Net zero heroes’ small business – big impact - Podcast Transcript

Gabriella Griffith

This episode is about the impact small businesses can have on climate change. Net Zero Heroes was recorded as part of a webinar, which broadcast on 23rd February 2022 – a few months after COP26 – the UN climate conference.

The webinar was inspired by British Business Bank’s report, Smaller Businesses and the Transition to Net Zero, which highlighted that while smaller businesses often have relatively low emission footprints at an individual level, collectively they account for around half (43-53%) of UK business greenhouse gas emissions. So we wanted to hear what SMES were already doing to reduce their impact and play a more positive role on the climate.

We were joined by some brilliant leaders and business owners who talked about their own journeys – the challenges and solutions in striving for Net Zero.

We heard from:

• Gareth Dinnage, Managing Director of eco-printing company, Seacourt
• Laura Crawford CEO of eco nappy brand Mama Bamboo
• Trash Planet founder, Holly Boxall, who has developed a new sustainable trainer
• And Shanika Amarasekara, Chief Impact Officer, British Business Bank

We join the conversation as the group discussed the opportunity in driving sustainability as an SME.

Gareth Dinnage

Yeah, I'll jump in. It’s, it's everything. As far as I'm concerned. We changed to a values-based business 25 years ago, when the previous board realised just how damaging our industry was. And so it was done out of a sense of moral purpose and a sense of doing the right thing. But as ever we've moved through the gears over the last couple of decades and especially in the last three or four years, where society has woken up to the fact that we are literally out consuming our planet and that things drastically need to change.

There is a real opportunity there. As well as doing the right thing, is a business case for doing the right thing. And for those of us that, see that front and centre. People vote with their feet and vote with spend with them their hard-earned money, with people that they have a feel for and a brands that they resonate with. And so, the opportunity is absolutely there to be transparent and to have a sense of leadership and show ambition and have a business that people want to be aligned with and believing.

Not because it's legislation lead, but because it's morally lead and people absolutely want to support companies that are doing the right thing. And that's where we are, you know, we're in this decade of change. We've got eight years to reduce our carbon impact by something like 68% and we are so dependent on organisations like, like all of us and those of you joining in as well to actually take a lead on this. So the time is absolutely now and there is huge economic and business advantage to showing leadership as against putting your head in the sand.

Laura Crawford

I couldn't agree with that more actually. I mean, every one of our customers is making a sustainable choice and they are voting with their wallet. They are brand loyal when they see that they're joining someone and they're buying something that they really believe in. I mean, we have a lot of customers who have now been with us throughout obviously when Mama Bamboo oriented, so we've had customers that have come to us with their first baby and now they're on second baby or possibly third baby. They will be incredibly loyal to those that they believe are in line with their own ethos and their own choices and their eco credentials. And certainly, what we're seeing a lot is the younger generations that are coming up and the consumers of tomorrow are more eco aware and more sustainably led than possibly those of 20 years ago. It's almost the first question on their lips when buying something is how is it made and is it made in a better fashion? So yeah, it's it's not really a choice anymore to us. Whether to make it in the old way or the new way. The new way is the only way.

Gabriella Griffith

Absolutely. And I can see everyone kind of muddled up nodding along to that. So, I think the opportunity is clear. I'd like to move us on to barriers if I can, you know, this, this isn't always easy. And the British Business Bank report found that the biggest barriers were cost and feasibility. I'd be interested to hear from you guys. What your biggest what were your biggest barriers have been? Holly gonna start with you maybe?

Holly Boxall

Yeah, of course. I actually just wanted to add as well, just with the points from before that. I think like no matter what side of businesses, whether you're kind of like us, well, I guess we're just out of the start-up phase, whether you're more established. It's also like showing that everyone else like that it is possible. You know, it's completely possible to reduce your carbon footprint no matter what size of businesses. And again, I guess moving on to barriers is just time and I guess money. And for us as a small business one of our kind of biggest barriers has actually been I guess not having direct contact all the time with our factory. And that has come from, I guess, like a sign of the times with COVID.

When we first set out, our goal was to actually move out to Portugal where our manufacturing is based. So, we could work one on one with all of our suppliers and manufacturers. And obviously with COVID. We've got like a very long story about our kind of inception because we actually got stuck in Portugal for four months during lockdown. But then I guess the same thing happened when we came back as well, that it was very hard for us to get out to the factory. But I think you could see that as an opportunity as well. If businesses were looking to start up a carbon negative carbon neutral company, it's just having like direct contact and being able to get out to the factories.

Make sure like all the processes are being put in place. Yeah, because for us, that's been one of the sort of the issues is it's not always being able to see like, well I guess we always don’t know what's going on. But kind of if you've got like a problem or there's something you need changing, like for example, pathogens, one of the things for us as well. In terms of like reducing carbon footprint, always working on recycle packaging.

And just being able to have direct contact has been really key for us.

Gabriella Griffith

Yeah, I presume you have to be quite hands on when you're spearheading a completely new way of doing things.

Holly Boxall

I mean, it's probably my really long-winded way of saying that you just have to be really hands on with it and to be able to be hands on.

Gabriella Griffith

Absolutely, and Laura, barriers. How about you?

Laura Crawford

For us sort of the hardest barriers are; definitely cost in choosing sustainable materials, fair trade practices, being part of the B Corp donating 2% of revenue to charities, it does mean that the products we produce are more expensive than what standardly available on the shelf.

And it's really is hard to tackle that and to get through with customers and consumers that it's not that we just put an Eco price on things, people often talk about the Eco price as if it is just something we layer on top and make huge margins out of actually tackling that understanding that by choosing to use sustainable materials by choosing to do sustainable business practices. There is a cost in built in. And that does affect the price. And that's really hard.

That's hard to have that conversation that says unfortunately, making these better choices is going to cost the end consumer more money. And that, you know that's an added element.

Lots of people want to be sustainable, but it's whether it's actually affordable. And we have to do it. We spend an awful lot of time working on how to make making an eco sustainable choice, affordable and making sure that we don't go all out and make the most expensive product on the market. It's absolutely perfect, but nobody can afford it. You have to sort of look at it with more feasible viewpoints. And I think that's probably one of our biggest barriers at the moment is how to break into a very established market that is completely reliant and used to cheap plastic products being available.

And that understanding that the reason plastic has been so popular for the last 50 years is it is super cheap.

Gabriella Griffith

Absolutely, fortunately. So what about Shanika? Is that kind of what you were seeing in the reports does that reflect?

Shanika Amarasekara

Yeah, there's two really interesting themes there. One is feasibility and upfront costs and how they're connected in terms of being barriers. But I think we all accept that to embed Circular Economy practices in better sustainability and the transition to zero, particularly now because it's early days, does take time and effort. So, the upfront cost to invest in that will feel like the most significant barrier, but we shouldn't forget that feasibility followed quite quickly in our research as the second thing that people saw as barriers. And I think what that means is that businesses maybe feel like they don't have the levers to be able to change things, whether that's with contracts with your landlords or with suppliers, or to actually make demands of people in your broader supply chain or the types of relationships you have in the broader ecosystem in which you operate in whatever sector you operate in. And I think the call to action probably is to treat feasibility like a barrier as a starting point, see where the boundaries can be pushed there and a bit like Holly, you were talking about the challenges with suppliers. There obviously are challenges, but I think we could probably if we all work together as a community, try and figure out how we can take feasibility away from being a barrier and make it more than norm that everyone accepts that there are levers that everyone will be asking about.

And also, just touching quickly on the opportunity. Most businesses will end up being supply chains or somehow connected to bigger businesses. I think this is where there really is an opportunity for smaller businesses and the community of smaller businesses collectively because bigger businesses are going to be led by compliance and regulatory burden and legislation to have to change the questions they ask in their supply chain. So if we're not in the smaller business community ready for those questions. We're going to be missing out on a huge opportunity. Yeah,

Gareth Dinnage

Yeah, absolutely. So just chucking in a stat I read this morning actually is 60% of UK footsie. 100 Link ESG benchmarks to executive pay. It's happening it's absolutely real, and barriers from my perspective and what I thought might resonate with the rest of the guys on this call would be possibly not sure the best actions to take where do I start, you know, what, what should I be doing and how am I meant to be doing this and my day job but at the same time, which is a big problem with SMEs, we've all got things to do, which is, you know, how we make our companies work, and at the same time, this is seen as very much a bolt on to how we're making our businesses tick and I think that's kind of a really moot point there, that it shouldn't be seen as a bolt on to business. It needs to be viewed as fundamentally a business-critical function within your business, regardless of if you're if you're just a single person business, or if you're a multinational. This stuff's not going away.

It is becoming more and more important as we all you know; we all see this. And so, the fact that we need, we are getting more and more board representation in larger companies is only highlighting this case and so as far as us as SMEs are concerned, it should not be seen as a bolt on it should not be seen as a low priority. It has to be viewed as a business-critical piece of work and therefore, making time and taking time out of your week to focus at a strategic level.

What am I going to do? How am I going to make progress? Where am I? What does it look like? You need to measure so you know what you’re actual starting position is? And then you need to develop the strategy so that you can move things forward.

And I just could sort of go on, but a little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing. And so don't do not report your work thus far. Share your journey. Be open and people will get behind you if they know that you are committed for doing the best you possibly can.

Yes, it's gonna take time there is no silver bullet. This stuff. We have to work hard at it. But if you engage all your stakeholders and you share the fact that yes, we're a business yes, we have an impact. But yes, we are working really hard and we have we have an agenda that we're working against and that we're actually measuring of measuring our progress.

People will get behind that.

Laura Crawford

Absolutely. I would second that. I think sometimes we wait for perfection to announce anything or do anything. We're always looking for the perfect solution. But actually, it's some of the tiny changes we can make along the way to each individual process or each individual product or the elements of that product that can make a big difference and it's make those tiny changes and chat about it. But make them along the way. Don't wait for perfection because we yeah, there isn't time to wait for perfection.

Gabriella Griffith

Thank you both. I think that does neatly brings us to kind of discussion about the solutions and I think Gareth you kind of hit the nail on the head there of the kind of barrier of where do I start? Where does this begin? If you're sitting there as a business and this isn't / hasn't always been the driving force of the business. When do you, how do you start to do it? Gareth is your answer to that that it starts with strategy then it needs to start at the top we're looking at the entire business and working out every week where to start.

Gareth Dinnage

You know those, but you know also you literally need to take a picture a photograph of where am I today. This is ground zero.

This is what it looks like, measure which need to measure if you're going to make any incremental gains any improvements you need to measure. You need to understand where you're starting from. And you know, things that we all know energy transport, supply chain, these are all these are all things that are easily to drill into and to understand what sort of impacts that you're having, you know, changing your energy to 100% renewable energy, I can tell you it's expensive. But it's easy. It's a phone call. It's not ideal time to be doing at the moment. You know, we are where we are looking at your transport. It's easy to do.

Interestingly we as a manufacturer, because we've done our 25 years worth of pushing the carbon impact then year on year. We've now identified when we were looking at our wider landscape 95% of the carbon impact of our universe, not our world as our manufacturing sites but our universe. 95% is in our supply chains. And so we've worked so hard to make improvements that now our biggest issue is falling outside of our control and we won't be the only ones and so your supply chains is another great place to start.

Because as Shanika said, you know, we're all interlinked. We're not in silos, you know, we're all part of a much larger system. And we have the ability as specifiers and purchases of goods and services within our supply chain to do some real good and you know, that's what B Corp teaches us. The why it's such a brilliant certification scheme is that actually you support one another and that in itself is self-sustaining, and you want to work with people like you, you know, people that have that share your ethos at best.

Laura Crawford

I'd also add to that, that yes, it does come from strategy and making those decisions and kind of pushing the culture down, but it also can come bottom up. So obviously in a small business, there may only be a few of you, but each person will very much do their own job and be their expert in their area. It really does need everybody in the company to have this as part of their thinking. In really big businesses. You'll have a department called sustainability and they'll be a head of sustainability and that team deal with sustainable in small businesses. That doesn't exist. There's only maybe five of you, six of you. Each individual within the team really needs to have this as part of their thinking and their ethos, and then looking at their, their processes and everything that they do, and offering up suggestions to how they can make a difference. So it really is particularly a small business top down, but very much bottom up as well.

Gabriella Griffith

Indeed, very good. And I'm interested to understand as, as both producers of a product that's a new a new way of doing things Holly you know how do you start working out what's possible, but where do you go to get advice to understand what you can actually do? Do you go straight to manufacturers? Do they give you the insight of what they can do or does it start with someone else?

Holly Boxall

I think for us it's always been quite a collaborative process. And we've been lucky enough to find a manufacturer that from the get go was open to being very flexible in the way they work. And kind of open to some of our crazier ideas. And again, like I think you need to almost set an end goal and work backwards.

So, for us our goals always been a completely circular sneaker, and then we've kind of worked collaboratively with our manufacturers and suppliers in figuring out what's possible. We've definitely had to make some compromises, but I think that goes into the point earlier about accepting that you're not going to get it perfect from the get go.

I think as well like if everyone's open and everyone's doing their fair little bit it's going to become more accessible as we move forward as well. We've noticed that since launching two years ago compared to now like the amount of materials that are available to us has multiplied tenfold and you know that sort of makes the process in developing like circular sales easier for us moving forward. And again, I think definitely having some form of game plan.

My business partner and I we actually had like a game plan meeting in January and we were like, Okay, the next year like what do we want to achieve? Where do we want to be? And, and sort of like it was mentioned earlier as well kind of scheduling some time. You know, maybe a couple hours every day doing research, pushing the product forward. That's been really useful to us because we're a small business at the moment where two man team so it is difficult balancing it because we've got to kind of run the business we'll you know, we have an ecommerce business. So a lot of it's very hands on in that area, and we do all of our own customer service as well. But we've sort of started scheduling a set amount of time a week to researching reaching out to new suppliers Take existing ones to just see what we can do and where what we can be doing in the future as well. Absolutely.

Gabriella Griffith

And Laura, how about you developing a new type of nappy here? How did you find out what was possible and what products you can use how to make this happen? Yeah,

Laura Crawford

So really for us it was about taking the standard product that was on the shelf and breaking it down to its component parts, and then researching what would be an alternative to those and we didn't get our answers from the manufacturers of nappies because they hadn't considered doing it with different materials.

It really was looking across the board at what else was available and being used for completely different purposes that could actually be repurposed and used within this single product. And then it was really about putting that together, testing it and bringing it to market as it as it was. And we continue to do this. So not all of our product is made of bio based compostable materials. So we still have little side taps on our nappies that are made of plastic, and we're constantly researching the market looking for what else could possibly be used for this because actually, there isn't an awful lot of manufacturers sitting down really solidly thinking about an alternative to side tabs on nappies, but you do have lots of innovative companies who are looking at just bio plastics in general, different types of material, different types of inputs to plastic materials, and it will be through the likes of we belong to the BIA the British Bioplastics Industry Association. It's through some of those collaborations where they're, they're doing a lot of innovative research working out how to use seaweed to make plastic working out how to use Cornwall to make plastic. It's through those and testing those products against our application, where actually we hope we're going to come up with the perfect solution. But yeah, it's not necessarily the manufacturer that you think's going to answer your question. It can be from across the board or the innovative,

Gabriella Griffith

Something nice to hear. And we I mean, we've talked a lot about cost as being one of the big barriers for most people, how do we navigate those costs? Is it do we kind of say, well, if we make this change and we spend this money we'll get that back through cut that increase customers? How do we, how did you all navigate the cost? implications?

Gareth Dinnage

Cost was cost is difficult. Because we like Laura touched on earlier it's not that you're deciding to put up an environmental tilt on, on your product or service and therefore saying I'm gonna charge an extra 30% for it. And we're sat here making huge margins that the fundamental issues are is that you choose to set your business up in a way that you feel is appropriate. In our case, we decided that we had to get new technology in we invented the technology because we've measured what our problems were in the business, and we figured out ways to get around that. And all this stuff costs money, but that's fine, but it relates to what your customer feels is value.

If you produce something of value, customers will support it. If you haven't got that narrative, right. And if you can't quantify what it is that you're creating, which provides that value, then you're always going to struggle regardless of whether it's a service or a product for us it took a long time to understand. Both understand that and actually for society to catch up because I was talking to a lot of people years ago with the most environmental printing company around “you know, wouldn't it be great that we can produce your material in a way that doesn't harm the environment or does less damage” and they'll say would it cost more Gareth Dinnage?

“Well, yeah, probably, it probably will cost a bit more to be honest”, I don't know what you're paying. But the likelihood is it will because we're doing you know, this, this and this, but as society has moved forward now and we are all becoming more aware, and we're talking about you know, the millenniums Gen Z's, Gen alphas coming down the line that customers have tomorrow, where it's far more important to them, to understand what products are actually going to do for them, then they're applying their own value to products and that's aligned with brand reputation. And product transparency, can I believe in the claims that are being told? And so if, if this is the perennial problem, where people are looking at cost, without balancing it out against value, if you're purely looking at a cost based business model, you're never going to get to where you want to see because you're not understanding the principle.

And the principle is, are you creating value for your customers? Are you creating something that someone can fundamentally believe in? Like the map is like the sneakers like the printing company, the answer is yes. And that market is growing. And again, that's the whole point of this call today, is that this stuff's not going anywhere. We're not suddenly going to roll backwards. The world is not suddenly going to heal itself. We're not suddenly going to reduce the carbon by 68% by people doing nothing. This is accelerating and therefore, the whole business premise, ‘What's your right to exist?’ Why should you be in business it becomes a socially and morally issue rather than just about someone at the at the top making a load of money. And so all these things are into woven and going I’m going off track now.

Gabriella Griffith

I think you got the point. We do and you make very good points. And Shanika we've had some brilliant solutions there to some of these challenges. Is that the kind of thing that you've been seeing?

Shanika Amarasekara

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what's also quite important to recognise is that different businesses in different sectors and actually even across different regions in the across all of the UK and actually internationally as well, will need slightly different things to be able to overcome the barriers that are personal to those businesses. So, I think well, there are, I mean, overall research highlighted is what the themes are as general themes, but I think it's important that everyone does what John and Laura and Holly are saying, which is think about their own businesses and their own sectors.

And I think the organ is really important this collaboration, because there's a lot that we can each learn from other sectors and those that are further ahead. And I think it's really interesting what we've heard from people who use being green as an opportunity to push business growth because that's the opportunity that's been missed. And compliance is important, but really focusing on growth is the opportunity in this being the opportunity to catalyse that growth.

Gabriella Griffith

Yeah, absolutely. I think you know, this what we're doing here today is peer to peer learning, you know, ask asking around and understanding what other people are doing. I think that's a really important point. I'm gonna start Q&A shortly guys, so if anyone listening has questions Do add the questions to the chat function, but before we do, I'd love to get some very final thoughts from each of you and that can be a piece of advice or just a message to those listening. And, yeah, I'll start with Gareth Dinnage,

Gareth Dinnage

A piece of advice. Great thing is that you're on this call, and so you have an interest. Don't stop. One word for me is what sums this whole thing up. It's really simple, is called ambition. And it's not ambition to make a stack of money. It's not ambition to have the highest turnover, or the best profit ratio. Ambition is all about. Do what you want to create? What do you want to stand for? What is it that gets you out of bed every morning? What can you look in your son or daughter's face and tell them that you do you know what is it that you're doing that makes a difference? And for me? That is ambition and the fact that we are still learning we've got massive targets for this year, we're carbon negative, which is kind of cool for a manufacturer. But that's only one metric. I want to create a totally regenerative business and for anyone that's interested, there's a great new book by John Elkington called Green Swans which talks about regenerative business and the need for a change in capitalism, which is absolutely fundamental that we need, but none of this is possible without a single thing and that is ambition.

Gabriella Griffith

Lovely, Laura over to you

Laura Crawford

I think my one piece of advice would be to that I'd said earlier, just don't see count perfection. Seek out the small things that you can start today and keep going. So it's not it's not about achieving this perfect aim of I'm, perfectly sustainable and I have no impact on the environment because that's actually not possible for any human being. It's about making the changes along the way and continuing on that journey.

And being realistic about how long that journey may take. You know, there's a reason that big governments talk about being carbon neutral by 2050. You know, we know that's a long way off, but it's a realistic target.

And I think it's the same for all small businesses. It's start with the low hanging fruit, then go for the next layer of things that you can change and move along the way and build it into your company mission and values. So that it is not something you do like you say at the end of the day is a bit of an offset thing to do. It should be embedded in everything you do, but just make a start. Don't wait for the perfect solution.

Holly Boxall

So, I'd say set goals.

Yes, I'd say set big goals work backwards. Don't be afraid to ask crap loads of questions. I guess. Don't be afraid to ask the intense questions when you're working with suppliers. A lot of our learning has been knowing what questions to ask our suppliers and kind of the answers that we expect. Because I think to be honest, if you're working with suppliers who don't want to ask answer the questions, then you probably don't want to be working with them anyway. And yeah, don't expect perfection but be transparent. take people on the journey with you. Say I'm here but I want to be here because people will respect that you're being transparent, and they'll support you. They'll support your journey. Yeah. So, a combination of all of that

Gabriella Griffith

Lovely and Shanika final thoughts.

Shanika Amarasekara

It's probably a bit of a wrapper of all of that. But going back to the fact that smaller businesses amount for half of the UK business emissions and 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. We have to do this. And it may feel like each individual businesses footprint is so small, but if we don't do it together, and if we don't all do it, we won't make progress on what is a big society's largest challenge right now.

End of webinar