, technology has changed so much, like you know, solar is now cheaper than fossil electric cars basically, in two, three years time.
If you can't buy an electric car, that's your problem. But you want to buy one right this way here. So now it's shifted right? In the past, it was a lot about convincing people that we need to act, then it was a lot about okay, convincing people that it's possible to act now. It's really a question of okay, getting it done. And so if you want to move into sustainability, well, yeah, definitely educate, take a systems perspective, and you know, ask twice, like, what rebound effects? What's the complex value chain behind things? And who really has the power to change the system?
Fundamentally, is it me eating a little bit less meat, or, or using a bit less plastic bags? Or is it really, you know, the heating system where I don't have an impact on - Half of our emissions are basically from heating and lighting our homes. So whether you use a plastic bag or not, in the grand scheme of things, is really not important. Sorry to say. So I like learning to look through what are really the big challenges.
And then actually, you know, learn the skills that you need to grow businesses to legislate to contact and reach out to people to communicate, like basically business skills, normal still like to change stuff. You need to have the skills to change stuff not to be smart on sustainability. So I think that that's changed. Yeah. And so going to strategic consultancy, to bank to invest into politics, that's all opportunities to make a change, wherever in which whatever position you are.
Katherine Ann Byam 27:26
And that's great. How can my listeners get involved and support your work as well as possibly join systemic?
Tilmann Vahle 27:33
Yeah, I mean, we're, our goal this year is to grow by 50%, from 300 to over 400. And in all our locations, that's London, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Jakarta, Jo Paulo, Paris. So yeah, please do apply, reach out, I mean, through LinkedIn, right, we are easy to find. I'm looking at our website, I think people will find a lot of interesting projects. So that's systemic dot earth and have a look there.
Katherine Ann Byam 28:06
Perfect. Thank you so much for joining the show today.
066 Making A Design Statement
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.
Really great to have you. We share a bit of an origin story, both our parents were born in Trinidad and Tobago, can you share a little bit about how your Caribbean roots potentially influenced your worldview on inclusion and equality and all of these things that you've all there?
Karen Adams 1:50
Sure. And I always am thrilled to meet someone from the land, you know, where my parents grew up from Trinidad and Tobago, and where I'm from the Trinidad and Tobago was very much alive to me, because my parents spoke about the place and the smell and the fruits and it felt like home even though I hadn't been there until I was about I think 10 years old. So we both spring from Trinidad and Tobago, and I do marvel that our experiences will be so different in that you lived in the majority, ethnically speaking. And I've always lived in the minority. So I always am, I always wonder about how that would have impacted my resilience and the many wounds that you inevitably acquire growing up in a sort of systemically racist environment for the most part, not always, and not in every way. But it's definitely there. And you definitely had to fend it off for your whole life. So I always marvel at what it might be like to be free from that. And at the same time you develop your own resilience. So as being a Brit, you do, you have to develop your own resilience and your identity and your ways of thriving in the world. But I love Trinidad and Tobago so much. I mean, I've been there, I've been there several times, it's home from home now. And you know, having this I've always regarded myself as dual heritage, or even try heritage because most of my mom's siblings went to the States. And so I have a very early experience of visiting there. And it's really served to increase my resilience, it's almost like I have additional vantage points that most of my peers just didn't have. So I was able to view the world through many lenses and angles. And that's only been a power to me.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:35
It's interesting what you say, because I think, you know, we can talk about this origin story and how, how people from the Caribbean who then move here in later life, how they experienced the difference because it's definitely different, it's definitely different being in a place where you're expected to grow and to thrive. In other places where that's not the norm, what you're doing has examples. So you don't have enough examples of strong black women, for example, being very successful in their careers. Where I come from there are loads of examples of that, even though, you know, I can't say that the Caribbean is well advanced in terms of equality between men and women. But definitely the matriarch of the family is a strong character in the Caribbean story. So having that has been, I think, tremendous for me, but you're right, I only noticed how powerful that was when I left that environment and saw something different. So it does have an impact. And it's almost like you have to learn again. From my perspective, I have to learn how to navigate this sort of web because it's not something that I'm used to. It's definitely been a learning curve for me as well. What were the pros and cons of your experiences working in retail if we move back into the retail setting and how that has influenced today,
Karen Adams 4:56
I'll start with the pros because there were many, many pros, I had come out of fashion, I attended a course this is how it began, I attended a course. And the title, of course, was start your own fashion business. It just shows where I was heading and what I wanted to do. And on that course, this guy was brilliant. He talked about the different facets and career options within the industry. And he spoke about merchandising, he described its function at the analysis and intricacies of the role. And he said it was a lucrative career. And so the light bulb went off, I thought it was fairly low risk to entry and lucrative. I'll go that way.
Because I by then I had tried to, you know, to spin up my first startup at 19, realised the costs were quite prohibitive, really, because then back in the day, you there was no internet, you had to either have a shop or sell offline, you know, to your friends, more sort of small groups as I did. So, you know, I found my inner geek. So there's many of me, I've got many sides to me, I've got the designer who loves to create and express myself through clothing, and I love to design, I love analytics. And I'm always analysing I see patterns in things on very limited datasets. And I feel very intuitive about forecasting. And my forecast will always really bang on. And I just had an instinct for them, which hasn't left.
So I kind of walked into another side of me that woke up and I loved my career. I love the pressure. I love the pace, I love the power of it. I love the fact that it was lucrative, and I was able to, you know, buy property several times over move, and you know, travel. But I loved using my mind in that way, it was really mentally challenging and very difficult work. And I loved it. So these were all positives. And this really helped my sense of self to flourish. And I found another side of me that was highly disciplined and high performing.
On the negative side, there are people who will hate you for being great at your job. And then they always tended to fall amongst my peers, people on my sort of ranking your organisation. So senior management, you look across horizontally, they're the ones who are threatened. And that's where the danger lies. So I had a couple of bullying episodes, I'm in life bound to my full resilience and my fight back. I just didn't know how to do that. My parents were quite strict, and they took away the ability for me to say no, and to protest loudly, which didn't serve me well, I have to say. So I was a little bit vulnerable, I guess, to the sort of toxic people you can find in the workplace. But that's not to say I mean, I still walked with confidence and effectiveness and so on. So it was more than my inner world, you know, I felt vulnerable in some senses, I kind of grew tired of it, after 11 years of adding millions to the bottom line of Big Blue Chip corporations, many of which have now sunk into that big black hole in the high street during the pandemic. But anyway, I grew tired of adding millions to their bottom lines. And I wanted to do something more purposeful. So I kind of had a spiritual awakening. And I wanted to do something for the good of humanity, not just adding dollars to big companies,
Karen Adams 8:17
I do think it brought about your spiritual awakening. So a number of things happened in my personal life, involving racism involving toxic people that I should have been able to trust. I'm a very sensitive person. So I can't just brush off betrayal or treachery, it wounds me, deep down. And so that was something I needed to fix internally, or, you know, to improve my resilience. Although I'm still sensitive, frankly, things still upset me. So I have to guard against what I let into me. I began a search to find out why life hurts so much and why people are so unpleasant. You know, I was just so curious. And so upset by it. I just went on a quest to find out a little bit more. So I left and took a psychology degree, I ended up working with vulnerable adults with severe learning disability and epilepsy. And it was the most epic journey of my life, finding the wonder in different brain types, finding the love there, and the personality that was just the most amazing adventure.
So I entered for a short time, the world of child protection and social work, which I also loved. So there's so many, there's so many. There's so many of me here. And I guess I'm trying to visit them all because I can you can't I can't deny the musician in me or the care in me or the psychologist in me or the you know, analysts to me, or the engineering me I can't sort of deny all of those and just do one thing because I've left everything on tap. The road was longer and more windy than I ever imagined. I thought a couple of stops now kind of resume getting back into the system. And just you know, but it didn't, it didn't go like that and I guess my current venture is part of that journey.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:57
It's incredible. Your story I want to ask you, how are you now addressing the sort of experiences and concerns that you've had, or the challenges that you've had in the ethos of what is Kaia clothing?
Karen Adams 10:11
Right. So I describe clothing as my phoenix rising it, you know, this is the culmination, this is where I stop in life and gather up all of me. And Kira clothing embodies all of those counts, all of those passions, all of those heart desires, all of her spirit, you know, that's all in there. And I designed it, I reached a point. So after the child protection, social work episode, I started my family. I had my son, he had very high needs as a child, I had a really nice job, assessing families, and because of his high needs, they wouldn't give me the flexibility I needed. So they said, you either come back full time, or you don't come back. So they took my job. And that's when I returned to entrepreneurship, full throttle, because I had to work on my own terms. So that's where my entrepreneurial journey began, it wouldn't have now of course, because we know that work from home can work. But then there was this notion that Alicia chained to someone else's desk, you couldn't effectively work. So. So having taken this entrepreneurial route, I decided that all of my desires for the world to make it better, to try and bring some love and fairness and justice into the entrepreneurial endeavour. This is embodied in Kaia clothing. So what that looks like is, for example, that I sought to become a B Corp, which originally the name was benefit corporation, it's a for-profit business, that it's designed and incorporated to do good in the world and have a positive impact. And part of my business model is that with every sale, a proportion is donated to a domestic abuse charity. And I've recently partnered with the British Heart Foundation to introduce circularity and also give to them. And of course, running a business involves all of the career skills that I've acquired, nothing is wasted. It's a zero waste endeavour,
Katherine Ann Byam 12:06
Who does Kaia Clothing target and why?
Karen Adams 12:10
You know, I've thought long and hard about this. And in corporate retail, especially, you clearly define your target customer, she has a name, she has a profession and an address right down to the tee, and you target her at the exclusion of all others. I'm adopting a different philosophy with chi clothing, because ultimately, the target audience is anyone who cares about the planet.
But in addition to that, it's targeted at people who use clothing to express themselves. So you know, I think we all do that to an extent, you know, we dress to say something, but some people talk, you know, through their clothes more than others. And they use texture and colour and style and cut and all these things to tell a story is storytelling in the way that a dancer or a musician will tell a story through their performance. For some clothing is a performance and you're, you're communicating who you are. So it's for people like that, who love clothes, but don't want to indulge in the damage, but want something a little bit different and expressive.
Katherine Ann Byam 13:09
How are you measuring and managing your footprint and circular model as a clothing brand for people who are purchasing from you?
Karen Adams 13:18
So I only purchased materials and finished goods and fabrics that are certified that have a traceable origin. Right, right back to the seed in the ground. And that's the only way to be really sure. You know, when I stand in front of people and I say these are sustainable, these will not deplete more than they won't take excessively, that can't be generated. So when I stand in front of people and declare that I need that to be bombproof to be true. So certification is what I look for.
So I use GOT certified fabrics. So my bamboos and cottons I've got certified. They're made by a small cooperative in India that do a lot of hand looming, and they use a lot of rain in the feeding of the cotton as it's growing and so on with low pesticide to no pesticide use. I have bought T-shirts that have the Greens credentials in the industry. So they're made in purpose-built solar powered facilities and they are fair trade and they are organic. So I go for either high credentials to offer the assurance, what I am trying to balance is the additional cost of doing so. Because you know, until I reach scale, you know, it's more expensive to conserve the planet than to trash it, especially with clothing. But this will be true until I hit scale.
So early support is vital so that I can get those economies of scale and bring prices to not cheap, but bring them down. I buy Irish linens that are made by a family run business centre. They come from Belgium where most of the world's fine linen is grown and harvested as their special techniques. Their linen is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful manufacturing story that you know, it grows in three months, it's fed by the elements, you put it up by hand, it's called retting. And you lay all these bundles of linen in the fields, and then the rain and the sun, everything that nature is complete, that process decays the outer skin so that you can get to the inside and the stock comb and thrashing the inner fibres that make linen flax. So I love that. I love that manufacturing process of linens,
Katherine Ann Byam 15:31
this is a really important thing, I really think it's, it's important to understand how fabric is made and how, where it comes from. And I think this is an understanding I didn't have before my interest in sustainability, for sure. So it's really interesting to learn this from you from someone who's a connoisseur, per se, of fabric.
Karen Adams 15:49
I'm reading and you know, watching consuming content all the time to just learn more and more and more especially about manufacturing, and under the chemical side to really understand the full extent of the damage and the choices. I know
Katherine Ann Byam 16:03
that leading a sustainable fashion brand is challenging, definitely, there is no business that is untouched by the movement towards sustainability today, because I would say it is now widely accepted that we need to have more than a profit motive. But it doesn't mean that things are ready yet. So as you talk about, you know, the higher cost of doing business in a sustainable way, this cost is as a result of the fact that negative externalities haven't been factored into the cost of doing business the old way. And as those things begin to be factored in, as we start looking at ways to factor those things in as we build up on things like ESG reporting and looking at wider risks to this the ecosystem, as it were, what sort of challenges you've overcome already, that you want to share and talk about with others who might be on this journey as well.
Karen Adams 17:04
Because sustainability is still fringe, I would class it as fringe. And the reason I'd class is that it is free. And just because you have to search hard to find sustainable materials that stand up to scrutiny, you know, I have to search hard to find the threads, the elastics, the fabrics, the commitment to sustainability, right down the supply chain, I have to seek them out. So it takes a little longer to find your suppliers if I were unscrupulous and what was prepared to sneak in a little less here and little that I'd be able to move more quickly and more cheaply. So it costs to commit to sustainability in time and in money.
So they're the biggest challenges having said that, that this fringe community is growing exponentially. And it's such a warm and lovely place, because people are on a venture to save the planet. And their commitment is just writ large over everything they do. And when you find people where sustainability runs through them, it's just such a lovely place to find yourself really hopeful and optimistic and courageous. And yeah, it's like finding the Warriors.
Katherine Ann Byam 18:21
I agree with that so much. What would you say to other fashion designers interested in making a difference?
Karen Adams 18:30
I would say harness your courage and do it and get on mission, get all in, don't tinker around the edges and don't align with any organisations that aren't fully converted towards sustainability. Just don't dilute your cause. You have to go all in and your network, you have to surround yourself with people who are all in because if you try and hybrid it, it doesn't work actually is what I found to my cost. Because if you network and you harness yourself to people whose values don't reflect your own, there will be a crash at some point in the cost. So I'd say guard against that.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:08
I think that's great advice to be fair. And how can my listeners get involved and engaged and support what you're doing today?
Karen Adams 19:16
Ah, well, if you like what you hear and you want to save the planet, I'd love your support. You can start with a T-shirt, or you can start with a follow up. So my website is Kaia. clothing.co.uk. My Instagram link is on there. So please come say hi on Instagram, that would be great and follow along.
If you want to go further if you want to purchase a Fairtrade organic t-shirt, then please do that. That would be great. I'm trying to get a mass t-shirt conversion going on because it's such a ubiquitous garment that we all wear. So if you just swapped one of their T-shirts for a wind powered Fairtrade organic one, we could sell my mission for 2020 20 days. Two is to stop one tonne of co2 emissions. So if you want to join me on that quest, buy a t- shirt. And let's, let's, you know, let's get that counter moving so that we can stop a tonne of co2.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:11
Thank you so much, Karen, for coming on to the show. Really enjoyed the session. I think there's loads of great advice. I think of strong black women who are courageous and brave what it takes to be sustainable. You are an absolute beacon of light. So thank you for helping us to see always thank
Karen Adams 20:30
you so much. It's been great. Thank you for having me.
065 Green Cloud Nine
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.
It's such a pleasure to have you on Where Ideas Launch, you are one of my best friends in the sustainability space. And it's such a pleasure for me to host you. So welcome.
Lola Fernandez 1:29
Thank you. Thank you very much, Katherine, it's my pleasure to be here. Because as you know, I'm a great fan of your work.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:36
Thank you so much. And I wanted to start off with where you grew up. And, you know, I know there's, there's a bit of a story there. But how did that sort of impact your activism work? And how did that influence who you are today?
Lola Fernandez 1:49
Yeah, well, I grew up in Spain, and pretty much between the South and the North, my family came from the south by the sea. And then because of work, we move up to the north, very close to the Pyrenees, to the mountains. So I have always had a very close relationship with nature, I love both the sea, I love the mountains, I love animals, I, I started developing that passion as well as, as a Girl Scout. Very, very early in my life.
And basically as I was growing up, I started learning as well about the damage and the things that we were doing to our environment. And for me, it was very shocking, to see that sometimes trying to spend some time by a river where we were having picnics as a family, we couldn't do that anymore, because they have the streaming. So it started causing me anxiety.
So I started trying to learn a little bit more. And somehow inside of me, something reacted. So I couldn't just stay put. And I think when I was 13, or 14 is when I had very clear that I needed to do something, and that something started with very little changes at home. And it slowly grew a little bit bigger, and I started joining organisations, I started going to demonstrations, etc.
Katherine Ann Byam 3:12
That's amazing. So you have worked in, I think it's four important spaces, NGOs, big corporate sustainable ventures as well, which is within the big corporate space. And now as an intrapreneur, can you possibly reflect on what were the sort of lessons you took from each of those phases? to sort of give you the grounding you have now?
Lola Fernandez 3:34
Yeah, well, I think from every area, I have picked different things, probably from NGOs, what I learned was more about values, things like integrity and the passion to do something that you believe in. But the thing there were also the important things like commitment and engagement, because normally we join NGO NGOs out of conviction, but you need to keep that mission and that passion alive and for that you need to keep the feet on the ground, it is very easy to get lost in idealistic principles, but you really want to achieve change, you need to roll up your sleeves and work right. So I think that being realistic has been very important there. I mean, from the big corporate time, I mean, nearly 25 years there I have taken so many lessons.
And of course, many of them have been on the business side like learning to project manage, learning business development, how to how important is to focus on customers, but they think a very important part of the learnings has been on the leadership side. I mean, they all around leadership skills, like how to deal with people how to communicate, understanding notions of setting up an organisation. All of that has been very, very useful and Till now.
Now on the intrapreneurship adventure, I would say that the biggest lesson I've learned is humility. Because no matter how much I knew from before, for those 25 years experience, I have realised that there is still much more that I need, I need to learn. So I need to approach everything with a very open mind. And so that that together with greed and determination, I think is what I'm learning the most now from being an intrapreneur.
Katherine Ann Byam 5:30
Yeah, no, these are really powerful lessons. I mean, tell everyone about what Green Cloud Nine is so that they have a perspective before we get into some of the challenges, like just explain the concept.
Lola Fernandez 5:42
Yeah. So basically, Green Cloud Nine is a digital marketplace. And probably the best way that people envision it is Amazon. So it is pretty much like Amazon marketplace where people can find everything that they need, from clothing, up to cosmetics, food, etc. but focus on the niche sustainability. So that's the biggest difference. In our case, only sustainable and ethical brands are going to be allowed in the platform, and to make sure that they are ethical and sustainable. We make them go through an assessment process, and only those who pass the assessment will be able to sell on the platform.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:27
And the assessment process. Is this something created by you guys? Or is it something that you're collaborating with other organisations to do?
Lola Fernandez 6:35
Yeah, so well, we have our sustainability team in green cloud nine. And what we decided to do, I think, in the future, this will probably evolve. But what we decided to do is to create a simplified version of what the big certifying bodies are doing, which is a very expensive and lengthy process. And we have simplified that, keeping the spirit of it but making it very easy. Also, for small companies who cannot afford to spend 3000 euros a year or up to 5000 euros sometimes, on that kind of process, we are giving them the opportunity to demonstrate that they are sustainable with this simplified process that we have developed ourselves.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:21
Okay, and are you getting some sort of approval for your process as well? Is that something that you have in your work so that your process can become a certification as well?
Lola Fernandez 7:30
Exactly. So that's the idea. In the long term we ourselves want to get certified by one of the best renowned certification bodies out there and turn our little process into a certification on its own. Yeah, that we need to learn on what we have created so far, and see how that develops?
Katherine Ann Byam 7:51
Yeah, perfect. No, that sounds really great and exciting. What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced in building? What do you have today in green cloud nine?
Lola Fernandez 8:01
Well, I think there are many, many, but I think that the fact that it is a very complex project, I mean, everybody thinks, oh, yeah, Minnesota is just a marketplace, what can be complex there, but now everything is complex about it. And the fact that we are looking at a European scope, so we want to have sellers, we want to give sustainable sellers overall in Europe, the opportunity to reach more customers. And that adds complexity in terms of languages in terms of legal regulations in terms of taxes. So there is a lot there. Of course the capital, the budget itself. This is a massive project, you are always gonna need a lot of capital right now.
I'm funding everything myself as a single founder. But very soon we are going to be looking at investment. And of course, trying to build a team without a proper budget has also been a big challenge, which I think considering the complexities and the restrictions I'm, I'm solving relatively well. I have right now an amazing team of volunteers from all over the world. And another thing we are doing is setting a better tone. Considering that a year ago, this was just an ad on paper. So it's slowly we are facing our challenges as we are working through them. And of course, now there are some new challenges coming, especially on the funding side.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:38
Yeah, no, definitely. What is it like working with volunteers and tell me about this experience for you? Because I know there are two sides to this experience.
Lola Fernandez 9:48
Sure. Sure. I mean, it is amazing because we have very motivated people so normally all the people that are joining us, they are people they've been Leaving what we do, right is otherwise they would not be working for us for free. And, and they are, they are convinced about our mission and our vision and they're very creative, they are motivated. Yeah, they bring lots of ideas. And because the team is all over the world as well, we are having an amazing diversity, cultural diversity backgrounds.
So that's that, that makes the team very, very dynamic. Of course, on the downside, let's say it's, we are having to manage an already complex organisation also just using volunteers. And that's considering that most of the volunteers are only working part time. There are organisation challenges, time restrictions, sometimes people need to leave the team before the time. And of course there is on the personal side, people that they think that because it's volunteers, it means that they, they don't have to work. So there is always a bit of a challenge there, keeping people engaged and making sure that they understand the commitment behind what you're doing.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:17
And I guess I guess there's also an internal side for you. Because when you have so many people giving their time, giving their creativity, giving their role, you must also feel a sense of deep obligation.
Lola Fernandez 11:29
Yes, it is. It is a lot of work. And as I say, we are even starting to build sub teams. So on one hand is very good as well, because we're IC talent, I'm able to develop that talent and into team leaders. And we do have a lot of talent in the team. But of course it is. Right now we are about 35 people, we have been up to nearly 50 At some point. And to have that coordinated, and it's a lot of time, a lot of engagement, a lot of commitment. So yeah, not so easy to manage.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:12
So tell us a little bit about the intended business model, what's it going to look like? What's it going to feel like if you're a customer, if you're a supplier? Tell us about it.
Lola Fernandez 12:21
Yeah, so if basically, as we said, so we are a digital marketplace. Basically, if you are a sustainable seller, what you can do is to create a little shop on our platform, we are making, we are streamlining the process a lot. So everything can pretty much be done. Online, we are also simplifying lots of the complexities of taxes, for example, I mean, trying to sell the VAT within Europe is a nightmare. And what we are doing is we are coding lots of this stuff in the backend of the platform.
So it is a lot easier for the sellers. And the idea is to have sellers across industries pretty much on every consumer area and products but in the future also services. So we want now for later and also consultancy, marketing etc. And, yeah, so then through the platform, the sellers will be able to reach customers in other countries that they normally operate. So many of the companies that we are approaching are really small, they are usually selling within their country.
And we want to give them the opportunity also to reach customers internationally for now within the EU but later on in other regions as well. And if you're a customer, the experience should be, as we said, very similar. If you're shopping in Amazon, we want customers to save time and to be able to buy with trust and transparency that we don't want them to have to think Oh Are these brands really sustainable. So that's why we are doing the work for them with the assessment right so when you land on our platform as a customer you need to have that peace of mind that what you're buying is sustainable. Yeah. And we want to offer, as we said earlier, pretty much every everyday products that you may want to find such as food, your toothpaste, your cosmetics, clothing, etc. Perfect.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:31
And what's it been like as a woman leading such a big venture? And especially in the tech space?
Lola Fernandez 14:39
Yeah, I mean, it is challenging, I think because first there are not many women intrapreneur out there so we are still facing some challenges on that fence that if you come as a woman with such a big project, they look at you funny, like, Oh, you're sure what you're doing there. And, and you need to start pulling that, look, this is my CV, I have 20 years experience, I have worked in many areas and so that's still a little bit of an issue. But there are also I think there are also benefits, like I'm having the opportunity, being a woman running this, this show, I'm having the opportunity as well to help other women.
And I'm a great believer in empowering everybody, but especially women, because we know our own shortcomings when it comes to step forward and show our potential. So I'm using the opportunity now also to help women, so we actually have the majority of women in our team. And I'm also personally coaching and mentoring several of them that are showing interest in growing personally and developing to see where we can bring them.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:03
So that's really fantastic. I think it's something that's, I think, a big part of the sell for the volunteer right to get that sort of coaching and support.
Lola Fernandez 16:12
Absolutely, absolutely.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:15
And what would you say to someone wanting to begin a sort of green first intrapreneurial journey? What would you recommend?
Lola Fernandez 16:22
Yeah, I would say that the first step would be to look at yourself internally and understand your purpose. Why, why you want to do that, and what is driving you because this is a long and hard path. There are good days, but there are many nightmares, very many dark times and sleepless nights. So you really need to be very convinced why you want to do this. If you want to just do it for money, you can forget it, you need to have something a lot deeper, that that is driving you.
And that's what is gonna keep you that's why they were disconnected, especially when those dark times come that you say no, no, okay? Today has been bad, but they know tomorrow's gonna be better. And you can, you can continue. And apart from that, keep going and don't give up. Many startups fail because they give up too soon. If they continue for two more months or six more months, they could be successful. But mainly they add, they go through frustrating times, and they give up and are too early. So determination and purpose, I think, are two key elements. Perfect.
Katherine Ann Byam 17:35
How can my listeners get involved and support green cloud nine, I love what you're doing. And I'm very keen to you know, shouted from all my platforms.
Lola Fernandez 17:44
Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Yeah, well, so as you know, we're going to be launching very soon. So I guess we would like to invite everyone to visit our website first, to bring cloud nine.com and have a little bit of a better time learning a little bit about what our vision and our mission is. Right now, as we are preparing for the launch, specifically, and specifically regarding sellers, we are looking for a limited number of sustainable companies that want to partner with us.
So we can develop and grow together, because we know how hard it is to find your place, not just in the market in general, but in the sustainability market in particular. So we think that by partnering and helping each other we have much better chances to succeed. So if anybody's running a sustainable business in Europe, Raoul later, we will expand. But please visit our website, sign up for our green pioneer programme. And then we can start talking and see how this can develop. And of course, on the customer side, we would love people also to subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with what's happening when our launches come in. Also, if people would like to spread the word, find us some work connections. That's always very good. And when we launch, of course, to visit our platform and see what kinds of sustainable products they can find there.
Katherine Ann Byam 19:15
Thank you so much for coming to the show for sharing all of this insight and for the exciting project that you're building. I know it can't be easy taking on Amazon. But it's really a pleasure to see that such a platform is happening and it's so purpose driven. So thank you and congratulations.
Lola Fernandez 19:34
Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
064 Share More, Waste Less
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.
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.
061 Alternative Heating
About this Episode
Growing up in Idaho with two business owning parents, Gordon Olson learned the value of hard work early on. He's always been fixated on technology and how people interact with it. And his problem solving nature led him to found Tory industries. Tory offers tankless water heaters through a subscription based model. Their unique service aims to reimagine what as utility through high efficiency technology, and a focus on the circular economy. Gordon is passionate about the water heater industry as it relates to construction, plumbing, and energy production. He's also mindful of the environment and how technology can enable us to live lives of abundance.
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.
059 Communicating For Impact
About this Episode
Melissa Hobson is a communications consultant with a love for nature and the ocean. Melissa is passionate about making a positive difference to our planet and to people's lives. Combining her passion for the ocean with her extensive PR communications and copywriting experience. She helps charities B Corps and mission driven organisations achieve tangible results. Melissa has worked with companies and charities big and small, both in house and agency for around 11 years, helping them achieve their communication goals. And her brand experiences include just giving Go Fund Me, Cancer Research UK British Deaf Association, marine megafauna Foundation, Madagascar, whale shark project, and more recently guide dogs.
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.
055 - Green Finance
About this Episode
Mairead Taylor is an active supporter and advocate of businesses, across the Dorset and Solent area, Having been part of NatWest for over 30 years and working with small, medium and large Businesses for the past 20 years Mairead brings experience, knowledge and has built a strong internal and external network that helps deliver a better customer experience.
She’s an active member of the Bank’s South West Regional Board and Chair of the Regional Sub Board, Sponsor of the SW Gender network, Governor and Chair of the Audit Committee for Eastleigh College, and invests time in learning and developing herself and others.
Thank you very much, Katherine, it's very nice to be here.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:06
Really wonderful to have you. I think I've been in the space of Finance, actually, most of my listeners probably don't know. But I started as an accountant, and I became disillusioned with it and moved out of the field around 2012. But ESG is the first time I've actually gotten excited about the field of finance in general, again, because I think it brings a lot of hope, it presents a new way to look at finance. And I'm really excited to have this conversation because I think green finance is going to be all of the noise very soon, it already is.
Absolutely.
So we are now on the sort of recovery side of the global pandemic. I say that generously because I know that at the end of this month, things are going to go a little bit crazy again, as we see the furloughs disappear, etc. First off, how his banking then permanently changed by the pandemic,
Mairead Taylor 1:55
Banking has definitely been permanently changed. And I would say significantly for the better. What it's bought in is an immense amount of confidence in our ability to be agile. And our ability to be flexible, known from the sometimes myth of people not being able to work from home or work from home effectively, were absolutely blown out of the water to our ability to set something up in days that would normally possibly take 18 months to two years. So a new product or solution, but we had to get money out our door to customers as safely and responsibly as we could. But really quickly, it was really important that money gots businesses to help our clients and their families and their staff. So we were able to do that. We did that by taking teams off projects, we took teams that were doing roles in the back, which were absolutely important. But suddenly, we had to divert an awful lot of staff and upskill them, teach them the new systems, new processes, what we did was transformational.
What was good was we were experiencing that along with all of our clients, because, you know, our clients have very, very similar issues. I mean, yes, we were responsible for providing funding, but you know, our customers were responsible, providing food and you know, all different services. So we were going through it together, we were learning, I think the bank have become much more agile in testing and learning. Things don't have to be perfect
But we needed to get it out there we needed to be able to support our clients. And then as things evolved as the government schemes evolved, and we fed into that, to try and help more clients, our team's had to learn and keep updated on changes all the time. And we did it. And he said in my introduction, I've been in the bank for 30 plus years. And I'm very proud of some of the things we've done. But I don't think I could be more proud of what we achieved in supporting our customers and providing funding that was absolutely critical to them.
Katherine Ann Byam 4:00
Now this is a really important part of the story. I think there's been a toll on everyone. There's been a huge toll on everyone. Everyone's had to pivot to make adjustments from the entrepreneurs to the big corporations as well. And as we look at the comeback now, it's interesting to see how much adjustment people are willing to continue to make as we move into sort of Cop 26. And you know this, this is a sustainability podcast. So we're going to talk about get into the green finance topic. But as we move into cop 26, what do you see as the bank's role in sort of supporting the netzero agenda, first of all, and also looking wider at the Sustainable Development Goals and how banks enable sort of progress to happen across the plane.
Mairead Taylor 4:47
All financial institutions our role is vital. If we don't do this, and if we don't do this right, it could be severely damaging to the world's economy. So us Doing nothing or us doing a bit is just not enough. We have to be leading on this, we have to be providing support. And our biggest mission is supporting our customers to help them transition to a carbon reduced world. And we want to take our client with us. That's absolutely imperative. And therefore, shrinking to those targets is not a sustainable world. So we need to really support customers as they transition, and some customers are way ahead in that. And some customers are still wondering, you know what, what to do and how to do it. But we have to take all our customers, we also have to get our own house in order. And we've made that commitment by 2030, we will have all our financing activity by having the climate impact, sorry, of our financing activity by 2030. So I think that's absolutely key, because that's where we have the biggest responsibility, the biggest challenge, but also the biggest opportunity.
So I think, yeah, really key being part of all the, you know, we've joined a coalition of organisations in the race to net zero, we signed up to the science based target initiatives, there's so many organisations that we've we've been founders of or, you know, at the start of that journey, and I think that is key, because going to the sort of broader SDGs we need to do this in a fair and balanced way. And we need to be supportive, that customers won't be able to get there on day one. So we're actually what that transition journey is, is a key risk for businesses. And that's when we need to be at our most supportive of how we help them to get there. So I think banks have a really vital well, and part of that is through education, education of our colleagues and education with our customers, US learning from them being brave, being courageous, this is transformational for the whole world. No one's been here before. So we will make mistakes, our customers will make mistakes. But actually, it's to bring back that agility.
And that learning fast, it's okay not to get things right. And I think one of the big things is that we won't have all the answers on day one, and all the solutions will keep evolving and changing. But that doesn't mean let's wait until we've got this nice gold plate framework to go through, we actually all need to start doing it now.
And then as we learn, things will evolve more technology will come in more technology changes in the way that consumers want to buy things, our own behaviours, what our own expectations are, how we invest our money, and pensions, all of that will help to make a really systematic change in what our customers expect from us, and what we expect from us as individuals on planet earth really.
So I think that's really important. And I think, you know, from a bank's perspective, we are particularly focused on three Sustainable Development Goals, affordable and clean energy SDG, number seven, climate action number 13, and partnership for goals number 17. But it's really key that we look at all of the SDGs because you could make some short and medium term decisions, but if it's at the cost of some of those other critical SDGs, we're not building a sustainable economy, we're not building a sustainable world, it's not going to address the unfairness and the imbalance that we have. I think, you know, that's really important. And that's why climate sustainability ESG has to be at the core of our strategic thinking, not like this is what we want to do. Okay, now let's put an SDG lens on it, or let's put a climate focus lens on, we can't make those decisions without that being our overall decision tool.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:00
Absolutely agree. What do you anticipate will change for SMEs as a result of the new ESG guidelines. And I focus on SMEs in particular, because the means to do things differently is different for smaller businesses, and there is a sense that a lot of smaller businesses may not even be able to operate in the same way once we really start to make changes to these rules. So what are your thoughts on that?
Mairead Taylor 9:27
So if I take a little step back, I was given some interesting information. Well, it just shows you how critical it is that we get this SMEs right, and according to the World Economic Forum, they represent 99% of the world's 125 million companies. They contribute more than 50% of the global GDP. And in the UK, SMEs have been responsible for 70% of all job creation since 2010. There are 6 million UK SMEs accounting for 99.9% of them. Is 61% of employment and 52% of turnover, you have to focus on SMEs. Doing anything else is just nonsensical. And also history tells us SMEs, yes, they can have restrictions because of resource, and maybe not the wider networks that some, some bigger organisations can benefit from. But they’re agile, they are innovative, they often are very brave, very courageous. And actually, they can see things and how we can either create new things, or reapply existing technologies and automation and systems and use it in a totally different sector or a totally different way.
I think it's fundamental that we do work and support SMEs, I think the changes that will come in the 20 2050. net zero target is legally binding. But we're yet to see significant legislation or regulation that is forcing or encouraging incentivizing all businesses, but particularly SMEs. So I think that will evolve. And I think that's really important that on the lead up to cop 26, and particularly after 26, I think it's really important that SMEs do engage, because there will be changes and therefore being ahead of those. And having made some progress on areas that we're focusing on clean transport, clean energy, green finance, carbon tracking, and behaviours, clean buildings, and I've got a top 10 sort of help guide for SMEs that I can happily share afterwards.
And it's not covering everything, but actually it shows us the knees, the things that they can do, that's within their control that they don't need in house expertise, that number of them don't need money, it's actually just a change of how you might do something or approach something. So I think there will definitely be changes, I think there will be a lot of incentives. But ultimately, there will be tax implications for not doing things you know, higher tax, carbon tax and that kind of thing. I think it's how we can work with big corporations, and government and grants maximising what we can do in order to then help provide it for people that are unable to help themselves. Currently, if we change our mindset, there's an awful lot we can do with what we've got. And I think that can make a big difference.
But an example of one that's currently in is the measuring of the carbon footprint. So I think it's very hard for an SME to make changes until they know where they are, what's their base point, and so bringing out tools that will help them so you know, we've partnered with Cogo and Microsoft Cogo for SMEs up to six and a half million in Microsoft for six and a half million more, just in order to start actually to help businesses know exactly where they are, I think also is using the resource, the capability and the knowledge that large corporates and non government organisations have to help those SMEs that supply chain up and down Intel flowing and support I think is key.
So SMEs can help corporations be much better, and corporations will be able to help SMEs by taking people with us, big corporations taking SMEs on their supply journey, not leaving them behind. And banks, absolutely supporting all of those. So I don't know if that really answered your question. But I think there are more changes afoot. And it's better to try and be ahead of what the way you can be so that you're more leading the way rather than having to be told, well, now you have to do this. And you've got to do it by then, you know, the the diesel, the diesel cars in it, you know, an example of that,
Katherine Ann Byam 13:49
That brings me to a topic that I probably didn't tell you about beforehand, but it's really around stranded assets. Right? So we're going to be facing a lot of that. Definitely. It's been a topic of conversation. Before the pandemic, the pandemic actually accelerated the conversation in many ways. What are your thoughts on how people deal with that?
Mairead Taylor 14:09
Big question, and I think this is where it's fundamental. So the insurance companies produced a report quite a few years ago on this that insurance will, you know, there will be assets that will be uninsurable in our lifetimes, if we do nothing, or if we get to a 4% to four degree rise. And that's obviously unsustainably worldwide that you just know, the implications of not being able to insure an asset.
So, insurance companies and banks absolutely have to be doing something here, stranded assets help nobody. So, I guess if you're talking about bigger assets that suddenly you know, if you're moving from oil to hydrogen, or actually it's not having that transition plan as to how are you going to do it and in the smaller SME space, it's being aware that's all of our incentives to do something. So I'd like to think, you know, everybody cares about the planet and everything. But if you just look at it purely from an economic viewpoint, you think about all the hard work and everything that you've built your business up for, and why you've done it to suddenly, then being told that you can't sell it, or it's not insurable is unimaginable.
And therefore, that's the reason you know, the reason that everybody needs to start taking action and doing and doing something will never move away from not having some stranded assets that but actually, if you've if you're well on a journey to pivot what you do to an order that your reliance on that stranded asset has actually changed. and the value of that is no longer there. Because the demand for it isn't, but actually, you've created a new asset in what you do, or how you do something, I think is key. But yeah, it's a big, big, big topic.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:55
into just massive, I mean, some bolts involving from your car to the building that you live in, I live in an apartment building. And you know, when I think about the complexity of all of this change, I know it's not, it's not necessarily the most suitable of buildings. So what happens to this building in a few years, you know, these things do create a lot of anxiety, actually.
Mairead Taylor 16:15
Depending on where you're living. And now, you know, I was listening to a call yesterday where they said, Sicily we're recording heat up to 50 degrees, you think of all the natural hazards that can happen as a result of that. So it's, you know, North Africa, not it's not just in the Middle East. Now, it's spreading all over the world, that the physical risks, and the transition risks of climate change are huge, and both mitigating and adapting for those is what we all have to do. But we all can do something and that I had the benefit of going on a course with a bank at Edinborough University, and absolutely the best course. And I didn't really know anything before that. I still declare myself a real novice now. But actually, it's amazing. The different things that you can just do in your household, the different things of how you can do things at work. And if you're, you know, I will say to staff, you don't need your employer to be the one to lead you, you can lead your employer, if you're very good at what you do bring that to your workplace and demand, more demand better.
Getting it right, definitely attracts talent, it retains talent, benefits, both from a well being fulfilment, and from an economic viewpoint of you know, while absolutely proven so I think Yeah,
Katherine Ann Byam 17:44
I have another question, because we've talked a bit about the potential for there to be sort of penalties/taxes coming on stream for your carbon output. We've also talked about the sort of natural, intrinsic incentive for us to do something about the problem. But are there also some sort of positive incentives that are being put in place to encourage SMEs who are greener than others? Who aren't who are net positive? For example? Are there things that we're putting in place to sort of reinforce that as a behaviour?
Mairead Taylor 18:17
Absolutely, so I think there will be Why do I think there will be tax benefits and there'll be things that you know, outside of the bank, but I can talk about NatWest and I know that, you know, green mortgages we've had our green mortgage product is going really well. All those clients that have got the green mortgage, are benefiting from a lower lower rates because they're generating less carbon and recognised for that we've got green bonds, and both the issuer of the bond and the benefits of the bond are benefiting from that the proceeds are being used to support the Sustainable Development Goals.
We've got a green loan coming out later this year, which we specifically for SMEs, which will again, they'll benefit from reduced rates because proceeds have been used to reduce their carbon footprint there will be more it will continue to evolve with partnership with Octopus customers are benefiting from getting EV points and charging points in at a lower cost than it would normally cost. We've got an app we've just launched EV, eight switch thinking it just helps you monitor what you're using, when you will say your diesel car and to work out then how beneficial it would be to have an electric car. And so that you can actually see the financial and economic benefits to you over a period of time. And there's loads of different tools, some of the some are products, some are solutions, and some are just tools that will actually help make decisions and of course, as we all change our behaviours then the benefits and the costs of these things will will reduce and it will become easier for everyone to To make Yeah, make the biggest changes.
Katherine Ann Byam 20:02
Absolutely. So I'm going to change tack a little bit now because I don't usually get bankers to come onto my show. So I'm really curious about some other things. And the main one is around digital acceleration and the growth of sort of alternative currencies, etc. What further changes can we sort of expect in banking in light of the sort of modernisation of financial tech.
Mairead Taylor 20:28
A lot? succinctly, so I think technology will continue to evolve digital automation, the way that you make your ecommerce payments, how you use your bank and other financial institutions will continue to evolve and change in some respects to a way that we can't, you know, potentially picture at the moment. But I think what's really important is knowing, keeping the balance between technology, digital and automation, with relationships, I think that's the key to to lose sight of relationships, to not be their customers in their moments of truth, and have that ability to have face to face and be able to talk to somebody, you lose that at your peril. And I think so it's that happy ability to have multi channels for customers to choose how, when, and why they interact with you at different moments of time, it's banks using data to really make sure that we don't just generalise offers of support, but we actually really do make that fun, that personalization, so that anything that we are sharing is really relevant for you at that particular moment in time
So there's lots of great ways we can use technology and automation and AI to really transform a customer's experience and improve it, but balanced with human relationships. And that is important, our CEO calls it sort of marriage that both are really important. And knowing that as an example so I think I haven't suppose he's got the exact percentage, but our over 70s that used, our online app in the last 18 months was huge increase, and possibly some of them never would have done that. If we hadn't had the past 18 months that we've all experienced, a number of them wouldn't ever go back. And we'll continue to see demand and change as technology and how things become more simple and safe. You know, because you've always got that convenience versus privacy concern.
But I think the main thing is knowing that it's being able to offer all of the options, all of the solutions at the right time in the right place. I think, you know, if you take crypto currencies and think if they become regulated, then that will bring further changes in. And there's words in our language now that probably weren't there a few years ago, and there'll be words in our language in a few years time that aren't here now, that ongoing focus on what our customers want, what can we do to improve their experiences? And how can we add value? If there's a lot of services that we currently do that can be done differently without involving banks and other financial institutions? So what value are we going to add? How are we going to make a difference to create that value for our customers?
Katherine Ann Byam 23:31
Now, I'm totally with you on that. So I want to ask you one last question, which is, what are you telling your children
Mairead Taylor 23:38
My youngest is 22, nearly 23. And then I've got a 34 and a 30 year old and I've got three amazing grand daughters. So one of the things I did is that when I signed up to the cogo app, I obviously reduced as much carbon as I could in house. I'm still on a journey because Rome wasn't built in a day. But I've used Cogo app to help me do some positive offsetting through critical offsetters. And I've just used that and then you get a certificate. So I've put my granddaughter's names on, I've given it to them for birthdays and Christmases. And now they're young, but the idea is actually just that the eldest will be three in December, but they're always seen that it's something that's really important to me.
And interestingly, there's a couple of books out now that are really good that you can actually bring alive. So I'm learning all the time, you know, you've got a mixture of friendship groups and family and you talk to people and it's important not to lecture and it's taking people with you, but it is something that is very close to my heart and I am passionate about it. We put climate in all our money sense programmes, which we've been doing for over 30 years. As we've added time to modules, we bought into what's called our business builder, which is a free digital online for entrepreneurs. Anyone can sign up to it. That's all we've got a lot of Climate modules in it. So it's about education, keeping on the agenda, a customer and a banker, and neither might have the answer at the moment. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, or try to connect people to who can help. So
Katherine Ann Byam 25:15
Thank you so much for joining me, my readers and I think it's, it's a conversation that we're probably going to have again, there's going to be a lot coming out of cop 26. So I really look forward to continuing to engage with you. And thank you for joining us on the show.
Mairead Taylor 25:31
Oh, thank you very much for having us, Katherine. And as you say, I think the cop 26 it's the actions and what we do afterwards is going to be the real key. Thank you.
Katherine Ann Byam 25:41
Thank you so much. This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business group Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas long, the Eco business group club supports positive impacts. SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.
054 Go Big Or Go Home
About this Episode
Today's guest is Austin Kasso. He's originally from Oregon, and he moved to Indiana from New York after graduating high school in 2009. To pursue his passion for agriculture, with a vision set on revolutionising local food systems. Through his campaigns and contributions, he was named top 10 local food hero in the state of Indiana. In 2014. He created the first sustainable living group on Facebook, which has grown to be the most popular group on the subject with almost 100,000 members sustainable living was featured by Facebook and Austin was voted one of the top 50 sexiest environmentalists in 2021. Last year, he founded a new digital media platform exclusively for sustainability called stryver, which has already listed over 100 sustainable businesses in over 40 categories with a goal to populate the world's largest oil in one repository for green brands and campaigns. He believes in cultivating purposeful connections that empower people to shape a sustainable future.
Thank you so much for inviting me to your show. I appreciate it.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:34
Yeah, it's been almost a year now that I've been in your community. And I first joined because I wanted to get the word out about what I was doing. But the community was was so active, it was so passionate, so convicted in what they were doing, and it was really impressive. It was already over 50,000 people at that time, and it's just been growing astronomically ever since I guess my first question is what really sparked your passion for sustainability? What got you into this?
Austin Kasso 1:59
I remember back in high school and around ninth or 10th grade, is when I started to really develop an understanding for what I wanted to pursue after high school I was already thinking about my future and what really what I wanted to contribute to society and it was based on just all what I was observing and what you know, I wanted to help alleviate poverty, I wanted to really support the pursuit for social and civil and environmental justice to but put it in a nutshell.
So you know, I've read a lot of books about a lot of different things from you know, philosophy to Buddhism to to economics, and even cognitive science. And so, you know, I've kind of developed a a worldly perspective as I was growing up, and then around that time in high school, I decided that I want to go to my cousin's farm in North Carolina, and experience what it was like to actually live and work on a homestead. I'd say that's what they had. I mean, they had 100 chickens, cows, they had a whole fish pond, they had goats fit, huge acre vegetable garden, you know, all sorts of vegetables, very bio diverse, I mean, they would unload the whole pickup truck first of manure, and we would shovel it we'd stand knee deep in the manure and shovel it into the garden and spread it around and I mean it was worked out from from morning to night and I you know, I grew up on Long Island, where I spent most of my time playing video games on the computer after school and then but it just wasn't you know, it was it was something that made me happy but it just wasn't totally fulfilling.
And what I discovered from working on the farm was that it was fulfilling in such a way that it changed my life in such a way that it actually when I came back, my grades improved radically. I went from being a cnd student to straight A student so and then it just continued on into college and that's when I had decided I was gonna move to Indiana to study agriculture and be more involved with urban farming. And I had such an energy and passion that ignited from that time that time in North Carolina that making headlines in Indiana right away just my second year of college I already had made the the college magazine
Katherine Ann Byam 4:33
Well it's it's an incredible story. I think I shared a little bit the snippet of that I used to be in the farm with my with my grandfather, and it's something that I took for granted because I was very young at the time. He had what I consider to be a huge forest. You know, when I think about it, no and I go back and visit home. No, it doesn't look as big as I remember. But he would spend his entire day there so he was already retired. He'd wake up in the morning very early at six am, he'd do his prayers, then he goes straight to the garden, you'd come up for lunch, then he finished off, and then he'd rest.
And that was the cycle every day, you know, this is part of the thing. And what was nice about it is that the neighbours would bring food as well. So they would always be this food swap going on, you know, if the neighbours were doing chickens or having some type of vegetable, and my grandfather was doing fruits and avocados and stuff like that, and it's really different the kind of the quality of the life that you live, when you have such a community when you have such a spirit. And you could never be like just quietly in your home and alone, where that's what I feel now that we sit quietly, no homes struggling all alone, in March 2020 year group was still at about 3000 people. What happened
Austin Kasso 5:46
in? Yeah, in 2020, it's, you know, I'd stagnated for years. Since I started in 2014. It was, I think it was more along the lines of 6000 people actually, in 2020. But either way, it had rapidly started growing to 20,000 people in just a couple months at the beginning of 2020. And I think mainly, it was due to the pandemic, I'm not sure it's just it seems that it correlated directly with that. And then, and then, you know, every time there was like, another, you know, climate event, you know, like a hurricane or snow storm, you know, like what happened in Texas, there's a huge correlation between what happened in Texas, and huge growth in our group at that time, as well. And then the recent hurricane, we also had a huge spurt that brought us from, you know, another 10,000 members, you know, in addition, so it seems to correlate a lot with existential crises.
Katherine Ann Byam 6:51
Yeah, definitely. And as sustainable intrapreneurs, you know, I know, we're all about sustainable living, but at the same time being an intrepid it, you have to have some sort of relationship with money as well. And we struggle with this. I think, in general, a lot of the sustainable businesses that I meet, struggle with converting their idea into something that sustains them. And it's not just about, you know, making the capitalist stream, it's about making a sustainable living, from what you're doing, what are your thoughts on how you can create more value and monetize value for your incredible community?
Austin Kasso 7:34
Yeah, so I think that was the one thing that I tried to avoid for the longest time, because it made me sort of uncomfortable, you know, I was very, I pursued the business of urban farming in Indiana, so I wasn't unfamiliar with business or pursuing a campaign or, you know, doing things for profit. But really, you know, it came to the group, I just, you know, I didn't think of it as a way to create a monetizing scheme, or, you know, I just didn't, you know, didn't really understand how I could use it in that way.
But I understood that the group itself was becoming more and more impactful, and I wanted to figure out a way to actually leverage the impact that we can make as a group. And that's what led me, you know, I was observing, you know, well, how, what is it about this group that I can actually, you know, serve people that's useful in a way that can also help build the momentum, and leverage or impact together, so it comes more so from that perspective of less, it's, it's more about the people than it is about the profit, and but you still have to make money to drive it forward. So that's, that's when I was starting to see that, you know, the most common thing in our group is that people are asking, Where is it all in one source for tangible products or crowdfunders, or, you know, blogs that I can find in support?
Because, you know, people are always saying that they're looking for looking on Google, and they're having no luck. And then they're also, you know, trying to understand, you know, what are people's, you know, what are people's businesses in the group that they can support, you know, they, you know, they want to, they're part of a bigger community, and they want to support smaller businesses, and, you know, sure they can, there's a way to do that on Amazon. But at the same time, a lot of people in our group are just not a fan of Amazon. And it's a growing trend that, you know, well, Amazon's just not the, you know, all in one answer.
So, and we're trying to come at this from a less bigger corporate agenda perspective. You know, it's, we're coming at this, you know, we're the smaller guys, we're the underdogs, so it's more meaningful to us and it allows us to also give back more so we have a niche market that we can really Focus on. And so that's where I got the idea to create strivers to collect submissions for businesses and then you know also to promote them in our group because that was also a big thing that people wanted to do was promote their business in our group, since it's so popular and it's such a niche market, it's there's a huge incentive there for sustainable brands, you know, to post their content,
Katherine Ann Byam 10:24
what has been some of the challenges in managing such a large community? Have you had any challenges?
Austin Kasso 10:29
Oh, yeah, from the very beginning, it wasn't so bad. But then as it grew rapidly, we had more and more people involved. And so we had more diverse views involved. And so there's a lot of clashing between different perspectives on what is considered to be sustainable. And I can understand that, you know, I'm sympathetic to everybody's cause, and, but I still want to create a space that was inclusive for everybody, and sort of that sometimes the aggression can turn a lot of people away.
So we had to really focus on moderating the group, you know, from a sensitivity, you know, enforcing our rules, which are, you know, respect everyone's views, and be kind and civil in your comments. And I had to develop a team, and our team is actually, you know, largely responsible for helping to maintain the positive environment that it is, and people are really appreciative of that. And, you know, it's something that also people say that they can't find another groups because, you know, they say, other groups, admins don't care as much about the conflict. And, you know, a little bit of controversy and such can can drive engagement, but you know, has to be respectable controversy.
Katherine Ann Byam 11:50
It's, it's an interesting one, it's something it's the one thing that kicks off in my group, my group is usually just really businesses trying to help each other. But then there are some times maybe just a few people who would come in and say, Well, you know, you can't call your business sustainable. If you haven't done everything, like don't call it sustainable, it's greenwashing. And in some way, I kind of empathise with that, like, I can identify with what they're saying, because we do call out the big corporations for their little slip ups.
So as we progress in our journey, you know, it's it is a journey, it's a journey at the end of the day, and none of us will be perfect. But at the same time, it seems to black and white. So this is some of the things that spark up definitely for people. And I think the other thing I would say, that I see in my community is a bit of, I would call it decision fatigue, and a bit of climate anxiety and decision fatigue, of always having to check everything, that everything, you can't find the right suppliers, you can't find the suppliers who are ethical enough? And how do you how do you sort of support that side of it? If it comes up?
Austin Kasso 12:58
Yeah, so you know, I think giving everybody an equal say, or an equal Avenue, it allows for just, you know, humanity to be the final Judge of what is sustainable. Because I mean, what is sustainable is just what's going to sustain, you know, and what's going to carry forward. So if it's, and there's a number of ways you can do that. So if people are learning, and I think the biggest thing about our group is that it exposes all those different perspectives and exposes, you know, the facts behind them the experiences, and it kind of helps people understand what, what the reality of sustainability is what that conversation looks like, on a more worldly basis.
And so, you know, as we're, you know, for instance, with our platform, and I have, you know, similarly multiple businesses who, you know, may look at each other differently, but they're all one where one way or the other, they're trying to pursue a positive impact and they're, what they're doing might not be 100% perfect compared to someone else. But, you know, if we all help support, and direct resources, and channel, you know, our support through, you know, these avenues to, you know, support all these businesses together, you know, on a platform like ours can help everyone else achieve their goals and strengthen their own sustainability goals.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:27
Absolutely. What's next for Striver? And how can others get involved with what you're doing?
Austin Kasso14:33
You know, there's a lot next for stryver I want to say but right now, you know, we have some exciting recent updates that you know, are soon to be published where, you know, members can now create single listings, and if they want to be discovered on our platform, but you know, they're they're not really ready to promote or they don't have a budget for marketing campaign, you know, they now have an opposite opportunity to create us. listing. And then later on, I don't know how soon we can achieve this, but it is the next stage of things is where we're going to create more interactive features for free members on our website to, for example, follow businesses on our platform and get notifications when they submit new content.
So it's kind of another way for people to get noticed on our platform and then we're going to continue to find more ways that we can create interactions on our website between members and businesses and create add, you know, avenues and opportunities for businesses to actually help improve their marketing campaigns, you know, through through our platform, you know, they can, we're looking at building in more services later on, like a more one on one consulting till very affordable. And the goal is to really just help small businesses improve their campaigns to get better results when you know, when they're promoting on our platform.
Katherine Ann Byam 15:58
That's great. I have one final question for you. Yeah. Are you fulfilled?
Austin Kasso 16:03
Absolutely. I am more than fulfilled. I'd like you know, I guess I'm so happy about this platform being successful. Because a year ago when I first started it, it was it was like a, an arts and crafts project, you know, where I was just, it felt like a scrapbook of things that I was trying to put together and I was just like, is really gonna work. But now it's like the concept of it. I just kept building at it and building at it, and it's finally shaped into something really, really fantastic.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:33
Congratulations and all your success. I'm really in awe of you and really admire what you're doing. And I wish you the best of luck as we continue on.
Austin Kasso 16:41
Well, thank you so much.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:45
This episode was brought to you today by the Eco business growth Club by Katherine Ann Byam and by the space where ideas launch, the Eco business growth club supports positive impact SMEs with coaching new health, and community support toward achieving the impact and reach they set out to meet. You can find out more by connecting with where ideas launch on Instagram or following the hashtag where it is launched across all of your social media.
