060 Full Power - Energy Transition

About this Episode

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Mark, welcome to where it is lunch.

Marc Wheatley 1:05

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

Katherine Ann Byam 1:07

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

Marc Wheatley 1:19

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam 3:14

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

Marc Wheatley 3:25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam 7:56

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

Marc Wheatley 8:23

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

Katherine Ann Byam 9:19

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

Marc Wheatley 9:43

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

Katherine Ann Byam 10:15

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

Marc Wheatley 10:32

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

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

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

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

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

Marc Wheatley 13:52

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam 18:32

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

Marc Wheatley 18:57

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ann Byam 21:16

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

Marc Wheatley 21:32

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

Katherine Ann Byam 21:57

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

Marc Wheatley 22:01

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Katherine Ann Byam 22:05

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

047 Minting Your Brand

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Episode Transcript

[add text here]

Katherine Ann Byam 0:27

Hello, everyone and welcome to the show. This is Women in Sustainable Business, as well as Where Ideas Launch - The Podcast. We're doing a double show in this episode. So thank you so much for joining us live on the show tonight. We have with us Michelle Miller, who is a brand strategist on the West Coast of the US. Michelle, why don't you say hello to everyone. Hi, everyone.

Michelle Miller 0:51

It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. My name is Michelle Miller, and I own Minty Made, which is a sustainable branding and web design studio.

Katherine Ann Byam 1:01

Yeah, it's really wonderful to have you. And Michelle has been in the Women in Sustainable Business community for about six, seven months now. And she's been with us in the membership as well for just about the same time. And she's an incredible stylist and designer and all of these things. And she's now running a full-service studio and Minty Made. So I'm really excited to talk to her a bit about her journey to building this business and where it all came from and where she is now.

Michelle Miller 1:29

I'll start off with just a bit of my background. I have been in corporate and small business marketing for the past 10 years. And I most recently worked for a nonprofit that was based around getting women into construction careers. And I really did enjoy that job. What I found throughout most of my corporate career is just noticing more frequently the amount of waste, the amount of energy that's consumed by all these major corporations. And I actually sat on a couple of different small focus groups within those organisations to talk more about sustainability within the office space within the trade show industry which I was in for a very long time as well. And during COVID and the pandemic, I was able to take on more projects that were based around wellness and sustainable businesses. And that allowed me to go full time with Minty Made as of January of this year. So it's been an exciting year, businesses stayed steady. And even though more people are out and about travelling now, there's still a large push for getting content out in the world, making sure that you're differentiated amongst your competitors, and really showing the impact that each small business large business everyone has, as we're really in this all together for minting our global missions.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:55

Exactly. Thank you so much for sharing that. And that's I think that's really important. There are a number of sustainable brands out there now that are willing to make a change. So people who are prepared to not just say they want to change but to make change happen. And I really applaud it. It's something that's, that's so encouraging as we around. But we also struggle with scaling these businesses and making them leverage the impact that they really want to leverage. And I think branding has an important role to play in that I wanted to ask you, what are you? What are your reflections on the things people get wrong when they try to brand themselves?

Michelle Miller 3:30

Sure, I really talk about sustainable brain most of the time. And that's kind of has a double meaning in itself where people tend to just do a quick fix on their branding. They'll pick a colour that they like, they'll pick a font that they like, throw something up there, make a logo quickly. And they don't really design with their target audience in mind, they design with what they like what they think looks good. And that's not always what's best for your brand and messaging. So that's the number one, I would say common mistake that I see people making as they're starting out on their businesses. I also see people jumping on a lot of these trend trains. And for us in the eco-community, we're familiar with fast fashion versus slow fashion. And it really is the same when it comes to branding. There's a lot of trendy script fonts out there. There's a lot of trendy flashy websites that we see when we're scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. And I really tell people not to fall for jumping on that bandwagon and really sticking to what the roots are of your brand. All of my brand work is deeply rooted in strategy which is so important, especially for a business just starting out because it's an investment not only if you're DIY your own brands, that's a lot of your time that you could be building your business elsewhere, but also if you invest in a brand and or web designer, that's a large investment too because there's a lot of work that goes into that to make sure that your messaging is clear, and that you're reaching the customers or the clients that you're trying to serve. I would say one other mistake that I see is people creating a logo or a brand around one product or one service in particular. And because our businesses, all of us in this club are set up to scale, you don't want to box yourself into a logo that just has a photo of, let's see compostable utensils or something like that. Because if you offer more products down the road, then all of your brandings have to change. And you have to go back and revisit that.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:48

That's really, really good advice, actually. And pivoting a bit to what are the sort of key things that we need to think about in succeeding so just right now. At the moment, we're running a Copy Bootcamp in the club, but it's interesting to see how many people are making discoveries about their ideal client as they go through this journey of copywriting. What are the key things to make sure match up when you're coming to a brand strategist? And you want to go through what you want? What sort of things should you prepare? What is important to that process?

Michelle Miller 6:23

Definitely. Through my own strategy, when I work with clients, it's a couple of core pieces here, there's getting clear on your values. And what I learned through a course that I took called the Ego Citizen Course a couple of months ago, is trying to separate your own personal values from the values of your business because there are two different value bases there. And though you are the face of your business, like in my case, I am, with many small business owners, there's only the solopreneur in the mix, really hone in on what your brand voices as well. So values, brand voice... If your brand were a person, I always ask people to describe what their brand looks like, what their brand smells like, what their brand tastes like. And it really evokes all the senses around what your brand is aiming to accomplish and what your business goals are. Speaking of business goals, that's another question that I asked before I even work with any business owners is what are you trying to achieve? I really steer people away from "all I want more followers" or "Oh, I want more people to join my lives." It's all about reaching that end customer converting them into a buyer or a subscriber. And really having clear business goals, I think is the number one thing I'd say to have. Prepared when you talk to a brand strategist, a copywriter, a photographer, any service provider in general.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:57

Absolutely. These are important ingredients. And I was also trying to explain yesterday, the difference between an ideal client and a client. And I think it's really important for all of us to understand that having an ideal client does is not an exclusive thing. It's not like you don't serve everyone but it is about that brand focus, right?

Michelle Miller 8:17

Sure. One of the exercises I have my clients do is telling me about an ideal client. And then I actually create an ideal client profile for them where I write a little story about, let's say, Maria. Maria goes shopping at the farmers market every day with her reusable bags, she stumbles upon a bulletin board at the end of the farmers market sees a business card that that is intriguing and well designed. And that's how that purchase path works toward your business. And that's really helpful for people because they can start to see, "Oh, my, this ideal client avatar, even though they're not real or fictitious, is a person" that they can see that whole streamline of them finding out about their business and moving into inquiring. So I love going through that exercise with people, they really appreciate that when I asked at the end of our projects, what was your favourite part? They always say the fact that we were able to work together and come up with two to three of my ideal clients, and they really start to see how that can come to life.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:29

Yeah, wonderful. So I want to pivot again about full-service studios. So I know that this is something that has been sort of trending of late. So people start off maybe with branding only, but then they start bringing in other services as they know you've done as well this year. And why is it important to bring those things together in terms of impact for your customer?

Michelle Miller 9:53

Earlier this year, I made a decision. When I speak to clients and they're interested in moving, I actually package copywriting, my web design, branding and photography all together because it allows me to coordinate and collaborate with both the copywriter and the photographer, both on a visual and a verbal and for copywritten standpoint. It really helps us all go in the same direction at once with what the brand voice is saying, what the messaging should be, how the brand should portray itself with imagery and such. And it's very hard to work disjointedly with either copy coming either from the client themselves or another copywriter, and kind of fitting that square peg in the round hole. When you're trying to fit it all together. It's really a team effort. And I'm of the belief that it should be approached that way. And it's made a huge difference in just conversion rates that I've seen for people's websites, people signing on or buying products or services. And I will never go back to the way it was before. And I think a lot of others are moving in this direction for the same reasons. It's these business groups like this that you started, Katherine are an incredible help to fostering that collaboration with others.

Katherine Ann Byam 11:20

Absolutely. So I think I think these are all wonderful tips. I want to now pivot to something that's more even more important for all of us as we're all based online pretty much every day. And this is about the sustainability of your website itself. And we like to do pretty branding shoots and have heavy images that look beautiful, but we know that this isn't good, either for the environment. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how to make your websites more eco friendly, or tips in that direction.

Michelle Miller 11:54

I would love to, in fact, I just read another book. I have it right here. It's called belief. I believe he's based in the UK, his name is Tom Greenwood. For anyone interested in this book. It's called Sustainable Web Design. It's a short read. But it has a lot of great tips and findings that I've added to my knowledge base. When you look at a website, as you just mentioned, again, back to the trendy things that are going on in the web design world, we see a lot of flashy graphics, a lot of animation, a lot of things that move and these are all large contributors to page weight. Page weight is a complicated formula to try and figure out what the energy or how much energy is being emitted from your website but it's a good baseline. You can measure that in data. There's a couple of other tools that I'll share in the group actually after we get finished up here that show how much or how green really enjoyed plugging my own website into there and seeing where it ranked. Some other ways to limit your energy consumption on your website is to opt-in or purchase your domain hosting from a green host. And there's a list of them. If you just type in green web hosting online, they'll come up. A lot of these hosting companies are committed to hosting their platforms, fueled by 100% renewable energy. And it's great that that's becoming more popular as I've seen over the years. I just switched mine over from GoDaddy which is a large hosting company here to Green Web Platform hosting. And a lot of people worry, "Oh, well their networks go down or is it as reliable and it is. It doesn't make a difference. A lot of the large platform hosting companies have downtime too. And I just sleep better at night knowing that I'm investing my money in a company that's committed to sustainability. Also, being mindful of the colours that you choose. This was a really interesting find that I had a couple of months ago. White space, you would think that on a website more white space is better because it's keeping things simplified, but it's actually the opposite dark colours use a lot less energy on your screen than white, light blues, bright colours. So that was very interesting for me to find out. Be mindful of your movement. So a lot of JavaScript code. I won't go to I won't go into too much of a nerd mode on the development side. But a lot of code that's on the website is unused. So think of it as you would garbage in the trash can. It's not there to be used anymore. There's no purpose to it. And so that's if you're working with a developer asking those questions about what's needed. You can accomplish a lot with compressed images with some streamlined code and really still deliver a valuable and memorable customer experience without having all of these different elements that don't really add to the experience at all. And then hiring a sustainable web designer that has these practices in mind that we'll walk through not only what materials you're going to print your marketing materials on, recycled paper, seed, paper, all of that. But someone that really knows the ins and outs of what it is to create a sustainable website. One more thing to add is the whole accessibility piece. It's very valuable if you can create a website that can load quickly and actually be accessed offline. As we're moving into more advertising into countries that don't have as fast internet speeds as maybe we do, it's very important for these websites to be accessible by those who have limited bandwidth.

Katherine Ann Byam 15:58

Really great tips. Thank you so much for sharing so much with the group and community. What's the direction of your business for the next few years? Where do you see it going?

Michelle Miller 16:09

Sure, I actually plan to host some workshops myself on sustainable web design so that either there can be tips helpful for people that are DIY in their own website, and maybe don't have the time or money to invest in a full rebrand or website design right now. And I would also be going to be focusing on creating specific web pages or landing pages for eco businesses to show what their impact actually is. Those would be more interactive, but not in a way that would create a lot of excess energy like I just talked about but really showing what difference that company or that small business is making. Because we see a lot of sustainability pages out there. It just has a short paragraph on why they're committed to sustainability. But Patagonia - that's one of the companies I admire greatly. They have a very detailed page about each of their business practices, how it contributes or limits global warming. And I want more businesses to have the opportunity to show that and really put numbers down to show their commitment and not just write about it in a sentence and hope that's enough.

Katherine Ann Byam 17:27

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Michelle. This is really insightful, and we'd love to have you back sometime in the future when you have new news to share about where you've gotten to with a sustainable web design. Thanks so much for coming to the show.

042 Digital Footprints

About this Episode

Polly Buckland sat on the client-side in a marketing manager role at BMW UK Ltd before founding what is now The Typeface Group (TFG) in 2010. She's an ideas person blending creativity and commercial awareness to ensure the delivery team at TFG do just that. The Typeface Group is on a mission to give ambitious businesses robust websites that not only help achieve growth but are carbon considerate.

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:03

Polly, welcome to Where Ideas Launch.

Polly Buckland 0:54

Hi Katherine!

Katherine Ann Byam 0:55

What inspired you to make your marketing firm eco-friendly?

Polly Buckland 0:59

In 2019-2020, we were working with a couple of businesses that were really heavily focused on zero carbon targets, primarily with regards to UK housing stock and smart homes. We were already working in that space. And then we met with Nancy Hyne from True Horizon and did our first environmental assessment for our own business. At that time, we were looking very internally at what we could do and our own responsibility as a business. At that point, we weren't really looking at what we could then offer to our customers. In early 2021, we did our B Corp assessment.

And alongside that, I was doing some research and stumbled across an article from Wholegrain Digital on digital carbon footprint; and subsequently bought the book by their founder, Tom Greenwood on Sustainable Web Design. And I think our eureka moment was as I was reading it. And I said to my co-founder, Natalie, we already do 90% of this. We're already there. Because we're following best practices for web builds, we optimise our websites from the ground up. And that is largely what best practice is for sustainable web design. So we committed this year to give all web builds that we produce for our customers a carbon calculation for their homepage, and actually an accessibility score. And what that does is it keeps us accountable. And it raises awareness with clients that might not necessarily have asked for that, they might not have even really computed that. But they were going to have a digital footprint anyway. So that's how this all began.

Katherine Ann Byam 2:34

What elements of the whole design of eco-friendly service businesses are important for other service businesses to understand? I mean what things did you take into consideration from your B Corp to web design to make your business more eco-friendly?

Polly Buckland 2:50

So I guess the one that ties both together is choosing suppliers that carefully fit within the B Corp assessment. There are quite a few questions that are tied to the suppliers that we use. And certainly from a website owner perspective - Who's going to host your website? Do their data centres run on renewable energy? It's a very, very quick and easy decision to make actually but it can have quite an impact. So look at your suppliers and look at your content. I think certainly with digital communications, previously sort of more was best for SEO, as well just get the traffic in by producing more and more and more content.

And I think that needs to be more considered. Now there needs to be more of an essentialist approach. So if you've still got blogs on your website announcing your Christmas party from three years ago, if someone stumbles on that there is going to be a carbon output and why it's not relevant. So I think having a clear down in your business of your blog post or your junk folder in your email or your Sent Items. Sort of clear everything down because if it's being stored is having an impact.

Katherine Ann Byam 3:59

Yeah, that's so important. And I think a lot of people underestimate the actual size of this; and especially in this uber digital age that we're in right now. I mean, I have some email accounts that are overwhelmed with emails from marketers, etc. How can we better control it?

Polly Buckland 4:17

You just need to schedule some time. I think you need to delegate within your businesses. So everyone needs to be personally responsible for their own inbox. There are also some nice little extensions, there's an extension on Google where if you're going to send an email that's less than three or four words, there'll be a pop-up and it'll go, “Do you really need to send that?” And I think making it part of your daily routine is quite important. I mean, there's no two ways about it. People need to shift how they're working. I spoke to a client recently who's producing content for their website. And she said, “I was thinking about four blogs a month.” And I said, “Well, why?” Like why you need to kind of push back and start questioning.

Well, if you've got only four things to say, it would be better to write one rich piece of content that 's gonna answer the questions of the people that landed on your site. And it's going to be more sort of searchable, more discoverable, because it's rich, rich content in line with Google's principle. It's going to be relevant to people that land on it. So it will be worth the output that it has. And it will make the business seem more authoritative as well. So it's like a more considered approach and a more essentialist approach to producing content, I guess.

Katherine Ann Byam 5:36

How do we measure and track or footprint data? Are there really good websites, processes that we can use? Tell us about that journey?

Polly Buckland 5:45

The answer is, it's really difficult. And again, all rates for me at the moment in terms of research that I'm doing and the authority within the industry lead back to Whole Grain Digital. They have produced a website carbon calculator, and what it does is it measures data transfer, energy intensity, the energy source, how the data centres are powered, the carbon intensity of the electricity, and the website traffic. And it's this engine where you put your URL into it, and it will come out with basically a performance percentage of your website and the carbon output. Then it will give you which is really nice, based on 10,000 visits a year, this is the equivalent of carbon that you're producing. So it makes it relatable.

Yeah, that's a single web page, there is nothing that I found that would give you a whole website carbon calculation, which is something that I'm in the early stages of trying to work on. But what people can do is read up on what the best practice is and employ it. I mean, I've always had a thing against stock imagery, I just think it doesn't really say much about the personality of your business if you're using stock imagery, but more so that image will have like images really, really slow down your page loading time, which in line with Google's core vital updates this year, is a key consideration that page load and content delivery. But it also is often the thing that has the most negative impact on the carbon output of that page. So even if you don't have a whole website, carbon calculation, you can absolutely be removing images that actually don't have much purpose on your website. It will make a difference. It's tricky to find the measure right now. But it will make a difference.

Katherine Ann Byam 7:36

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it's a lot of things that we think about, but we don't actively think about the impact we're having by being slow to react. And that's what's key. So from a B Corp perspective, what else do we need to be messaging, for example, on our website.

Polly Buckland 7:53

I do think more and more people are looking for Corporate Social Responsibility statements. I do think that that is a consideration in both B2B and B2C buying. Now, I think I read a stat like 70-80% of people are now considering the values of a business before they purchase from them. I think it's important to also recognise that B Corp isn't just about the environment. It is about governance, your workers, community, and the environment and customers. So I think it is a more holistic measure of a business. So I would really recommend anyone pick up their phone, get on their laptop, go to the B Corp assessment and do it. It's no obligation, it's free to do and just see where you're coming out. The reason we went for B Corp (we've already spoken to Nancy about it) I sat on the sofa on a Friday night with a glass of wine and I did the B Corp assessment on my phone, and that was the beginning. Unless you start measuring, you can't improve. And I think that's a really important message. If you want to be more environmentally considerate, you need to find your baseline.

Katherine Ann Byam 9:11

Tell me a little bit and I want to dig into something potentially controversial here. So just recently, we witnessed what's happened at BrewDog in terms of their treatment of employees or employees who are pushing back against some of the culture of the company about sort of manipulation, etc, that's been going on, or that the alleged has been going on, I should say. And there's been a question coming up around what B Corp's role is in ensuring that companies stick to what they've pledged in their assessments, etc. What are your thoughts on this and whether or not B Corps should respond?

Polly Buckland 9:49

It's really tricky, isn't it? So when you're doing a B Corp assessment, you need 81 points to become accredited, which means you don't have to be perfect and you don't have to even answer every question. We've submitted our assessment at this point. So we haven't been assessed. So I can't speak in kind of firsthand experience as to what the assessment looks like and how deep they delve into your evidence and how you've answered the questions. I'm not sure it's for B Corp to respond. I don't think the fact that BrewDog is accredited yet not perfect reflects badly on B Corp. I think the message is very much working towards being better for your people, the environment and communities. It's definitely for BrewDog to address the assessment.

Certainly, the interrogation of the assessment and the production of evidence by the companies that have submitted could be more thorough, maybe. Then I would imagine the price of being B Corp-accredited will rise because they've got to put the people behind it to do the additional check. Part of me thinks if a business is going to go through the time, energy and investment of becoming B Corp, they're going to go into that with kind of open hearts and full integrity. This could just be a case of the leadership team at BrewDog genuinely not knowing; and therein lies a wider problem for them. It's about making sure that you've got a constant flow of communication even if you're growing and ambitious and taking over your sector, you can't forget the small stuff. And we've been using a tool called OfficeVibe which is great because what it does is sends a pulse of random questions out to our team every two weeks. So even if we're busy, we're still getting that constant feedback. And then it will really flag if there's an issue. And of course, you need your employees to be really, really open and honest. Yeah, to get the best out of it.

Katherine Ann Byam 12:07

It's an interesting discussion because... I don't know if you've seen "Seaspiracy," and some of these programs on Netflix where they really get into the accreditation bodies for their - let's call it "limited due diligence" around this stuff. And I think it's becoming quite a problem. Because even you know that there are a number of instances where accreditation bodies have failed to do that check. And I recognise your argument around the cost, right? Because yes, it becomes more expensive to accredit if you do have to do the work. But we people also need some kind of guarantee that this thing is reliable. Otherwise, why do it? And so I think this is going to be an interesting and continuing debate as we go forward.

Polly Buckland 12:56

And I too just wonder if it's almost like the pulse that they need to be requesting of anyone that's assessed to do it quarterly - submit these three bits of evidence, and we'll do it at random. And if you don't submit it, then we suspend your accreditation because that can be automated to a degree. If B Corp chose to respond to it because I think it's the first big question mark, and I'm not sure it's a case of I'm not sure the answer is to just make this massive example of bloop for BrewDog, who is doing good as well. And I sort of skim-read the response that they seem to be taking responsibility.

Katherine Ann Byam 13:37

It'll be interesting to see how it all evolves. I think this part of the sustainability stories, often overlooked. So we often talk about climates and the environment but we don't talk about decent work.

Polly Buckland 13:49

100%. And I think there's that degree of greenwashing. Right. I was on a call recently and someone who is part of a wider group basically said, "Well, you can call it what you want but people really only care about the bottom line." And I thought, "Well, actually they don't. I've met a lot of people that really, really don't and they do take this holistic view of their business and their impact and doing good for the community. I think it would be really sad to just credit all the good work and positive energy that businesses put into their B Corp journey to at least write about cancelled culture. I don't I don't think we discredit all the good because it may be one question mark.

Katherine Ann Byam 14:35

So I absolutely agree with you. What are you currently working on? That's going to probably change the game again for your business and for this whole idea of carbon neutrality.

Polly Buckland 14:47

At the moment, I am in conversation with our web host who's an independent UK business. They've already got a pretty strong Corporate Social Responsibility policy themselves which is why we chose him as a supplier. They run their data centres on 100% renewable energy. But the reality is they don't have a measure at the moment for site-on-site energy usage. And I would really like to be achieving the fast carbon measure on the dashboard, on the back end of a website. I think that needs to be the norm.

From what I've seen, it doesn't exist at the moment that locally to us within three enterprises, I believe there's like an Environmental Innovation Fund. So I believe that there's potentially some funding there. I feel like I understand what the customers want and need and can help in communicating that and I'm trying to marry that up with the technical team at the web host. Hopefully, we can all come together and produce something that could be rolled out eventually to anyone with a website. I think people need to understand that their websites have a carbon output first, see that measure, and see how they can improve it. So that's what's in store for us as well as working with a number of clients on web builds.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:04

How can people keep in touch with you or get involved with the work at The Typeface Group?

Polly Buckland 16:09

So we're at the typeface group.co.uk. And I am pretty active on Twitter at my username is @typeface. See, all our contact details are on the website. We're always interested in being part of the conversation. Wonderful.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:25

Thank you so much, Polly, for joining us today. I think this was a really enlightening session. And I do hope my listeners get something and take something away from this session or even get in touch with you. Thank you so much.

Polly Buckland 16:36

Thank you very much.

Katherine Ann Byam 16:40

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 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.

034 Sustainable Supply and Sourcing

About this Episode

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Katherine Ann Byam 0:01

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To find out more contact Katherine Ann Byam on LinkedIn.