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Creating an Effective Workflow: The Key to Business Efficiency and Sustainable Growth Unlock the power of efficient workflows with strategies like automation, Lean methodology, and value stream mapping. Learn how to optimise your processes, reduce waste, and drive sustainable growth in your business. Discover the power of streamlined workflows through automation, value stream mapping, and process optimisation. Enhance productivity, minimise waste, and drive sustainable growth with actionable strategies for your business. In today's dynamic market, efficient workflows are vital for business success. From startups to large enterprises, workflow optimisation can be the game-changer between survival and growth. But what is a workflow, and how can businesses unlock its full potential? What is a Workflow? A workflow represents the structured series of tasks required to complete a business process. It spans from initial input to final output, guiding tasks through various stages efficiently. By clearly mapping workflows, businesses ensure consistency, timely completion, and effective resource allocation. Efficient workflows boost collaboration, enhance productivity, and simplify complex processes as businesses expand. Detailed workflows reduce the likelihood of errors and miscommunication, fostering an environment of precision and accountability. Additionally, structured workflows enable easier onboarding for new employees, as documented processes create clarity and accelerate learning curves. The Importance of Workflow Management Effective workflow management drives operational efficiency, reduces waste, and ensures structured task completion. It promotes data integrity, transparency, and better decision-making. Poor workflow management can result in bottlenecks, miscommunication, and lost profitability. Beyond operational efficiency, effective workflow management creates a foundation for scalability and agility. As market conditions shift, businesses with optimised workflows can pivot more quickly, adapting processes to meet emerging demands. This adaptability can provide a significant competitive advantage, particularly in industries prone to rapid technological advancements or regulatory changes. Automating Workflows for Greater Efficiency Workflow automation is key to eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. Tools like Zapier, HubSpot, and Power Automate reduce errors, save time, and allow teams to focus on strategic initiatives. For example, automating e-commerce orders can handle invoices, inventory updates, and customer notifications seamlessly. Automation also facilitates the creation of dynamic workflows that adjust based on real-time data. For instance, automated workflows can prioritise high-value clients, reroute critical tasks, or escalate issues immediately, reducing downtime and maximising productivity. By integrating AI-powered automation, businesses can analyse patterns in workflow performance, enabling predictive adjustments that preempt potential bottlenecks. Visualising Success with Process Mapping Process mapping visually breaks down workflows, revealing inefficiencies and redundancies. Tools like flowcharts and value stream maps highlight areas needing improvement, streamlining operations. Expanding process mapping to include customer journey mapping provides insights into how internal workflows affect external user experiences. By visualising touchpoints from the client perspective, businesses can align internal processes with customer expectations, driving satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, mapping allows teams to simulate workflow variations, testing changes virtually before implementing them in real-time environments. Lean Thinking: Maximising Value, Minimising Waste Lean methodology focuses on delivering value by removing non-essential steps. By identifying and eliminating unnecessary processes, businesses can enhance customer satisfaction and streamline workflows for maximum efficiency. Applying Lean thinking to digital workflows unlocks new levels of efficiency. For example, reducing data duplication across platforms ensures smoother information flow and decreases errors. Incorporating cross-functional collaboration within Lean workflows fosters innovation by involving diverse perspectives in process optimisation. Continuous feedback loops also support sustained improvement, ensuring workflows evolve alongside business needs. Kanban Boards: Visual Workflow Management Kanban boards visually track task progress, ensuring teams stay aligned and bottlenecks are addressed promptly. By limiting work-in-progress tasks, Kanban enhances focus and prevents overwhelm. Advanced Kanban techniques, such as integrating analytics into board interfaces, provide real-time insights into task durations and team capacity. This transparency empowers managers to allocate resources effectively, preventing burnout and ensuring balanced workloads. Kanban boards can also be synchronised with customer-facing platforms, offering live project updates that enhance client communication and trust. Identifying and Addressing Bottlenecks Bottlenecks slow down workflows, impacting productivity. Analysing metrics like cycle time and task completion rates helps identify problem areas, ensuring smoother operations and resource allocation. Beyond traditional analysis, integrating machine learning into workflow management systems can proactively identify potential bottlenecks before they materialise. By recognising patterns indicative of future slowdowns, businesses can take preemptive action, reallocating resources or restructuring workflows as needed. Scenario planning exercises based on bottleneck data further enable businesses to test responses and refine processes. Collaborative Tools for Team Productivity Tools like Trello, Asana, and Microsoft Teams enhance collaboration, streamline communication, and align remote or distributed teams. By centralising tasks, businesses improve accountability and reduce inefficiencies. Enhanced collaborative platforms now incorporate AI-driven insights that recommend task prioritisation and suggest meeting schedules based on team availability. Real-time document co-authoring, version control, and automated reminders ensure seamless teamwork, even across time zones. This not only boosts efficiency but also strengthens team cohesion and morale by fostering transparency and shared responsibility. Reengineering for Maximum Efficiency Business Process Reengineering (BPR) involves radical workflow redesign to drive significant performance improvements. This approach is ideal for businesses undergoing digital transformation or market shifts. Integrating data analytics and customer insights into BPR strategies ensures that redesigned processes align with market demands and customer needs. By involving stakeholders from multiple departments, businesses can ensure holistic reengineering efforts that break down silos and promote cross-functional collaboration, resulting in greater organisational synergy. Tracking Workflow Metrics and KPIs KPIs like cycle time, throughput, and error rates provide insights into workflow performance. Monitoring these metrics ensures continuous improvement and operational excellence. Expanding KPI frameworks to include employee engagement, customer feedback, and environmental impact offers a more comprehensive view of workflow success. These broader metrics align with sustainable growth objectives, ensuring workflows not only improve profitability but also enhance social and environmental responsibility. Value Stream Mapping: Driving Efficiency and Reducing Waste Value stream mapping visualises processes end-to-end, identifying wasteful steps and optimising flows. This method prioritises improvements, enhancing productivity and delivering greater customer value. Integrating digital twins into value stream mapping provides a virtual representation of workflows, enabling real-time experimentation and scenario planning. This allows businesses to simulate different process configurations, identify optimal pathways, and apply improvements without disrupting live operations. Scaling Workflows for Business Growth Scalable workflows adapt to increased workloads without compromising efficiency. Designing workflows with growth in mind prevents bottlenecks and supports expansion. Modular workflow design allows businesses to replicate and adjust workflows for new departments or markets quickly. By standardising core processes while enabling customisation at the edges, businesses ensure scalability without sacrificing agility or innovation. Ensuring Compliance with Workflow Governance For regulated industries, workflow governance aligns processes with legal and quality standards. This reduces risks and ensures consistent, compliant operations. Integrating automated compliance checks directly into workflows ensures that each step adheres to industry regulations. By embedding checkpoints and audit trails within workflows, businesses can effortlessly track and document compliance, reducing the risk of penalties and enhancing transparency. Building Sustainable Workflows for Long-Term Success Optimising workflows drives productivity, reduces costs, and supports business growth. By leveraging automation, process mapping, and continuous improvement, businesses can achieve sustainable growth and long-term success. 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10 Green Growth Business Improvement Ideas Companies can make a big difference in the fight for the environment in just a few steps, and the first step is in adopting a green growth business improvement strategy and ESG principles. Air pollution, plastic in the oceans, global warming, deforestation, throwing tons of food away, earthquakes, and other weather problems are the main reasons why we are concerned about the environment and our common future. We are increasingly aware of the importance of taking care of nature and the environment and building a sustainable society in which not only individuals, but also communities, companies, and institutions have responsibility. The most serious problem is climate change, which has proven to be a consequence of human activity. Climate change can transform our planet and affect our food, water supply, and health. This is precisely why companies themselves must take responsibility and have a positive impact on the environment and the community through their work. Companies can make a big difference in the fight for the environment in just a few steps, and the first step is in adopting a green growth business improvement strategy and ESG principles. WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE (ESG)? The practice of Environmental, social, and corporate governance has greatly developed and expanded in the last ten years. Attitudes related to environmental protection and the desire for a better and greener future contributed to the development of this management model. Considering the consequences of climate change, companies - smaller and larger, are turning to socially responsible environmental businesses. The rapid development of this business model has spread thanks to the advocacy of market leaders who promote this way of corporate behaviour. ESG is a business model in which various companies operate and make efforts in order to preserve and improve the environment, contribute to nature, and provide society with a greener future. Find out below what all the benefits your company achieves through socially responsible business. BENEFITS OF ESG Increased engagement and motivation of employees Encourage professional and personal growth Builds a healthy corporate culture Reduction of financial costs and higher income Increased Brand Recognition Strengthening the company's brand Builds public trust Increased investment opportunities Expansion of the labour market Increased customer retention and loyalty New opportunities for representation in the media and press Greater Sustainability ESG plays a crucial role in a company’s brand perception and overall business success. It is one of the best ways to attract and retain a quality workforce, especially highly educated and professional people. Research has shown that employees of socially responsible business companies have higher motivation and productivity, higher quality of work, and are less likely to be absent from work. This business model opens up space for innovation by providing the company with access to new ideas, new perspectives, and experiences, and indicates the need for new products through contacts with new clients. 10 WAYS YOUR BUSINESS CAN CONTRIBUTE TO GREEN GROWTH Being environmentally friendly will have benefits not only for the environment and community but also for your business. You have surely read somewhere how you can contribute to the preservation of the environment, introduce sustainable development, reduce your company's costs, improve the image of your company, and become part of corporate social responsibility. You know you should make your business greener, but maybe you don't know where to start. Below, read 10 steps that will make your company greener and provide a healthier future for the community. 1. EMBRACE TECH Accept and implement new technologies in your business to reduce the use of resources and make your processes more efficient. Technology helps companies stay organized and keeps the business itself secure. With the digital transformation of your business, you will be able to get to know your clients and customers much more efficiently and contribute to them in more effective ways. This step makes your business more resilient to future changes. 2. SAVE ENERGY – SWITCH TO LED LIGHTBULBS Energy consumption varies depending on the type and volume of your business, but on average businesses can use between 15,000 and 25,000 kWh of energy per year. Increasing natural light in offices and business spaces is a great way to reduce energy, but it is also better for your health. For areas where natural light is simply not possible, use LED light bulbs. You can save energy, cut costs, and protect the environment at the same time by changing every light bulb in your space. 3. REDUCE ENERGY AND RESOURCE USE Use energy and resources more efficiently. Whether you work in a business space or from home, turn off devices that you are not using at the moment, improve insulation, recycle more, reduce paper printing as much as possible, use recycled materials, replace old devices with new ones that consume less electricity, etc. In this way, you will save money and contribute to reducing climate change and preserving the environment. 4. USE SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS Nowadays, product sustainability is key to success. The items that a company buys to ensure everything it needs to run a successful business can often be extremely harmful to the environment. Every company should strive to use sustainable products that come from environmentally friendly or harmless sources. Using products that are made from recycled materials is a great step towards sustainable development. Replace classic toxic cleaners with green cleaners that you can find in every store today. Choose natural ingredients and protect your health and environment. 5. REDUCE PAPER WASTE Various business enterprises in the last few years have taken a big step by switching to paperless. However, the further reduction of paper use has not decreased sufficiently. You can reduce paper consumption in a few simple ways; encourage staff to minimally print documents but to keep them electronically, consider alternative paper materials for printing, recycle & shred paper documents, get rid of personal waste and set up recycle bins, etc. 6. CULTIVATE A ZERO-WASTE CULTURE The zero-waste way of doing business is becoming more and more popular and many companies of different sizes are applying it. Waste disposal costs have increased by more than 25% in the last 10 years. By sending less material to the landfill and returning the value of the goods with recycling, it will reduce the company's costs and contribute to sustainable development. You can introduce a zero-waste way of doing business through several steps – establish certain waste reduction goals, develop waste prevention and reduction strategies, engage your employees, etc. Zero-waste is the whole mindset that can contribute to benefitting your business. 7. SAVE WATER Saving water is a significant step towards responsible ecological business. Fixing leaky faucets can literally stop your business from wasting gallons of water. Improve water system assessment and maintenance and install water-saving equipment. Get your staff on board with reducing water consumption and show them how reducing water consumption can contribute to a greener future. 8. RECYCLE & REUSE Encouraging recycling and reusing is important in any green business. Try to reuse materials and items whenever possible. Encourage employees to use all good materials to the maximum, let them use both sides of the paper for printing and the like. When you cannot reuse a particular item, recycling is the best option. Reduce or eliminate single-use items from your workplace such as single-use paper. Use reusable packaging where possible and educate your employees on how they can contribute to reducing waste. 9. DO BUSINESS WITH GREEN BUSINESSES As a green business, you must maintain partners and companies that act in harmony with the environment and want to contribute to the healthy development of the community and society. Support local businesses, organic products, and all those who stand up for ecology. Becoming a sustainable business depends on the companies you support. 10. PROMOTE ECO-FRIENDLY AWARENESS AMONG YOUR EMPLOYEES, CUSTOMERS & CLIENTS It is important to not only show the world that you are now an eco-friendly business but also to promote this idea amongst your employees & clients. Make sure they know what products you use, what your corporate culture is, and what it means to be implementing green growth. One of the most important aspects of combating climate change is raising awareness. Educate your employees about the harmful effects of climate change, but show them ways they can contribute to developing a healthy future. Educating your employees is a great way to ensure that you are doing your part in raising awareness about going green. The awareness that companies are raising for climate change is important because it can affect people’s decisions that they make for themselves. ‘Green growth’ is surely a rising trend for businesses, but more than that it, is one of those ideas that can encourage long-term sustainable changes and savings. There are many things you can do to ensure a greener business and enable a better future. You can do this by raising awareness of the importance of ecology and sustainable development or by adopting a green policy. Whichever way you decide, you will certainly contribute to the reduction of climate change. With small steps, your business can become greener and more environmentally friendly, which contributes to the image of the company itself, healthier life, and a more successful business. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations offer clarity and a well-defined pathway for you and your team to move forward confidently. Get Started

How Can Human Capital Management Help Increase Productivity? Human Capital Management (HCM) is about maximising your return on people by investing in them just as seriously as you would in technology or property. Published on: 10 Dec 2020 In these fast-moving times, it’s rare for people to work for the same company until retirement. With a robust human capital management strategy, you can provide experiences that motivate people to stay loyal and productive. Your people are your competitive advantage, so make their time with you as hassle-free, engaging and seamless as it should be. Replacing an employee in an SME costs an average of six to nine months salary . So what can businesses do to keep highly skilled employees from leaving and therefore retain their value? What is Human Capital Management? Human Capital Management (HCM) is about maximising your return on people by investing in them just as seriously as you would in technology or property. It sums up the approaches used by businesses to recruit and retain talent, manage employees effectively, provide them with skills and learning opportunities, and motivate and develop them. HCM can help companies to improve all kinds of human resources processes and functions such as onboarding, training and development, payroll, compensation and performance management. For example, investment bank Goldman Sachs delivers a raft of programmes throughout people’s careers ranging from benefits and wellness to talent assessment. In Oracle’s definition , HCM refers not only to strategy but also IT applications and software that firms use to implement it. These include cloud-based HCM systems for the primary HR functions such as payroll, benefits, compliance, managing talent, planning and managing the workforce, as well as delivering services such as help desks and employee self-service (ESS). How can Human Capital Management Help Increase Productivity? HRM defines the management of people by the business or HR team using traditional tools and processes. HCM makes the tools and processes more effective and turns them into opportunities. You could say HCM solutions are like HRM but on steroids. The 3 Primary Functions of HCM Acquiring Talent As part of the talent acquisition process, HCM can make recruitment more straightforward and engaging for your candidates. It begins with sourcing and screening people, checking CVs, matching their skills with the business’s needs, scheduling interviews, and carrying out background checks aided by an applicant tracking system (ATS) that stores the data and tracks their progress throughout. The last step is ‘onboarding’, bringing them into the company, orientating them and getting them started. Managing Talent Human resources professionals now have to juggle a wide variety of talent, from contractors to part-time workers and full-time staff working different hours. Talent management includes time and attendance, payroll, performance management, and cultural development aspects such as rewards and recognition programmes and grievance procedures. Developing Talent By developing and optimising your talent, HCM can make a significant impact on your business. As Emily He writes in HRO Today , learning programmes should not be one-size-fits-all but tailored and refined to meet different employee needs and the various generations represented within your business. The Benefits of a Robust HCM Strategy When businesses do HCM correctly, it helps HR teams to be proactive and: Attract the right staff Onboard them effectively Nurture and retain talent Optimise people management Drive engagement Manage performance Adjust rapidly to change Design high performance work systems ( HPWS ) Increase business productivity Let’s take some of the challenges facing SMEs now. With the right HCM strategy in place, you can more easily manage flexible working trends. For example, using tools such as video and messaging to onboard new people as homeworking and blended or hybrid working steadily increases. You can adjust your strategy to take into account changing demographics and generations’ working styles. For example, you might introduce a variety of more meaningful reward and recognition schemes to appeal to millennials and baby boomers. Increasing Workplace Productivity If you genuinely believe employees to be at the core of your business, you can’t pay lip service to HCM. You must put human resources at the centre of your business and HCM strategy. Using HR to its maximum potential is essential if you want to introduce an HCM strategy that makes your employees more engaged and productive. Your HR manager can measure how productive your employees are by setting their objectives and targets, measuring them against them and by making sure they are completing tasks effectively. If they’re working to their full potential, your revenue will increase. One strategy that SMEs find useful is to manage people more profitably using ‘profit-based’ assessment. You look at how much money your sales people are making for every pound of their salaries. They’ll be able to improve motivation through bonuses, rewards schemes and other incentives and provide them with learning opportunities that also keep them engaged. Out With the Old HR is often one of the last aspects of running a business that SMEs consider or, if they do, the function is underused. Too many small-to-medium businesses see HR as a cost that companies must minimise, not something to develop and leverage. In contrast, SMEs see HCM as an advantage characterised as big-company corporate. Not so. SMEs can also use HR and HCM to look at how effectively and efficiently staff are being recruited and managed. 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Tony and Axel Barren Energy discusses cactus to gas Tony and Axel of Barren Energy discuss How to Make Biofuel from Cactus and Its Many Uses Cactus to gas is a bioenergy solution that converts cactus into a renewable biogas. This process involves using these hardy, drought-resistant plants to generate energy-rich biogas through anaerobic digestion or fermentation. This innovative approach holds potential in addressing energy challenges, providing sustainable fuel alternatives, and mitigating environmental impact. Axel We aim to become the sustainable feedstock of more marginal lands and produce provide the bio industry of the future with this sustainable feedstock. It's not only gas we can. We can produce vegan leather from the cactus. We can produce different types of fiber and extract for paper for production. We can also use the cactus for other type of fermentation products. So, you know, different types of amino acids and organic acids that enter into the composition of other kind of industrial products that are bio sourced. Also the feed, the fermentation for protein production and soybean replacement. So it has a lot of potential benefits. And let's say it's all sugar factory for fermentation of bio industries in marginal land. Paul Hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, the podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families and a greener, cooler planet. And today I'm joined by Tony Dean and Axel Taris of Barren Energy, Western Cape, South Africa . And we're going to be discussing a cactus to gas. If you could tell us about that energy, then please. Tony That'd be great. Tony Yeah, great. Thanks for having us on the podcast today. Paul As you know, I'm Australian and I'm away to South Africa and the company was at that stage working with big miners, Anglo and Rio Tinto, and they were looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, etc. Barren Energy went to Mexico in 2018 looking for a solution for biomass to make bio gas from a range of various feedstocks. And in the process we found cactus and cactus, through all the testing proved to be our number one choice. And so we said, I think that's the right solution. Where can we do that In South Africa? Barren energy found a property in the Free State, which is in the middle of the country, and it's very close to the University of the Free State that actually know the most that cactus in South Africa. We found a farm that had been used as a research station for 20 plus years, the farmer, same age as me sixty. So he was born on the farm and cactus is part of his life. And we were fortunate to be able to purchase the property and take over his initial plantation of 40 hectares on a total area, a little over 1000 hectares. And we've since in increased the farm size to 200 hectares on the plantation and still growing. Paul Okay, so. So why South Africa? Why cactus? Tony Well, I guess one of the reasons we are actually in South Africa with cactus is Australia has spent the last 95 years trying to eradicate what we often refer to as prickly pear. And prickly pear is often confused with spineless Opuntia here and we are growing, spineless Opuntia.So it's not an invasive weed species which Australia have to get rid of. And so if we mention the generic term cactus in Australia, it's a no go zone. And so South Africa had a modest amount of cactus already under plantation for fodder supplement to the cattle industry and there was some fruit demand, they call it Turks FE in Afrikaans if I pronounce that correctly, and they really enjoy eating the fruit of the plant. So we decided that South Africa then, since we already had an energy management business here in South Africa, we would tack this into that business and go for the biomass to make Biogas. And that was the journey. And so I moved to South Africa in 2020, right on Covid. And we really haven't looked back since. It's been a terrific journey and our issue is getting the farm into what we call a source farm so we can cut the cladodes, paddles whatever people want to call it so we can plant them and propagate them. And that's what we're chasing now, is the quantity of those to do that process. Paul Did you have to, so did you have to actually do a lot of work on the farm to get it up and running. Tony Yeah. So when we bought the farm, as I said earlier, it was 40 hectares was effectively a fruit orchard and it's planted 1000 plants per hectare. But for us to maximise the, the land availability, we need to increase the density to 20,000 plants per hectare. And so last year we planted 1 million cladodes which we cut from the farm. This year, right, Plant a million again and then the following year in 2024 from our previous plantings, we will be able to complete the 500 hectare planting using 10 million cladodes we cut off our own farm and that's the difficulty in South Africa and anywhere else to do cactus planting. Where do you get the raw material from? So we've developed our own farm to get the raw material. Paul If you could just tell us a little bit more than about the process of converting cactus to gas. Can you do this with any type of cactus So are you growing your own cactus? Axel Okay. So Paul then basically the cactus that we are using from the Opuntia family and we are using spineless varieties of these cactuses that are planted in high, high density and our purpose is not to produce the fruit and then use the fruit, it's to plant these crops in high density, have the highest amount of pads you know, the cactuses that have those kind look hand shaped pads. And those cactuses, when there are managed as a normal crop, but in environments that doesn't enable other crops to survive, we are able to produce those that are a meter and a half high cactuses in less than 18 months in the first year. And then it's a perennial crop that will yield continuously every year for the next 2015 to 20 years. So the cactus is harvested with the machinery. Those machinery exist now and that cactus is brought to a shredder that chop and turn that cactus into a juice, just as what you would have in a carrot juicer. And those juices get into a big tank. The big tank is maintained at 37 to 40 degrees temperature, similar to the body temperature of a cow. And then it's inoculated with some animal manure, a small amount of manure. And those bacteria that we have also in our intestines digest the sugars that we have in the cactus and then release biogas. That biogas has 30 to 40 percent CO2. And the remaining is methane biomethane. So that gas can be then directed as are to produce electricity or to be separated from the CO2 into gas and be used for further industrial purposes. Just like Tony mentioned. So it's a fantastic feedstock. It's one of the cheapest way of capturing carbon from the atmosphere as well. We could we could get into that subject a bit later if you want. Paul Yeah, absolutely. Love to do that. Yeah, absolutely. So could you tell us a little bit more about the setup process of a plantation and what inputs are required to get to get one of these plantations going? Axel So the set up is we have a land, an initial land preparation. We establish without getting too much into details, the pads are cut, the pads are established in a row, like a furrow where the pads are established, touching one another, and then you have, let's say, a continuous line of pads that start developing the root system right then obviously the land, depending on the soil conditions, is adjusted. You know, if it's too acidic, then you have to bring some limestone on it and um, and then provide some of the initial nutrients. And then we have to bring manure that is being sprayed onto the plantation because the plant respond very well to organic fertilization, because it absorb it has a better water retention capacity and releasing all the nutrients that is needed for the roots. So the cactus then develop its root system that it has a very shallow root system. 90% of the roots are in the top 15 centimeters, right? The roots can go up to six meters. The strategy of this plant is that 15%, only of 7 to 10% of its biomass that it produced annually, is in its root system. Most of plants have 30, 40% of its biomass that is that is underground. And the plant reacts like, okay, once there is like erratic, let's say you have five millimeters rainfall, the cactus is able to use it and store it in its biomass. And because it's a it has a cam photosynthetic pathway compared to C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathway. Our listeners could Google that and learn more about it. I don't I won't go into the details of it, but yeah the um cam photosynthetic pathway enables the plant to do its photosynthesis during the day, but it do it's gas exchange of CO2 water exchange during the night while normal plants do it do it during the day and because in let's say semi-arid landscape and plateau landscape the temperatures are lower during the night, you lose much less water from evapotranspiration than you would during the day. Paul What are the carbon sequestration properties of cactus that I think you suggested then they're, they're very good, they're very high. Axel Yeah. So basically just to give you an insight on the potential, if we are targeting places that are let's say between 300 to 600 millimeter of annual rainfall, which is considered a semi-arid landscape, there's millions of square kilometers of that type of land that is currently used for extensive grazing, usually because the rainfall is too variable to be able to sustain annual crops. And usually the carbon sequester of these kind of habitats of rangelands. And are around three or four tonnes of carbon of per hectare per year, while our cactus, if we bring the nutrients that they need, the macro and micro nutrients that they need to develop and we manage them properly, we are able to capture around 30, 40 to 50 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per hectare per year, which is kind of a five. Let's take up to ten fold carbon capture capacity, which is a main difference between planting trees or developing bioenergy in temperate or tropical and subtropical climates where let's say you have a forest growing and so on all let's say crop and unable to turn low potential and low carbon capture potential areas into high carbon capture areas. So we turn the semi-arid landscape into a capturing, let's say, low amount of CO2, right through being able to capture the same amount of CO2 as a temperate forest. Right. And not only that, so the cactus capture that CO2 and as it's basically in is being digested in a gentle way. There is no burning. All the nutrients stay in that big tank and returns back to the soil. Yet we extract only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen from from that biomass and the CO2 that we capture. It's one of the cheapest way of capturing CO2 for either reuse, you know, for making bioplastics into synthetic fuels or using it for any other industrial applications and having the biomethane on top of that. It's a it's a it's a it's a nice way of not only capturing carbon but also producing a transformed solar energy in in in a storable way in the form of biomethane. Paul Okay. Alright. And how does it compare to other types of biofuels or bio gases in terms of, you know, in terms of how efficiently you can convert to the energy that's needed to complete, you know, to to actually do the conversion? Axel Okay. So basically the highest yielding energy crop that we know today is palm oil produce 5 to 6000 litres of diesel equivalent energy. We're able to produce 6000 liters of diesel equivalent energy in areas receiving between four and 500 millimeters of rainfall. So but palm oil that you need to grow palm oil in area that was rainforest before receiving a 1500 millimeters of rainfall. So we're able to produce the same amount of energy as palm oil in areas receiving around three times less rainfall and that are semi-arid. Paul How long does the process take then from extracting the the cactus out of the ground, if you like, you know, to actually producing the gas? Axel Um, this is a process that we, once we chop the cactus and put it in the digester we obtain, we digest the biomass in a time that is less than six days. So we extract most of the gas, but the retention time is a little bit longer. What is also interesting that we could also point is that cactus planted in high density capture between 8 to 15% of the annual rainfall in its biomass cactus is 90 to 95% water. So let's say if you have 400 millimeters of rainfall, we might end up having 40 millimeters of that rainfall that is stored in the biomass, that creates a vegetable cover in these semi-arid landscapes and act like a natural dam that we create in semi-arid landscapes. And that has a very interesting effect on the biodiversity that we can sustain because we produce much more biomass, we have much more biomass for some reptiles, some mammals like ground squirrels. Um, turtles are tortoise and game birds and all what sustain that food chain above that. And also the underground biomass, you know, like earth worms and or termites that might benefit from the higher availability of biomass and water in that kind of challenging landscapes. Paul So this is an advantage, a benefit you're providing whilst those cats are growing during the 18 months that they're growing? Axel Exactly. Exactly. So like a small percentage of that biomass could be eaten by light. The wildlife or the benefit and all the digestate all that water that is in the cactus that has been digested, turned back as a slurry back to the soil. So what we bring, basically we bring all the nutrients that is needed often in an organic form to the cactus in the first two years and once the cactus has started flourishing, we hope we make the first harvest 18 months after the the plantation and then every 12 months and obviously, let's say if you have a plantation that is 365 hectares, that would mean that we harvest one hectare every day and all that nutrients go back to the soil. So we have nearly. So it's not exactly, but it's nearly closed nutrient loop. So all our phosphorus, potassium and calcium goes back into the soil and most of the nitrogen is also all nitrogen volitisation is extremely low because it's a no low nitrogen containing plant. So sorry, it's a little bit technical, but it, it, it, it's it brings a little bit more kind of inside in a different perspective than usual, you know, only energy focused. Paul Yeah, please be technical. It's great. So now we put the detail, we want the data. It's really interesting to hear that. so what type so you looking for semi-arid land, all the particular destinations that you're looking for at the moment. Are there particular types of landowners that you're working with where you can put these plantations Axel Okay. So the, the plantations are usually the ideal areas to plant them. It's close to, let's say if you have farms, let's say, you know, dairy farms, pig farms, chicken farms, you have the nutrients already there and the nutrient then can be is often not efficiently used there, especially in semi-arid landscapes. And we can basically provide food security by providing feed as well for cattle. So a cow is able to have 40% of its diet composed with cactus and that reduces drastically the need for annual crops that compete with food security. So we are able to provide 40% of that food. There is now new research where we can use the dried form of the cactus for poultry and even ferment it to have higher protein percentage and feed it to mono gastric animals, just like poultry or pigs. And for pigs we can also feed it as a slurry, and that enables us to get away in areas where we use, let's say, maize and soybean and secure those livestock operations that are situated in that kind of rainfall area while improving the habitat of these areas. But we can also target very marginal land, degraded land by mining operations and revegetate areas that are degraded because it's a pioneer plant and it's often misunderstood as an invasive plant because the spine is a varieties obviously proliferate where no other type of plant can develop. And often what happens certain studies also show that in Morocco that cactus plantation that were established 60 years ago becomes nurse plans for organ trees, you know, the Argan oil that is extremely valuable. Cosmetic oil. The cactus, a nurse acts like a nurse plant. The small little tree gets protected by the cactus. Right. Organ tree then take over and facilitate regeneration of forest in that kind of habitat. It's also a plant that is being used, has been used for centuries in Sicily, around Mount Etna. So when the volcano used to erupt and then you had lava. Yeah, farmers used to take those pads and establish those pads in the rocky basaltic landscape. Have that cactus grow for 20 years where it accumulates organic matter and dust and so on, and basically generate that soil layer that is needed for establishing grapes. And if you look at grape culture in Sicily, they they develop it in an on Mount Etna up to 700 meters. The reason why you don't have grades above that level is because cactus is tolerant to frost up to 700 meters in Sicily. And and which is a very interesting fact. So it's a pioneer plant generating soil and generating soil 5 to 10 times faster than any other crop. Paul Wow. That is a thing. That is a huge thing because I know that soil is a is a big problem, isn't it? Axel So that soil erosion is a huge problem and having a plant that is able to withstand very marginal shallow soils and generating that organic matter, enabling other plants to establish is a huge advantage for increasing the resilience of our agro ecosystems. Right? Yeah. Paul Can you tell us a little bit more about the biodiversity site then of this site? Axel So yeah, so the biodiversity, so our way of maintaining kind of a resilient cropping system on our approach is to have the cactus instead of having the cactus on a monoculture and having, let's say a desert of cactus and erasing all other kind of plants because we want the cactus is we use cover crops in between the entire rows of cactus. You fix nitrogen, we plant them in a in a in a mixed way. So we have the whole diversity of annual crops that are planted or semiannual plants planted in between the cactuses. Most of them are nitrogen fixers. Those nitrogen fixing plants fix nitrogen, provide food also for all the through soil food, web. And we use those plants as well as a mulch. And that mulch basically enables the cactus to thrive even in a better way. And those are those plants that are planted in between instead of grass. Have most of them have flowers. And so they are extremely beneficial for pollinating insects. So we are able to sustain a certain level of pollinating insects in our cultures. And we also aim to establish hedgerows of native plants every, you know, every couple of hundred meters so that we decrease the wind speed and enable for local wildlife to thrive in our plantations. So we we we are planning on basically planting a minimum of 8000 trees per square kilometer of cactus planted, which would enable a lot of, you know, birds and mammals to make their habitat thrive in those kind of habitats. Paul Sounds amazing. Yeah, that's a really amazing thanks for sharing that Axel. What are the real challenges to this view then, in establishing this business? What what have you had to overcome? Axel So. So I can I can say I can answer if you want, quickly. Yeah. So the main challenge is this. This cactus crop has been used. There's more than 600,000 hectares of cactus planted in northeast Brazil for forage purposes. So they use it for dairy cows as a feed for cattle and it enables that whole region to be more resilient to climate because they have extremely variable rainfall that can vary from 200 millimeters to 600 millimeters. And these high density intensively managed cactus plantations. The technique has been developed by a guy called Paolo Swasuna in northeast Brazil and Paolo Swasuna developed it around 20 years ago and the first machinery to harvest cactus has been developed and put on to market this year. In 2023 in northeast Brazil. So the main problem that was, let's say hindering the development of high density cactus plantation is okay, we plant this by hand already. How do we harvest it? And the harvest, okay, it's a manageable thing if you have small holders with one, two, 3 to 5 hectares of cactus, chop it, bring it to the cows and feed it to the cattle. But nobody wanted to develop and adopt that kind of it's, let's say the industrialization. When I say industrialization is all the mechanization that comes with it has been developed relatively recently, in fact very recently compared to other crops like maize, lucerne, and that kind of crops. But know that with all the climate change and, you know, adaptation, this plant with the new mechanization and so on and the adoption in a larger scale and the bottleneck was the mechanical of harvest. And now we have a machinery that can harvest up to 150 tons of cactus per hour. So we are able, let's say, with a machine that would run 10 hours, be able to harvest 1500 tons of green cactus every single day. Paul Is this biofuel displacing other biofuels? Because it's either cheap, cheaper, it has, you know, better properties and in some other way? Axel No, it doesn't. Our aim is not to. It's not to replace another biofuel or something like this. We don't. We just want to be able to provide sustainable fuel, sustainable feed, sustainable food in areas that are where there is no other opportunities or and create that job employment opportunities where they really like. Paul That's interesting. It is a bit broader, isn't it? I mean, you have been talking about that, so we're not really just talking about cactus to gas then know we are talking about cactus to feeds and foods and biofuels and Axel Yeah, exactly. So imagine we are pushing now in the world into biodegradable, sustainable feedstocks. And most of the you might have noticed, you know, the cork of the new dividing edible corks that they developed for wineries or packaging solutions. All of these are driving the need for, um, biodegradable feedstock like, okay, yes, we can use forest, but up to a certain point we and the other feedstock that we use are either corn that we turn into starch, the starch, it's turned into sugars and the sugars are then fed to bacteria to produce bioplastics or acid that turn into bioplastics or that kind of things. And sugar cane and sugar beet. But if you think about maize, sugar cane and sugar beet, all of these crops need regular rainfall when they are growing and they can be only planted in certain areas. While cactus has 30%, easily digestible sugars. Yeah, it has very low lignin, very low, quite low cellulose. It has only 15% cellulose. It has its let's say we aim to become the sustainable feedstock of more marginal lands and produce provide the bio industry of the future with this sustainable feedstock. It's not only gas we could we can produce. You know, people might have heard people producing fake vegan leather from the cactus. We can produce different types of fiber and extract for paper pulp production. We can also use the cactus for other type of fermentation products. So, you know, different types of amino acids and organic acids that enter into the composition of other kind of industrial products that are bio sourced. And also the feed, the fermentation for protein production and soybean replacement. So it has a lot of potential benefits. And let's say it's our sugar factory for fermentation of bio industries in marginal land. Paul Okay, So you're working in very hot areas and I'm assuming that there's quite a lot of energy involved in this process. But does it because you're working in these hot areas I mean, you can generate your own energy. You don't need to take anything from a local grid. Axel Well, we one of the beautiful thing that we can develop that we're working on is also one option is you have let's say we grow this cactus where there is a lot of sunlight, okay? Solar PV is one of the cheapest way of producing electricity today. But what happens what the beauty of the cactus is that we are able to turn around the 1 to 2 to 1 to 2% of the solar radiation into methane. So okay, people might say, oh, but solar panels are 14% efficient. Yes, there are certain 14% efficient, but they are not in a storable it's not a storable energy. So what you can do is have solar panels providing electricity during the day and when you or you have clouds or that you have no electricity, you can supply that stored form of solar energy, which is the biomethane produced from cactus and have a stable electricity solutions run or for lower tank and lower tech decarbonized transport, transportation We have CNG, you know, compressed natural gas well, this would be compressed biomethane and we are able to run our tractors that we use on biomethane, we are able to use that gas as well for the integral weeding. We're able to use that energy let's say have or be autonomous in that sense. Paul So if you could just tell us a little bit more about how is the biogas being used now after it's being sold, for example, after it comes out of your digester? Axel Yes, Paul. So we have different potential fuel options for the use of biogas. So the simplest way is to use the biogas and to replace natural gas paraffin as a fuel to burn in boilers. That's the first option. No separation of CO2 and methane. The biogas is directed role into burners. And we let's say pasteurized milk or we use it for any other kind of heat purposes. Second option is to direct that biogas that is being filtered from sulfur and other kind of content, let's say small particles, and then it's directed to a gas generator. And that gas generator is being run with the biogas, and we produce heat and power. So electricity to provide the electricity locally, the heat, and then can be in the form of, you know, steam or hot water. Um, the sort of first force options are we take the biogas, we direct it into a separation unit where we separate the CO2 and we separate the biomethane. So now the biomethane is a complete molecularly. It's, it's, it's equal to natural gas. So it can be either compressed into CNG, compressed natural gas or compressed biomethane, or it can be injected into the gas grid, which is being done in certain European countries for it can be cooled down and turn into liquefied biomethane to transport it into further distances. And a force option is also ANGI, which is absorbing natural gas, which are bottles filled with active carbon and of the biomethane then can be stored in lower pressure than CNG bottles. Those CNG bottles. So obviously we can use it to replace LPG and other fuel uses and all the different uses that we can do with natural gas. But the beauty of it is that we can run busses, tractors, cars with biomethane. So for example, Italy has 1.4 million CNG powered cars and we can see a lot of them in European cities, you know, CNG or biomethane powered busses, right, to reduce the carbon footprint. And then we have a let's say a fifth or sixth step which is directing that biogas into Fisher crop units. Fischer-Tropsch is a technology that was developed in the past early century in Germany and the Fischer-Tropsch unit is basically pressure turning that biogas potentially to synthetic gas. And we use a catalyst to produce synthetic fuels. But because the CO2 is from renewables source and because the biomethane is from a renewable source, we would be able to produce sustainable aviation fuel. So bio kerosene or synthetic biodiesel or synthetic petroleum. So that's the and today we have Fischer-Tropsch units that can work with 70% efficiency. And it can really be very interesting because we would be able to produce more than 6000 liters of synthetic of Aviation fuel per hectare in semi-arid landscapes. Just to give you an idea. Paul I really appreciate your time on this podcast, we learned so much about your business and turning, you know, cactus into gas and into into feedstock. It's been really interesting. We've learned a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Axel Thank you very much, Paul. Previous Next

Navigating the Triple Bottom Line for Sustainable Success Master the Triple Bottom Line: A strategic guide to balancing profit, people, and planet for sustainable growth, impactful decisions, and long-term business success. Published on: 31 Oct 2024 In the ever-evolving landscape of business, a paradigm shift has taken place. Beyond traditional profit-centric models, companies are increasingly recognising the importance of a holistic approach that considers not only financial gains but also social and environmental impact. This concept is encapsulated in the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework, which urges businesses to balance profits, people, and the planet for sustainable success. Understanding the Triple Bottom Line The Triple Bottom Line, coined by John Elkington in 1994, extends the traditional bottom line, which focuses solely on financial performance, to include two additional dimensions – social and environmental. The TBL framework suggests that a business’s success should be measured not just by its economic profits but also by its positive contributions to society and the environment. The overarching objective of implementing a sustainable business strategy is to generate positive effects on the environment, society, or both, concurrently enhancing value for shareholders. Business leaders are increasingly recognising the power of sustainable business strategies not just in addressing global challenges but also in propelling the success of their firms. Nevertheless, the task of defining sustainability, establishing precise and achievable goals, and devising a strategy to accomplish those objectives can be challenging. An approach for understanding a business’s sustainability initiatives is through the application of the triple bottom line concept, particularly in the context of driving the firm’s overall success. Profit: Beyond the Financial Bottom Line: While profitability remains a crucial aspect of any business, the TBL urges companies to consider the broader impact of their operations. In a study by Harvard Business Review , it was found that companies embracing sustainable practices out perform their counterparts in the long run. By aligning business strategies with environmental and social responsibility, companies can enhance brand reputation, attract environmentally conscious consumers, and foster innovation. People: Nurturing a Socially Responsible Culture The “People” dimension of the TBL emphasises the importance of social responsibility and ethical business practices. Companies are increasingly realising that a healthy bottom line is intricately linked to the well-being of their employees, customers, and communities. A case in point is Patagonia, a renowned outdoor clothing company. Known for its commitment to environmental and social causes, Patagonia has set an exemplary standard for incorporating the “People” aspect into its business model. The company’s initiatives, such as the implementation of fair labour practices and extensive employee benefits, not only enhance the well-being of its workforce but also resonate positively with customers. Planet: Environmental Stewardship for Long-term Viability The “Planet” aspect of the TBL emphasises environmental sustainability. With climate change and resource depletion becoming increasingly urgent issues, businesses are recognising the need to minimise their ecological footprint. Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company, is a notable example. Unilever has committed to making its entire product line more sustainable, with initiatives like reducing waste and using environmentally friendly packaging materials. Through such efforts, Unilever not only contributes to the health of the planet but also taps into the growing market of eco-conscious consumers . Challenges in Implementing the Triple Bottom Line While the TBL framework presents an attractive model for sustainable success, it is not without challenges. Balancing the three dimensions can be intricate, and companies often face dilemmas in prioritising one aspect over another. However, addressing these challenges is crucial for the long-term viability of businesses in an era where consumers and investors are increasingly scrutinising corporate responsibility. Measuring Success: The Importance of Metrics To effectively navigate the TBL, companies need reliable metrics to measure their performance in each dimension. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for sustainability reporting, offering a standardised way for businesses to communicate their economic, social, and environmental impacts. Conclusion In conclusion, the Triple Bottom Line provides a compelling blueprint for businesses to thrive in the 21st century. By balancing profits, people, and the planet, companies can create long-term value, enhance brand reputation, and contribute positively to society and the environment. The examples of companies like Patagonia and Unilever showcase that embracing the TBL is not just an ethical choice but a strategic one that can lead to sustainable success. As we move forward, it is imperative for businesses to integrate the TBL framework into their core strategies, fostering a new era of responsible and resilient enterprises. The Triple Bottom Line is not just a trend; it’s a paradigm shift that is shaping the future of business. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

Planet Friendly Packaging Josh Pitman of Priory Direct Discusses Planet Friendly Packaging Planet-friendly packaging offers numerous benefits, including reducing environmental impact, minimising waste, conserving resources, meeting consumer preferences, complying with regulations, and enhancing brand reputation. So welcome, everybody, to today's podcast, our Rethink What Matters podcast. And today, we are going to be talking about planet friendly packaging . And so this is a really important subject, as I'm sure you know, everybody is going to be aware of and I'm joined today by Josh Pittman of Priory Direct. Josh Hi there! Thanks very much for having me, Paul. Paul Brilliant! Thanks again for joining us, Josh. So, whether it's natural resource depletion , environmental conservation, waste reduction, pollution and litter, greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic contamination, energy consumption or climate change mitigation, planet friendly packaging can really help our cause. So I'm really excited and really pleased to have this conversation with Josh today. So perhaps Josh, you can introduce us please, to yourself and Priory Direct. Josh Yeah, cool. I'm Josh. I’m Managing Director over here at Priory Direct and we're a sustainable packaging retailer. Essentially, we’re on a mission to minimise the impact of e-commerce, with the view of making it a really sustainable industry. And we feel that packaging has a huge part to play there. It’s one of the big causes of waste and impact from e-commerce. But it's also, because of that, one of the huge enablers in which we can reduce the impact of e-commerce operations. It can make goods handling, goods transport more efficient and it can reduce a lot of wasted material. And downstream waste and pollution that you alluded to there as well. Packaging is a necessary evil that actually can be a great enabler for good, and I think all of us are seeing how much packaging is being consumed with distance retail. Even if you just take a walk down your local street on recycling day, hopefully, you'll see the quite a lot of recycling bins ready for collection for the packaging materials and actually if you look in your normal bin the vast majority of what's going in there is packaging material. I think that's why it's been the elephant in the room at the minute. There's a huge amount of discussions being had around it and there’s also a lot of good that can be done in that space. " We’re on a mission to minimise the impact of e-commerce, with the view of making it a really sustainable industry. Packaging is a necessary evil that can actually be a great enabler for good." Paul Brilliant! Absolutely, I think it’s something businesses and users can think about equally. Businesses obviously coming to you as your customers. What packaging is the best packaging to use and then the users as well. I’m just curious, Priory Direct, is any story behind the name? Josh Well, actually, yeah. My dad started the business in 1989 in a small priory in Orpington. And that's where the Priory Business Group was created. Essentially, I started the e-commerce operation for Priory, selling labels that match with eBay and Amazon. So with the address still in, we sell them and they're really convenient for frequent sellers. So essentially, we supply 21,000 businesses in the UK with their packaging and they range from Sally and Hership with an e-bay shop who’ll be a sole trader typically from a residential address. They will be running an e-commerce operation. And you’ll be very surprised as to how big some ecommerce operations get from those sorts of situations. We have some customers that turn well over a million pounds from residential address by selling things online and their packaging choices in some ways are no less important than those of the bigger retailers. And that ranges up to Tier 1, Tier 2 retailers like Vivo, Barefoot, like H&M and we have integrated supply chain solutions. We help them minimise the impact of their supply chain from end to end and we manage the inbound supply chain for their packaging and the choices they make around packaging materials. We try and help them form their operations as to where they make reductions in waste - wasted time and material and also reductions of carbon footprint through more efficient choices. “We help them minimise the impact of their supply chain from end to end and we manage the inbound supply chain for their packaging and the choices they make around packaging materials. We try and help them form their operations as to where they make reductions in waste - wasted time and material and also reductions of carbon footprint through more efficient choices.” Paul Okay. Excellent, excellent. Let’s get into some of the challenges that you and your customers will you need to face. Sustainable packaging then, the materials that you’re using there - bio-plastics, compostable materials, I guess they’re more challenging to use as packaging material. Josh Yeah, I guess, inadvertently, you’ve touched on a minefield there which is bioplastics . For me, we’ve got a real, kind of a strong view on that. And plastic has a negative sentiment swing in the consumer's eyes and there is no doubt about it that we have material problem with plastic consumption, plastic waste in particular. So the key the key issue when it comes to plastic is its recyclability and its downstream handling. For instance, we consume around 600 million, sorry, 600,000 tonnes of soft plastic LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene ) packaging a year in the UK. Now, all that 50% is for consumers and 50% is commercial. But the total recycling capacity in UK for LDPE is around 210,000 tonnes. So at very best, a third of that packaging will get recycled, but only 10,000 tonnes of that capacity is dedicated to municipal market, to consumers and households and the rest of that is industrial. So soft plastics, when they end up in consumer hands, don't get recycled. It's a fact. Not only because there isn’t enough capacity for it, but also because there isn’t curb side collection, there isn't an infrastructure available. So in terms of environmental issues, choosing plastic as an e-commerce retailer just is very, very hard to justify because that material will be single use. It’s very, very unlikely to end up back into the circular economy to be reused. And so it's an issue. And the reason bioplastics, a lot of people say, “Oh, it's OK because using a bioplastic.” Well, the truth is that bioplastics are made by growing a monocrop and then converting from ethanol into polyethanol into sugars. There's an awful lot of upstream processing. There's an awful lot of land and water dedicated to making that product. And essentially, without the infrastructure to recapture and repurpose it, it's no better than using a fossil fuel based plastic derivative. In fact, the carbon footprint associated with making it is higher than that of a carbon fossil fuel oriented plastic. So it's a real challenge that one. From my point of view, in terms of sustainable packaging, there are environment versus sustainability confusions and you know, if you actually monitor just carbon footprint then in some cases there are perfect legitimate applications for plastic. But environmentally, it's very, very poorly handled by our infrastructure and isn’t recycled. "For instance, we consume around 600,000 tonnes of soft plastic LDPE packaging a year in the UK. So soft plastics, when they end up in consumer hands, don’t get recycled. It’s a fact. Not only because there isn’t enough capacity for it, but also there isn’t curbside collection, there isn’t an infrastructure available." Paul I think sometimes people don't probably just have to do what they know is right, you know. Maybe the green solution isn't as green as everybody thinks and people just got to go with what they know is best, the best thing to do and that might be, on the face of it, the thing which is less eco-friendly and what not. Josh Yeah, we’re big advocates actually, for paper based products, paper based packaging. More than 95% of paper and pulp-based packaging in the UK gets recycled. We have some of the highest recovery rates for paper based packaging products in Europe. We've got great infrastructure there, so the choice is quite simple. There are easy solutions available and then they know that they're going to be recycled, recovered and reused. And it's curbside available. So it's an easy choice. Paul Suppose sometimes paper isn't an alternative to plastic? Josh Well, I mean, the big challenge paper has is it's heavy and bulky, you know. And so there are some big commercial applications where high volume consumption justifies plastic and based upon a carbon footprint point of view. The big elephant in the room from an e-commerce perspective is that the material choice of packaging pales into insignificance into the footprint in which it is applicated. So what I mean by that is if you pack a very small item in a very large piece of packaging, it means you need more vans on the road, more journeys, there's more material to recycle, more collected weight, more shifted weight. Actually by focusing on how packaging interfaces with the courier network, that's what you can have the biggest reduction in carbon footprint emissions. And really, things like final mile drop density, consolidation of shipping journeys and right sizing packaging, you know they're hugely more impactful than choosing one paper versus another or plastic over paper. The plastic debate is really an environmental one and it's clear cut. If you want those materials to not do harm, choose ones that biodegrade naturally and/or are readily recycled. Paul Part of working with you, obviously, you'd be discussing that with them. So the functionality then of the sustainable materials, is that also an issue? I mean do they bend? And do they cut? Do they fold? And do they, as you mentioned, they're bulkier, so I suppose that's a consideration as well, isn't? Josh Yeah, from an e-commerce perspective, actually there are great solutions and there aren't many drawbacks to using paper mailing bags . You know, we've got 2000 stock products that your average customer and end user could easily make sustainable choices. And they would fit and apply to the majority of business use cases. We've even done some weird and wacky ones like we supply a tungsten carbide drill bit manufacturer with a trapezoid hard board solution with paper strapping on it. Now that's carrying up to like 55, 75 kilos, per dispatch. And you know these things are drill bits they’re seriously tough bits of care. Yeah, and that was one that they were originally using – hard, plastic casing to send. And actually there was a paper based solution. It just took a little bit more engineering to get it right. “From an e-commerce perspective, actually there are great solutions and there aren't many draw backs to using paper mailing bags. You know, we've got 2000 stock products that your average customer and end user could easily make sustainable choices. And they would fit and apply to the majority of business use cases.” Paul Where are the trends at the moment regarding people just wanting to use sustainable packaging, its cost or its functionality because they know their customers want sustainable packaging? Josh In the past, say, being more sustainable, arrow is pointing this way. Making more money arrow is pointing this way. And you know it was very tough to try and find a journey between the two. Now in some applications in packaging, you can drive for more efficiency and that reduces cost. And so hey, we're going in the same direction that works. But nowadays, because consumers are following more conscious brands, because that e-commerce experience is the modern storefront, if I buy from a brand that I aspire to be aligned with, that I really like and that item arrives in poorly presented piece of single use plastic, it can ruin the brand perceived value. And so I think people and businesses in particular are waking up to the fact that consumers will not accept that and that it looks negative on the brand and it damages their brand perception. And so finally that commerciality and sustainability team to align, which is very exciting from our perspective. Actually businesses are having to make ethical decisions that are being driven by the consumer and that's really exciting. Paul Yeah, I was going to ask about that actually, touched on a point that you mentioned earlier, that what are the policymakers doing? What the government is doing to encourage the use of sustainable packaging? Josh Yeah, I mean, I'm a big advocate for legislation, because I think, if you look at businesses, ultimately they often exist to deliver shareholder value. You know you are kind of dreaming if you believe that a lot of big things is going to take that step. We are great at triple bottom line business, but we're a family owned and run business. We have much tighter attachment to the impact we're having in the world, and I think we're conscious about it. But a lot of businesses aren't going to make that step. And that’s their legislation or consumer opportunity. So what's actually being done now? There are two things that I think are sort of fairly relevant. One is the plastic packaging tax and essentially that is a £220 a tonne levy for any plastic packaging product that is under 30% post-consumer waste. Now the majority of plastic packaging can be made-up to 80% post-consumer waste so it's a very small step in the right direction. But essentially what it does is it starts creating more demand for recycled plastic, which hopefully creates an opportunity for recyclers, creates money into that market and helps us build a recycling infrastructure. So that's kind of cool. The second one is a scheme called packaging recovery notes, PRN's . And that is for every tonne of a material a large business uses, they have to buy a recovery note as an extended responsibility for creating that material. “One is the plastic packaging tax and essentially that is a £220 a tonne levy for any plastic packaging product that is under 30% post-consumer waste. But essentially what it does is it starts creating more demand for recycled plastic, which hopefully creates an opportunity for recyclers, creates money into that market and helps us build a recycling infrastructure.” And the money they spend on those recovery notes is invested in recycling, and the notes are only produced every tonne of a material that's recycled. So it's a bit hard to wrap the head around, but essentially you think of supply and demand. The less recycling that's going on relative to the amount of material being consumed. The less recovery notes there are for the number of tonnes being used and therefore the price of these goes up really high and that suddenly means that a lot of money is being generated for recycling businesses for them to invest in infrastructure. In principle, the idea is great it means that the more recycling you do with the material, the lower cost it is to use that material because there's less friction associated with the with the PRN's. The big knock on effect of this is essentially, the businesses that are playing for their PRNs, plastic is much, much more expensive, in the region of £300 a tonne, versus paper which is about £10 a tonne because paper is readily recyclable. So for every tonne of the material that big business is using, they're actually, if you look at the extended responsibility, the cost of paper is no longer hugely prohibitive over plastic, which it used to be. Paul It just brings me on to really thinking about certifications and testing. Are there any certifications or testing associated with sustainable packaging? Josh Yeah. I mean really more to do with sustainable business practise. So like ISO 14001 is a great one and it's a waste management system and it helps people audit and manage their materials and FSC and PEFC are really reliable markers. So if you're looking for whether that paper has been sourced from a sustainable forest. And what I mean by that is that it's grown as a crop. There's no natural habitat being destroyed and it's harvesting and it's essentially a properly stewarded and managed forest space, so those are great markers. And climate neutral. So the climate neutral marker is a great one and that's an accredited market that has an application that you have to go through in order to use it on your packaging. One thing that's of interest is that a lot of people think that having printing on packaging, et cetera, is less recyclable. But from a paper based product, it makes no difference whatsoever. Unless it has a laminate. So we've got a very shiny surface or it's got plastic laminate applied. Those are the things to look out for. Paul I did want to ask about that actually. I've recently heard that you know receipts. You know, they've got an ink on there, which is quite toxic. Josh Yeah. So I mean, that's one of our innovations as well, that we're really proud of is we've created BPA (Bisphenol A) free thermal labels part of our Priory Elements range. And it's a big story. I'm really glad you asked. So we will have seen BPA free on drinks boxes. You guys probably have seen that. And the reason we're using BPA free plastics in our drinks boxes is because biphenyl is a carcinogenic plastic that emulates oestrogen, so it accumulates in the body and it can disrupt our oestrogen levels. And essentially all receipts and all traditional thermal labels, which are the address labels you receive your e-commerce goods on, have a BPA coating. And that's why you shouldn't really touch or interact with receipts, because of that bit of BPA can be absorbed through your skin. But the wider problem with e-commerce is that those thermal labels are being recycled with the box they're stuck on, so they get water poles and then the pulp is filtered out the water and the water is flushed into our waterways containing microplastics and BPA. And essentially that accumulates in our environment we then start imbibing the BPA from the foods we eat and the water we drink, and all of a sudden, cancer rates are going up, we're all having problems with our oestrogen levels, so we've created a label that's got a vitamin C coating, which naturally biodegrades, oxidises naturally in nature and doesn't create single use microplastics. Paul Just speaking about end users then let's go with end users. To start off with it, are there 1, 2 or 3 things, perhaps they should be looking for when they receive a package in the post, from Amazon or from wherever it might be to see if the packaging that they've received is planet friendly? Josh OK. So I mean from my perspective, the first pillar is right size. OK, if you've got lots of padding and void filling there, it's not the right item to be sending that in and that's a fact. It involves wasted material, but more importantly, wasted space in this project. So is it right sized? Does it wrap around or form or not where there’s a padding? Is it recyclable? Is it made of a single material that you can easily recycle yourself and is it clear for you how to recycle it? If it isn't, then that's not part of the circular economy. The next time that material is going to be needed, we're going to need to make some more of it. So is it recyclable? OK. And then finally, is it single use? Is it single material? Forgive me. Is it single material? So we really try and avoid dual material. So plastic combined with paper is not so good. So really you want to have a mono material item so that it is fully recyclable and easy to handle downstream. Josh And I would say, I would like to say Paul about the triple bottom line nature of our direct account. So I know that a lot of your subscribers are businesses and there's a couple of things that I think I feel really, really strong about is about making sustainable choices as a business, but also using your platform as a business as a vehicle for good. And we've launched our charity rewards and our partnership with 1% for the Planet. And our partnership with Rainforest Trust and all of the back of those ideas, the Rainforest Trust Partnership has now protected over 6,000,000 square metres of rainforest. The Priory Elements range are sold in partnership with 1% for the Planet. So 1% of all turnover, not profit of those items goes to planet saving charities. And our charity rewards because our customers the ability to give 1% back over everything they spend to one of our four charity partners. And in the last 12 months, that's raised over £44,000 for charity. What I would like to impart to your viewers, your subscribers, your customers, is that the loyalty that you can drive through customers that buy into that messaging and fully join you on your journey is worth the investment. And we're just very lucky that our customers and demographic are very aligned with that and go for it. The Rainforest Trust Protection that has replaced the free gift of the checkout. It costs the same to the business, but it's been immensely positive and the 1% for the Planet partnership. They're one of the best organisations we've interfaced with. It makes that product more compelling. You know, for all of the smaller businesses that can't afford to brand their own packaging when they choose Priory Elements, it talks about it being planet friendly. It's got the 1% for the planet marker on there. It shows their customers they've made a sustainable choice. “(It is about) making sustainable choices as a business, but also using your platform as a business as a vehicle for good. The loyalty that you can drive through customers that buy into that messaging and fully join you on your journey is worth the investment. And we're just very lucky that our customers and demographic are very aligned with that and go for it.” Paul OK. All right. Well, that's, you know, been such a great insight into planet-friendly packaging, Josh and how Priory Direct works. Josh Pleasure, Paul. Thanks very much. Paul Cheers, then. Thank you. Bye-bye. Josh Bye Contact Details Website: https://www.priorydirect.co.uk/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/priory.direct/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/priory-direct/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/priorydirect Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PrioryDirect Twitter: https://twitter.com/priorydirect Previous Next

Leveraging Sustainability Business Plans to Support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Discover how sustainability business plans play a pivotal role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Learn how your business can make a positive impact on a global scale. Empowering SDGs through Sustainable Business Strategies. In the face of global challenges such as climate change, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, the United Nations introduced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. These 17 interconnected goals serve as a blueprint to address pressing global issues by 2030. Achieving the SDGs requires a concerted effort from governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals. Among these stakeholders, businesses play a pivotal role. In this post, we will explore how sustainability business plans can be harnessed to advance the SDGs, emphasising the potential benefits for companies, society, and the environment. Creating Regenerative Growth for a Greener Future Sustainability alone won’t stop climate warming. To make a real difference, we must move beyond sustaining and focus on regenerating. Green growth and a green economy require businesses to set regenerative goals across all stakeholders. Here’s why net zero and sustainability efforts fall short: 240 Years of Environmental Damage For over two centuries, human activity has severely degraded natural systems. Sustainability cannot restore ecosystems to their original state. Regeneration is the only way forward. We’ve been digging this hole for 240 years – now it’s time to climb out. Simply sustaining our current position perpetuates climate warming rather than reversing it. Regenerative practices are critical to rebuilding essential biological systems. Inadequate Response to Rapid Economic Growth The pace of global economic growth is accelerating, amplifying climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion. Sustainability aims to slow the damage, but we must do more. Regenerative solutions actively reverse environmental harm and build resilience into ecosystems. To offset the environmental impact of growth, businesses need to be NET POSITIVE, not just net zero. This approach creates the capacity to support expanding economies and populations. Less Harm is Still Harmful Reducing harm doesn’t equal doing good. Sustainability often implies that minimising negative impact is sufficient. However, this mindset only delays collapse. Net zero goals can be achieved through carbon offsets rather than emission reduction, promoting the wrong behaviours. Offsets, such as tree planting, can take decades to deliver meaningful results. Regeneration, by contrast, focuses on immediate positive impact, creating long-term solutions that build back better. Distant 2030 and 2050 Targets Lack Urgency Setting sustainability goals for 2030 or 2050 risks complacency. These distant targets encourage short-term fixes rather than lasting solutions. How will progress be measured? Will offsets that take decades to materialise count? Regenerative goals demand immediate action, driving innovation and long-term thinking to address environmental challenges today. The Wrong Mindset Sustainability fosters the illusion of balance and steady-state conditions. In reality, change is accelerating. Believing that we can simply sustain today’s systems ignores the urgent need for transformation. Regeneration acknowledges this accelerating change, pushing businesses to innovate, adapt, and thrive. Lack of Positive Vision Sustainability lacks inspiration. It sets a defensive goal of avoiding harm rather than pursuing growth and renewal. Regeneration fuels creativity, motivates innovation, and drives technological breakthroughs. A positive vision of a greener, regenerative future encourages people to excel, fostering excitement rather than fear. Hardship Makes Change Unlikely Economic hardship stifles collective action. When people face financial insecurity, they prioritise immediate survival over long-term environmental goals. Societies experiencing economic downturns or environmental collapse are less likely to invest in sustainable initiatives. Regeneration must address economic and environmental issues simultaneously to ensure equitable progress for all. Beyond Sustainability: The Regenerative Imperative While sustainability is an essential step, it’s not the final destination. Regenerative practices, long-term vision, and stakeholder collaboration are vital to creating a thriving, resilient future. By addressing climate change head-on, businesses can unlock new opportunities, mitigate risk, and lead the way in building a truly green economy. Aligning Business Goals with SDGs The first and most crucial step in utilising sustainability business plans to support the SDGs is to align the goals of the business with the SDGs. This involves an in-depth analysis of how the company's operations, products, and services can contribute to the global goals. By doing so, businesses can identify where their activities intersect with the SDGs and craft strategies to maximise positive impacts. For example, a renewable energy company can directly contribute to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) , while a fair-trade coffee producer can support SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). By identifying these intersections, businesses can set clear targets and develop action plans that address both their financial objectives and the SDGs. Promoting Responsible Consumption and Production One of the key SDGs, SDG 12 , emphasises the need for responsible consumption and production patterns. Sustainability business plans can actively contribute to this goal by adopting eco-friendly practices , reducing waste, and promoting resource efficiency. This not only helps businesses minimise their environmental footprint but also appeals to consumers who are increasingly concerned about the ethical and sustainable aspects of products and services. For instance, adopting a circular economy approach can significantly reduce waste and promote the recycling of materials, thereby supporting SDG 12. Companies can also invest in innovative technologies and processes that reduce resource consumption, lower emissions, and minimise environmental impact. Strengthening Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) CSR initiatives are an integral part of many businesses' sustainability plans. CSR activities encompass a wide range of social and environmental actions, from philanthropy and community engagement to ethical sourcing and diversity and inclusion programs. Aligning these initiatives with the relevant SDGs can amplify their impact and highlight the company's commitment to the global goals. For instance, a company that supports educational programs in underserved communities aligns with SDG 4 (Quality Education). By emphasising these connections, businesses can demonstrate their dedication to the SDGs and inspire other organisations to follow suit. Innovating for a Sustainable Future Innovation is a cornerstone of sustainability. By investing in research and development to create more sustainable products and services, businesses can directly contribute to several SDGs, particularly those related to climate action, clean energy, and responsible consumption. For example, a technology company that develops energy-efficient devices is contributing to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). Sustainable innovations can also generate new revenue streams and position businesses as leaders in the transition to a more sustainable world. Accessing New Markets and Consumers By integrating sustainability into their business plans, companies can tap into new markets and reach a broader customer base. The growing consumer demand for eco-friendly and socially responsible products and services presents a significant opportunity for businesses to expand their reach while contributing to SDGs such as SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). For example, companies that offer organic, fair-trade, or cruelty-free products are well-positioned to attract environmentally conscious consumers. By appealing to this segment of the market, businesses can experience increased sales and brand loyalty. Fostering Sustainable Supply Chains Sustainability business plans extend beyond a company's direct operations to encompass its entire supply chain. By engaging with suppliers and partners to implement sustainable practices, businesses can make substantial contributions to the SDGs. This is particularly relevant for SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure). For instance, working with suppliers to ensure fair labor practices, reduce emissions, and minimise waste not only strengthens the supply chain but also supports the broader goal of sustainable economic growth. Encouraging Employee Engagement Engaging employees in sustainability efforts is vital for achieving long-term success in supporting the SDGs. Employees who are passionate about sustainability and feel that their work makes a difference are more likely to contribute innovative ideas and be more productive. This can lead to positive impacts on multiple SDGs, including SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequality). Companies can foster employee engagement through training, volunteer programs, and sustainability-focused recognition and reward systems. By creating a sustainability culture within the organisation, businesses can drive positive change both internally and externally. Reporting and Accountability Transparent reporting on sustainability performance is crucial for accountability and demonstrating progress toward the SDGs. Businesses should include clear metrics and targets in their sustainability business plans, which are aligned with the specific SDGs they aim to support. Regular sustainability reporting, such as through the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), can help businesses track their impact and make adjustments as needed. By providing evidence of their contributions to the SDGs, businesses can build trust with stakeholders, including customers, investors, and regulators. This transparency can lead to increased support and investment, further driving sustainability efforts. Collaboration and Partnerships No single business can achieve the SDGs on its own. Collaboration and partnerships are essential for addressing complex global challenges. Businesses can join forces with governments, non-governmental organisations, and other companies to combine resources and expertise in pursuit of the SDGs. For example, the UN Global Compact encourages businesses to align their operations and strategies with the SDGs and to engage in collaborative projects with other organisations. These partnerships can magnify the impact of individual efforts and contribute to multiple SDGs simultaneously. Conclusion Sustainability business plans play a critical role in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. By aligning business objectives with the SDGs, promoting responsible consumption and production, strengthening corporate social responsibility, fostering innovation, accessing new markets, and engaging employees, businesses can make meaningful contributions to the global goals. Furthermore, by reporting on their sustainability efforts, collaborating with partners, and incorporating the SDGs into their core strategies, businesses can inspire a global movement toward a more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous future. It is imperative for businesses to recognise that their success is intertwined with the achievement of the SDGs. By integrating sustainability into their business models and actively participating in the global effort to address these challenges, companies can not only ensure their long-term viability but also contribute to a better world for all. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations offer clarity and a well-defined pathway for you and your team to move forward confidently. Get Started

< Back Cash In business financials, "cash" refers to the most liquid form of assets that a company possesses. It includes: Currency : Physical money such as coins and banknotes. Bank Deposits : Funds held in checking and savings accounts that can be easily accessed. Cash Equivalents : Short-term, highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to known amounts of cash and are subject to an insignificant risk of changes in value. Examples include Treasury bills, commercial paper, and money market funds. Cash is an essential component of a company's balance sheet, listed under current assets, and is crucial for daily operations, paying expenses, and managing short-term obligations. It is a key indicator of a company's liquidity and financial health. Previous Next

5 Sustainable Packaging Strategies to Address Climate Change Sustainable packaging techniques can encourage the growth of circular economies that place a premium on resource conservation. Sustainable product packaging involves the creation of packaging materials and solutions that have a minimal negative impact on the environment at every stage of their lifecycle, from manufacturing to disposal. The key objectives of sustainable packaging are reducing waste, using minimal resources and lessening their environmental impact. This helps to create a regenerative NET Positive economy. Five sustainable packaging strategies to address climate change Promote best practices for recycling and disposal. Educating customers on how to properly dispose of and recycle packaging can help minimise your environmental impact. Recycling materials helps you to reduce waste and conserve resources. Ship in smaller packages. Reducing packaging size while avoiding overpacking at every stage means less material is used. It also lowers shipping costs and reduces [MOU1] your carbon footprint. Use packaging made from plant-based materials . This can help you to cut carbon emissions and utilise non-renewable resources. Plant-based materials include corn and sugarcane. Using biodegradable materials reduces the amount of plastic that could harm marine life, such as compostable plastic manufactured from plant components. Choose suppliers who prioritise sustainable production. Create a supply chain that places a high priority on sustainability. Use ecofriendly, compostable or biodegradable alternatives to plastic. Compostable materials break down safely within the environment and so do not release anything harmful into the environment. By reducing the harm that conventional packaging causes to the environment, sustainable packaging can promote rewilding and help in the fight against climate change. Waste reduction helps to protect ecosystems and habitats, which is essential for rewilding initiatives. Additionally, it can lower greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to mitigate climate change. Sustainable packaging techniques can also encourage the growth of circular economies that place a premium on resource conservation. By decreasing waste and saving resources, sustainable product packaging is a crucial step toward addressing climate change. Previous Next Unlock Healthy Business Growth Discover strategies to enhance profitability, cultivate a greener and more sustainable business model, and elevate overall well-being. GET STARTED

How to Maximise a Small Marketing Budget Learn how to maximise a small marketing budget to grow your SME and increase your profitability with these simple tips you can implement today. Published on: 12 Apr 2012 It's a given that businesses allocate funds to marketing campaigns, but the real challenge lies in extracting the utmost value from that investment. Are all businesses equipped with the knowledge and strategies to leverage their marketing spend effectively? Here's how you can ensure that your marketing budget works its hardest for your business: Track and Evaluate Performance : Implement robust processes to monitor and evaluate the performance of your marketing initiatives. This involves not just tracking metrics like website visits or social media engagement but delving deeper into understanding what drives conversions and customer engagement. By identifying what works and what doesn't, you can refine your strategies for better results. Uncover Customer Insights : Understanding why some online visitors engage and convert while others don't is crucial. By delving into the motivations and behaviours of your audience, you can identify pain points or obstacles that hinder conversion. Armed with this knowledge, you can optimise your marketing efforts to address these issues, leading to improved profitability and customer retention. Leverage Insights for Profitability : By addressing the barriers preventing visitors from converting, you can shift focus towards enhancing the positive aspects of your offerings. This not only improves profitability but also enhances the overall customer experience, fostering loyalty and advocacy. Investing in understanding customer behaviour pays dividends in the long run. Iterate and Adapt Quickly : The ability to swiftly evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns is paramount. Establish systems that facilitate real-time feedback and analysis across all departments. This enables you to identify successful campaigns and scale them while promptly adjusting or discontinuing underperforming ones. Agility and adaptability are key to staying ahead in today's dynamic market landscape. Allocate Budget Wisely : A well-informed understanding of your marketing performance allows you to allocate your budget where it's needed most. Whether it's doubling down on successful campaigns or reallocating resources to more promising avenues, data-driven decision-making ensures that your budget is optimised for maximum impact. Marketing That Gets Results Effective utilisation of your marketing budget requires a combination of data-driven insights, customer-centric strategies, and agile execution. By continually refining your approach based on performance metrics and customer feedback, you can ensure that every pound spent delivers tangible returns for your business. Remember, the key lies not just in spending the budget but in spending it wisely. Differentiate yourself from your competition by listening to your customers and using them as a learning tool – increase your competitive edge. Ultimately, you need to develop an offering that surpasses expectations in order to improve conversion rates, enhance business performance and ultimately and boost profitability. How can you do that unless you measure the results of the marketing & sales teams in your business? Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

15 Ways to Create a Healthy Company Culture Learn how to create a healthy company culture to help your business thrive long-term by keeping your best employees and your business productive. Published on: 1 Aug 2024 There’s a lot of talk surrounding the importance of a positive company culture in the business world. However, people often see it as a stylish buzzword created due to millennial expectations of a good work/life balance. Business leaders can make the mistake of thinking a monthly team visit to the pub will resolve a toxic company culture. This article seeks to address what company culture actually is, the profound benefits it can have for your organisation and suggest 15 ways for you to begin creating a healthy company culture. What is Company Culture? Company culture, also referred to as organisational culture or corporate culture, can be defined as a set of shared values, goals, beliefs and practices that guide your business and the action of your employees. There is no solid definition of company culture because it is a unique concept for each individual business. It can be seen as the fingerprint of your organisation. As a business leader you will have created values and goals as soon as your company was born and these will form the foundation of your workplace culture . The culture then develops into the beating heart of your organisation as employees respond and contribute to those core values. A good company culture should inspire teamwork, collaboration, innovation and a thirst for success. Patty McCord, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, recognises in her book Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility that “the greatest motivation is contributing to success”. Why is a Healthy Company Culture so Important for Business Success? A healthy company culture has profound benefits for your organisation. A report conducted by Breathe HR found that 81% of business leaders recognised that culture drives direct benefits for their organisation. These are just some of the benefits of a strong corporate culture: Attracting talent – company culture is a huge factor for job seekers in today’s market with 66% of millennials putting culture above salary when it comes to job satisfaction. Employee retention – once you’ve hired successful staff, your goal is to keep them within the organisation. High turnover often occurs when there is a negative company culture. In fact, a recent survey by Glassdoor found 70% of UK workers would look for a job elsewhere if their company culture deteriorated. Increased productivity – happy workers show up consistently, are more engaged with the business, seek to solve problems and as a result contribute more valuable work. Improves reputation – negative headlines about toxic company culture and unhappy employees spark discontent amongst your customers. How to Create a Healthy Company Culture: 15 Steps It is important to recognise that a healthy company culture is not created overnight. It is ok to make mistakes, take risks and find out what works. The following 15 suggestions are just some of the ways you can begin to improve your company culture. Share Your Core Company Values It’s all well and good to draw up your company values in your mission statement but often they’re then left to sit on a dusty shelf whilst attention is turned to profits. Your values and goals should be regularly shared with the entire team and consistently measured. When everyone understands what is expected of them and are working towards the same goal, engagement and productivity rise as a result. Hire and Fire Based on Values and Behaviours Finding candidates with the right skills to perform their job is important but training can always be utilised to fill gaps in knowledge. However, it is much harder to train someone to share your values and required behaviours to fit into your company culture. Make your values and required behaviours clear during the recruitment process and explore how candidates exhibit these qualities. Consider whether they are the right fit for the team. Similarly, if a member of staff is failing to adapt to the company culture or creates divides within the team then it is time to consider their place in the organisation. Encourage a Healthy Work/Life Balance Modern life can be full of stresses in and outside of the workplace and we are all guilty of failing to strike a healthy balance at times. Employees who are less stressed and happier are likely to perform better at work and concentrate on the task at hand. The coronavirus pandemic has taught us valuable lessons about the need for flexibility and juggling our work and home life at the same time. Many people have found themselves home schooling alongside tackling the working day. The Modern Family Index 2020 found that 46% of parents said that work affected their ability to spend time together as a family yet stated family was their number one priority. Employers should be mindful of encouraging flexible working opportunities and highlighting the importance of leisure time to avoid stress and employee burnout. Improve Communication and Collaboration in the Workplace Employees can be left feeling like a cog in a machine without really understanding the bigger picture. Encouraging communication across all levels and departments ensures everyone has a shared goal, understands their role and wants to collaborate to be successful. Staff should be given the opportunities to ask questions and provide feedback regularly. Bring More Compassion to the Workplace A survey conducted by Liberty Mind found that a shocking 83% of employees had been made to feel guilty for taking time off for a major life event. As an employer it is important to show you care, offer understanding and seek to help employees in need. Workplace compassion increases loyalty, engagement, productivity and trust. Make Work Fun No one wants to dread going to work on a Monday morning. Whilst it’s not all about adding slides and TVs to the workplace, a boring work environment can stifle innovation and creativity. People who are bored at work are less likely to be productive and are more likely to seek a job elsewhere. Recognise and Reward Employee Achievements Everyone responds well to praise and we crave appreciation for hard work. A simple thank you or a small token of appreciation in the workplace improves productivity, boosts happiness and creates loyalty. Research shows 42% of employees say receiving greater recognition for their work would make them happier in 2021. Invest in Employee Health and Wellbeing Healthy and happy employees are key to the success of the company. Toxic workplace culture can profoundly affect employees’ physical and mental health. It is vital to be mindful of stress and employee burnout which can lead to increased sickness absence, a drop-in productivity and a lack of loyalty. Employee wellness programmes can be a great way to improve happiness, reduce absenteeism and boost productivity. Involve Employees in Decision Making Staff who are involved in decision making feel trusted and a valuable asset to the team. They are much more likely to work hard when they feel their contributions have a positive impact. A collaborative team who make decisions together can spark better ideas and innovative ways to problem solve. Your staff are in the perfect position to help you improve as they often work more closely with your product and customer so they’ve seen first-hand what works well and what doesn’t. Avoid Micromanaging Your Team Micromanaging can demoralise your employees, result in frustration and mistrust and can even limit their creativity. Furthermore, if their work is always being watched and scrutinised they may lack the confidence to suggest ideas and make decisions which could have benefited the business. When we are ordered what to do we begin to lack motivation. Whereas when we make decisions and feel like we are part of the bigger picture we will go the extra mile to ensure success. Promote Transparency in the Workplace Don’t sugar-coat company problems and hide them from your employees. Being transparent creates trust and your team will be willing to support the company through its challenging periods when they are well informed. Employees can also assist in the problem-solving process and provide suggestions to tackle issues. The trust process works both ways and employees will feel confident to bring problems to attention swiftly to prevent further mistakes being made. Communicating news immediately also prevents workplace gossip and miscommunication. Combat Negativity in the Workplace Negativity in the workplace can spread quickly throughout the team, affecting engagement and productivity. One negative situation or person can affect the mood of the entire team. If a negative team member is unable to adapt to the positive company culture then it may be time to re-evaluate their role in the organisation. Get to Know Your Team It’s common, particularly in a large business, to barely know the name of the new intern. However, good leaders know that people are what make up a business. You need your employees to trust and respect you and come to you with their problems. Knowing how your team thinks and what they value is hugely important to the success of your workplace. So, don’t just nod at the new employee at the coffee station next time, ask them questions and invite them to feel part of the company culture. Promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Equality and diversity should not be a tick box exercise to keep up appearances and look good to the outside world. There are many benefits to having a diverse team and these should be understood and utilised to create a healthy company culture. A successful organisation should be made up of people who all bring different skills and experience to the table. Discriminating based on gender, ethnicity or disability may result in losing potential talent. A report by McKinsey called ‘Delivering Through Diversity’ found that companies with the most ethnically diverse teams are 33% more likely to outperform their peers on profitability. Offer Training and Professional Development Opportunities A healthy company culture should encourage growth and personal development. Employees should be given opportunities to better their skills and further their career. Employees who lack progression begin to feel bored and unfulfilled, adversely affecting the workplace culture. Help Create a Healthier Company Culture Company culture is much more than a fashionable buzzword. At Awardaroo, we believe employees should be at the core of your business and therefore fostering a healthy culture is integral to success. There are many benefits for your organisation, from attracting and retaining talent to boosting workplace productivity and efficiency. By implementing these 15 ways to create a healthy company culture, you should begin to see positive results for your business. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

The Story So Far FORM: Define Your Budget Talk Insight Rethink What Matters Wrong Business Mindset Holistic Launch Group The Story So Far In 2005 I registered Project PROMS, the original name for Rostone Operations. In 2009 I quit my job, landed my first client (who stayed with me for five years), and we were off. By that time, I had over 20 years of experience in project and programme management, a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and I’d grown up around business, as my father had run his own engineering company. I also had solid knowledge of people and change management. The Story So Far Even with this background, I wasn’t prepared for what I found—I was naive. I had been used to working in large Blue Chip companies like Vodafone, O2, and T-Mobile, as well as smaller high-tech firms. Talk Insight Conversation Intelligence I was surprised by how transactional many companies were, and how little they seemed to understand about running a business, delivering great service, or engaging their staff. So I created Talk Insight Conversation Intelligence, with the help of customer service experts on my team, to assess incoming sales and service calls for opportunities to improve profitability. While Conversation Intelligence is now a big market, it didn’t exist back then. I also developed a sales and service training programme, which proved very effective in increasing the profitability of incoming calls. Interestingly, I recently learned that this programme is almost identical to Apple’s own coaching for staff welcoming customers in their stores. Then Covid hit, and my work with hotels, estate agents, and others—where Talk Insight had delivered great results—came to a halt. This gave me time to reflect . I realised that while I enjoyed business and project management, I had become heavily involved in sales and service training. I recognised another issue holding me back. I was more motivated by creating, solving, helping, and fixing than by making money itself. The vision of a big house, beach holidays, and fancy cars didn’t drive me, the internal motivation was missing. This was the wrong vision. Rethink What Matters Podcast During and after Covid, I became increasingly aware of sustainability and our 250-year journey since the Industrial Revolution. This led me into exploring economics, politics, and society. I read books on these topics and even began evening online studies towards becoming a Chartered Management Accountant. I launched a podcast called Rethink What Matters (available on Apple, Amazon, and other platforms), where I interviewed over 30 fantastic people from around the world, including Graeme Cooper, as seen on Top Gear with Chris Harris. More recently, I started a newsletter called Master The Triple Bottom Line with 500+ subscribers. I started another podcast called 360 EcoBuild, however, none of this was generating income, which I now needed to focus on. For me, everything aligns around building businesses that are profitable, develop people, and help protect the planet—the Triple Bottom Line. This can be achieved when we put efficiency first in business. By becoming more effective and efficient, businesses can improve their margins, allowing them to invest in people and sustainable practices. Wrong Business Mindset On this journey, I’ve come to understand that most business owners don’t fully grasp how to run a business, and many of their suppliers and advisors don’t either. Most businesses are run to provide a living for the owner or with the hope of making a profit, but very few focus on creating an asset. I’ve seen how business owners get trapped thinking like employees rather than the investors and shareholders they are. As a result, the vast majority of business owners eventually burn out, with their businesses either liquidating or being passed on. I address this in my Rostone Opex Change Framework , which focuses on five areas: Traits , Trust , Time , Talent , and Teach . Using this framework, I help create Triple Bottom Line businesses—businesses with improved profitability, communication, and sustainable thinking for better outcomes in terms of profits, people, and the planet. Holistic Launch Group My strategy now is to form a closed group of like-minded clients, allowing me to focus on their success while demonstrating the effectiveness of this change initiative. By operating their businesses as if preparing for sale, members of this group will enjoy improved margins, smoother operations, and increased business value. They will develop a clear, strategic business vision and achieve true success — building a business they can sell or step away from, even if they choose not to. Rethink What Matters Wrong Business Mindset Holistic Launch Group Talk Insight Have Fun, Make a Difference and Make Some Money. With improved margins and growth, we'll showcase your commitment to the Triple Bottom Line: enhanced profitability, healthier people, and sustainable business practices. Everything you need to know will be available in the Efficiency First Academy. This will position you with a competitive advantage, increased business resilience, and the ability to participate in sustainable supply chains. You'll stay ahead of evolving sustainability policies and legislation, further adding value to your business. You are free to define your monthly budget, which we’ll only review once demonstrable business improvements are visible. Rostone Opex Change Management Services include: Business Coaching Mentoring Fractional Director Talk Insight Conversation Intelligence Courses in the Efficiency First Academy To summarise , by operating your business as if preparing to sell it, you’ll experience improved margins, enabling you to build an asset that can either be sold or used to acquire other businesses for growth. Additionally, by integrating the principles of the Triple Bottom Line, you'll see compounding benefits in both bottom-line results and overall business valuation. FORM: Define Your Budget Join Holistic Business Group You're free to define your affordable budget . Once the group reaches the minimum income needed, it will be closed. Have fun, make a difference, make some money. My complete focus will be on the success of you and this group, using it as a Launch Pad to demonstrate Triple Bottom Line growth. Rostone Monthly Budget (Required) Affordable monthly budget. Rostone Project Budget Project Budget, if applicable. Number of Staff (Required) Includes subcontractors Services interested in (Required) Business Coaching, Mentor Fractional Director Talk Insight Conversation Intelligence Efficiency First Academy Special Projects Please select the services you're most interested in. Except for Talk Insight, all will be available to you irrespective of your selection and budget defined. First name(Required) Company name(Required) Business Email(Required) Notes: Submit

Why ISO 9001 Certification is Essential for Your Business Learn why ISO 9001 certification is vital for your business, enhancing credibility, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and opening new market opportunities in a competitive landscape. Published on: 1 Feb 2023 In today’s competitive global market, businesses are continually seeking ways to enhance their operations, satisfy customers, and gain a competitive edge. One effective method to achieve these goals is by obtaining ISO 9001 certification. But what exactly is ISO 9001, and why is it so crucial for your business? Let’s delve into the myriad reasons why ISO 9001 certification is essential for your organisation’s success. Understanding ISO 9001 ISO 9001 is an internationally recognised standard for quality management systems (QMS) . It provides a framework that organisations can use to ensure they consistently meet customer and regulatory requirements while striving to enhance customer satisfaction. The standard is based on several quality management principles, including a strong customer focus, the involvement of top management, a process-oriented approach, and continual improvement. Benefits of ISO 9001 Certification Enhanced Credibility and Reputation Achieving ISO 9001 certification signals to customers, stakeholders, and the market that your business is committed to quality. It demonstrates that your organisation adheres to internationally recognised quality management principles, thereby enhancing your credibility and reputation. Improved Customer Satisfaction ISO 9001 focuses on meeting customer needs and expectations. By implementing its guidelines, your business can deliver consistent quality products and services, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to return and recommend your business to others, fostering growth and stability. Operational Efficiency The ISO 9001 standard emphasises a process-oriented approach to management. This means identifying, understanding, and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to your organisation’s efficiency and effectiveness. Streamlined processes reduce waste, minimise errors, and lead to better use of resources. Risk Management ISO 9001 requires businesses to adopt a proactive approach to identifying and addressing risks and opportunities. This systematic risk management helps prevent potential issues from becoming significant problems, thus safeguarding your business’s continuity and performance. Market Opportunities Many companies and government entities require their suppliers to be ISO 9001 certified. By obtaining this certification, your business can access new markets and opportunities that were previously out of reach. It can also be a deciding factor in winning contracts and partnerships. Employee Engagement and Productivity Engaging employees in the process of obtaining and maintaining ISO 9001 certification can improve their understanding of quality objectives and their role in achieving them. This involvement can lead to higher motivation, increased job satisfaction, and better overall productivity. Continuous Improvement One of the core principles of ISO 9001 is the commitment to continuous improvement. The certification process encourages businesses to constantly evaluate and enhance their processes, products, and services. This dedication to improvement helps your organisation stay competitive and responsive to market changes. Regulatory Compliance ISO 9001 helps ensure that your business complies with relevant laws and regulations. This not only reduces the risk of legal issues but also enhances your reputation with regulators, customers, and the public. Steps to Achieve ISO 9001 Certification Achieving ISO 9001 certification involves several key steps: Gap Analysis : Assess your current processes against the ISO 9001 requirements to identify areas for improvement. Planning : Develop a plan to address the gaps and implement necessary changes. Implementation : Execute the plan by modifying processes, training employees, and documenting procedures. Internal Audit : Conduct internal audits to ensure the changes are effective and meet ISO 9001 standards. Certification Audit : Engage an external certification body to perform an audit and verify compliance with ISO 9001. Conclusion ISO 9001 certification is more than just a badge of honour; it is a strategic tool that can drive your business towards excellence. By enhancing your credibility, improving customer satisfaction, boosting operational efficiency, and opening up new market opportunities, ISO 9001 certification can significantly contribute to your business's long-term success. Embracing the principles of this internationally recognised standard is a testament to your commitment to quality and continuous improvement, ensuring your business remains competitive and resilient in a dynamic marketplace. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

What is a Goal Setting Framework? Setting goals is crucial because it enables you to concentrate your time and efforts on the things that are important to you. It assists you in determining your goals and developing a strategy to attain them. Published on: 12 Mar 2024 Goal Setting Framework – Definition and Importance Setting goals entails choosing what you want to accomplish and creating quantifiable targets and timeframes to support that goal. Setting goals is crucial because it enables you to concentrate your time and efforts on the things that are important to you. It assists you in determining your goals and developing a strategy to attain them. Additionally, it aids with motivation and progress measurement. You can raise your chances of success and enhance your general wellbeing by creating goals. Goal Setting Frameworks explain how goals should be set and how they should be accomplished in a step-by-step manner. It involves setting milestones for ourselves by developing strategies to help us keep true to our goals. When used in the workplace, it can increase employee engagement, provide clear guidelines, enhance performance and encourage continuous improvement. “Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.” – Brian Tracy Short Background on Goal Setting A 1935 study by Cecil Alec Mace, which was discussed in Ryan and Smith’s Industrial Psychology textbook and later in Ryan, served as the inspiration for goal-setting. Mace investigated how various assigned performance goals affected task performance. Midway through the 1960s, Edwin A. Locke started exploring goal setting. He worked on the topic for more than 30 years. He discovered that people who set precise, challenging goals outperformed people who set broad, simple goals. Locke borrowed Aristotle’s concept of final causality as the inspiration for goal-setting. Meanwhile, Peter Drucker, a management guru, introduced “management by objectives” in 1954. Under this strategy, employees and their boss would agree on a set of goals and work to achieve them throughout the year. Locke and Latham’s Goal Setting Theory In their efforts to research goal-setting, Locke and Latham worked both individually and jointly. Locke published their findings in 1968. These results demonstrated that people are motivated by both sensible goals and positive feedback. Later, Latham reported further findings that supported Locke’s findings. Later, Locke and Latham worked together on the subject. Their well-known work, “A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance,” was released in 1990. They described Locke and Latham’s goal-setting theory and their five guiding principles in this book. The five guiding principles for goal setting are as follows: 1. Clarity – The goal needs to be clear, specific, and well-defined. 2. Challenge – Goals need to be challenging to be motivating. 3. Commitment – Commitment to goals keeps you focused and is a key factor for success. 4. Feedback – Feedback improves confidence and motivation and encourages the completion of goals and objectives. 5. Task Complexity – Goals must be set at the right level of complexity. Complex tasks and objectives should have multiple goals. Goal Setting Frameworks Examined GROW Model The GROW model is a simple goal-setting framework that helps individuals set and achieve their goals. It was developed in the United Kingdom and has been used considerably from the late 1980s and 1990s in corporate coaching. GROW is an acronym that stands for: G – Goal R – Reality O – Obstacles / Options W – Way Forward An example we can use is with increase in sales as shown in the table below. Goal To triple my current daily sales in my food business. Reality Currently, my daily sales is S1000 Obstacles Options I do not offer delivery; no online ordering. Check local drivers I can partner with; see about setting up a website or Facebook Page Way Forward Contact drivers to deal with delivery. Set-up Facebook Page Set-up Facebook Ads OKRs The Management by Objectives philosophy popularized by Peter Drucker is the foundation of the goals-based structure known as Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs. Andy Grove, who was the CEO of Intel at the time, developed the idea by including a vital results component in the 1970s. The theory was that by connecting objectives to quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs), individuals would be held responsible for tracking and achieving their objectives. As the name implies, developing an OKR begins with determining your main objective, then the key results you’ll use to gauge your performance. It can be done using this simple template: “I will (objective) as measured by (key result).” Using the earlier example in the OKR template, it can be written in this manner: “I will make S3000 daily sales within 3 months by making $1000 off food deliveries and making $1000 from new customers Facebook Ads.” SMART Goals The SMART goal framework was conceptualized by George Doran in 1981 with its easy-to-remember acronym: S – Specific M – Measurable A – Attainable R – Relevant T – Timely or Time-bound Using the previous example of weight loss, here are the SMART Goals Specific Triple my daily sales in my food business Measurable Make $ 3000 daily sales by adding food delivery and driving new customers using Facebook Ads Attainable Contact drivers who can deliver; study Facebook Ads and managing Facebook Page Relevant Increase sales can mean I can expand my kitchen. Timely or Time-bound Achieve this goal in 6 months MBO MBO is a goal-setting framework that Peter Drucker made popular with his book in the 1950s. It entails establishing particular, quantifiable objectives for people or teams, followed by routinely monitoring progress and offering feedback. MBO goals are frequently centered on medium- to short-term objectives, paying close attention to the team’s goals and creating a coherent plan around them. The manager and their teams agree upon the goals under MBOs, enabling time for the exchange of input and suggestions at the start of the process. Finding the team’s goals is the first step in the process. Additionally, the manager delegated tasks and made sure that everyone was encouraged and supported. BHAGs BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) is a goal-setting framework that is designed to help individuals and businesses set ambitious goals. The term was first coined in 1994 by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.” BHAGs are organization-sized stretch goals that are nearly impossible to complete but can drive companies and organizations to think big and create long-term success. BHAGs can be categorized into four groups: · Role Model – model after a successful and well-known company · Common Economy – overcome industry leaders so you become the leader · Targeting – setting a clearly defined objective, such as becoming a Fortune 500 company · Internal Transformation – used by large, established companies to restructure their systems, processed or positioning. BSQ This acronym stands for “think Big, act Small, move Quickly.” Using this framework, large objectives are planned by achieving small achievements that lead quickly to the goal. Setting goals is using the BSQ framework is quite simple because it involves only three things: · Set a goal for yourself. (Think Big) · Establish a timeline of smaller accomplishments to achieve. (Act Small) · Set a manageable deadline. (Move quickly) Conclusion The secret to success is to consistently work for your goals. It’s a system for defining goals that enables you to prioritize your objectives in order to accomplish them and maintain your progress. Goal-setting frameworks might be complicated tools at times, but they can help you organize your objectives and generate creative goal-setting ideas. These goal-setting frameworks can assist team managers in coming up with creative concepts for generating goals that their team members will love. “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Michelangelo Buonarroti, Renaissance artist Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

Financial Reporting Council Impose Tougher Standards for Ethical Funds The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has revised its Stewardship Code to impose tougher standards on ethical funds, resulting in many fund managers missing out. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has revised its Stewardship Code to impose tougher standards on ethical funds, resulting in many fund managers missing out as signatories. The FRC is the main watchdog for the audit and accounting industry. Its Stewardship Code is the industry benchmark that sets the standards for insurers, asset managers and pension schemes on behalf of Britain's savers. Prior to the changes, fund managers had to provide the FRC with a statement about their stewardship and little more. However, this year the FRC has required fund managers to provide more detailed evidence of how their actions complied with industry standards. The industry standards of stewardship are currently defined as "the responsible allocation, management and oversight of capital to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society. " The changes come as the FRC identified a need to improve the quality of reporting as too many firms were releasing "boiler plate" statements with little action behind them. Many businesses have been accused of similar statements in regard to ESG (environmental, social and governance) statements, commitments and reporting. As investors and consumers continue to prioritise companies that do better for the planet and people, quality ESG reporting has become an ever more pressing issue for businesses that wish to remain competitive. The tougher standards introduced by the FRC have meant a number of top asset managers have failed to become signatories to the revised code for the first time. This includes Schroders, one of the UK's largest asset managers, alongside other large firms such as T Rowe Price, Allianz Global Investors and Columbia Threadneedle. In fact, overall 64 firms of the 189 who applied were unsuccessful. The Chief Executive of the FRC, Sir Jon Thompson, said : "This list demonstrates our continued commitment to serve the public interest as we transform to becoming a new regulator. We are proud of our robust approach to assessment and encourage those who have been unsuccessful to reflect on our feedback and apply again in future." The shift in industry standards represents a wider shift towards ESG investing worldwide. According to the Investment Association, the amount of money going into ESG funds in 2020 is four times the amount invested in 2019. The change serves to show the importance of staying up to date with new consumer and investor expectations. Both the FRC and SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission ) state they will be bringing in further regulations and changes to encourage more sustainable investment in the future. Previous Next Unlock Healthy Business Growth Discover strategies to enhance profitability, cultivate a greener and more sustainable business model, and elevate overall well-being. GET STARTED

30 Game-Changing Ways to Improve Your Time Management Skills Discover 30 game-changing strategies to boost time management and productivity. From task prioritisation to time-blocking, take control of your day with proven tips. Published on: 22 Feb 2024 Time management is more than just organising your tasks; it’s about creating balance and finding a rhythm that supports both your professional and personal life. With these 30 game-changing time management tips, you’ll not only feel more in control at work and home, but you'll also foster a healthier work-life balance, leading to improved mental health and physical wellbeing. The challenge with time management is that we often find ourselves managing other people’s expectations, agendas, and priorities instead of our own. It’s easy for good intentions to fade, as we revert to reacting to urgent demands rather than focusing on what truly matters. Another common obstacle is that time management can feel like just one more task to add to an already packed schedule. When we're already stretched thin, thinking about how to better manage time can feel overwhelming. Then there’s the struggle with planning and commitment. We often avoid planning too far ahead because of the unpredictability of life, and this uncertainty can derail even our best intentions. Finally, many of us plan our time around external rewards—money, success, or acquiring more—rather than what nurtures our inner selves, like meaningful conversations, relationships, and creativity. When time is only framed around external gains, it’s no wonder we fall back into old habits and reactive behaviours. As Emma Donaldson-Feilder, a chartered occupational psychologist for the NHS, wisely states, “The aim of good time management is to achieve the lifestyle balance you want.” These 30 tips will help you align your time with what truly matters, so you can break free from reactive habits and create a more fulfilling life How Are Organisational Design and Time Management Related? Organisational design and time management are deeply intertwined, influencing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation. A well-structured organisational design clarifies roles, sets priorities, streamlines communication, and supports quick decision-making, all of which contribute to better time management. On the other hand, a poorly designed structure can create confusion, inefficiencies, and time management challenges. Here’s how these two elements are interconnected: Role Clarification : Organisational design defines roles, responsibilities, and reporting structures, giving employees a clear understanding of their duties. When roles are well-defined, time is managed more effectively as employees focus on their assigned tasks, minimising ambiguity and reducing time wasted on unclear responsibilities. Prioritisation : Time management depends on setting priorities, and organisational design helps establish those priorities through hierarchies, goals, and resource allocation. This clarity allows individuals to understand the significance of their tasks, enabling them to allocate their time more effectively. Communication and Coordination : Efficient communication is essential for managing time well, and organisational design shapes how information flows. Clear lines of communication and reporting structures reduce delays and misunderstandings, ensuring tasks are completed on time and improving overall productivity. Time Allocation : Organisational design impacts how employees distribute their time across tasks. In hierarchical structures, clear reporting lines help employees focus on their primary responsibilities. In flatter or matrix structures, employees often juggle multiple roles, making time management crucial to balancing competing priorities effectively. Decision-Making : The speed and efficiency of decision-making processes directly affect time management. In centralised organisations, decisions may be delayed due to top-down authority, slowing time-sensitive tasks. In decentralised designs, faster decision-making at different levels allows for quicker responses and better time management. Flexibility and Adaptability : An adaptable organisational design is critical for managing time in a dynamic environment. Agile designs that encourage cross-functional collaboration and quick decision-making enable organisations to adjust time management strategies in response to shifting priorities or unexpected changes. The Productivity Benefits of Improving Time Management Skills Enhancing your time management skills brings a multitude of benefits that go far beyond simply getting more done. Here are some key ways in which mastering time management can transform your productivity and overall wellbeing: Better Sleep and Reduced Stress : When you have control over your time and know you’re working on the most important tasks, you’ll feel less stressed and conflicted. This sense of accomplishment and clarity reduces the anxiety that often keeps people awake at night, leading to better, deeper sleep and more energy for the next day. Improved Work-Life Balance : Effective time management helps you draw clear boundaries between work and personal life. By prioritising tasks and managing distractions, you can free up time for personal activities, hobbies, and relationships, improving both your mental health and overall wellbeing. Achieving Personal Goals : Time management allows you to focus on what matters to you , rather than constantly responding to other people’s demands. This helps you progress toward your own significant goals, whether in your career, personal development, or other areas of life. Greater Achievement of Significant Outcomes : With improved time management, you’re not just ticking off to-do lists—you’re focusing on high-impact tasks. This allows you to achieve results that are meaningful and significant by any measure, moving you closer to long-term success rather than simply completing minor tasks. Fewer Low-Priority Tasks : When you manage your time well, you’re less likely to become the go-to person for low-priority or inconvenient tasks that others want to delegate. You’ll develop the confidence to say no to tasks that don’t align with your priorities, protecting your time for what truly matters. Increased Self-Respect and Esteem : As you take control of your time, your self-respect and self-esteem will naturally grow. When others see that you’re focused, in control, and purposeful, their respect for you will also increase. You’ll be viewed as someone who knows their priorities and delivers on their commitments. New Opportunities and Organisational Skills : Good time management allows you to be more organised and proactive. This clarity opens doors to new opportunities—whether professional or personal—that you might not have had the time or energy to pursue otherwise. Being better organised makes you more agile and ready to seize opportunities as they arise. Moving Beyond SMART Goals : Advanced time management, like exponential time management, goes beyond the traditional framework of SMART goals. Instead of rigid goal-setting, it allows you to achieve inner peace by focusing on progress and balance throughout the day, reducing the pressure of constant deadlines and performance metrics. Less Wasted Time : When you’re in control of your schedule, you spend less time on distractions, procrastination, or low-value activities. This helps you to work more efficiently, leaving you with more time to focus on what truly matters, both at work and in your personal life. Freedom from the 'Busy' Trap : Many people equate being busy with being productive, but time management helps you break free from this trap. You’ll focus on outcomes rather than the amount of time spent working, helping you to be more effective and less focused on merely appearing busy. Enhanced Reputation : Consistently delivering on your promises builds a strong reputation. When you manage your time effectively, people will recognise you as someone who follows through, even when saying no is the more difficult but necessary option. Your ability to prioritise and stay focused will earn you greater respect and trust. Before diving into how to improve time management, it's essential to first understand why we want to improve it. We all manage our time in one way or another, but many do so without much planning—simply reacting to events as they unfold or following routines out of habit. In this reactive mode, life is like a sailboat adrift on the sea. You might enjoy the occasional view or survive a storm, but you’re not steering towards any particular destination, nor are you in control of what happens next. For some, this approach may be enough—no significant goals or aspirations, just going with the flow. But for most, the desire for less stress, fewer hassles, more inner peace, and a sense of accomplishment drives the need for better time management. By gaining control of our time, we can steer our lives towards a more intentional and fulfilling future. 30 Game-Changing Time Management Productivity Tips Forget the Plans – Just Start Contrary to popular belief, you don’t always need long-term plans or goals to get going. Start by increasing your awareness of what you’re doing and why. Are you saying “yes” when a “no” or “later” would be better? Sometimes the best way to start is to take that first step. Check Your Inner Peace How are you sleeping? Are you waking up early or feeling grouchy? Time management goes beyond tasks—it impacts your well-being. Conflicted time management can lead to stress, affecting your health and relationships. Identify Long-Term Priorities Reflect on what matters most in the long run. Will you regret not pursuing meaningful relationships, or are you more focused on material goals? Define your long-term priorities to guide daily decisions. You Can’t Do It All – Prioritise You don’t need to do everything. Prioritising tasks, ideally the night before, allows for a more restful sleep and a better sense of control the next day. Reduce Reactive Work How much of your day is spent reacting instead of planning? Examine the causes of reactive work and strategise to reduce it. This allows for more structured, planned work that yields higher productivity. Write Down Long-Term Goals Clearly define your goals for the next 5-10 years and work backward to identify steps to get there. This creates a mental filter for making daily decisions, helping you say “no” to distractions. Say “No” More Often Practice saying “no” to tasks that don’t align with your long-term goals. Do this diplomatically to avoid undermining important relationships. Create a ‘Done List’ Instead of a traditional to-do list, try a “Done List.” Focus on your accomplishments to stay motivated and build momentum. Avoid Being a Busy Fool Working hard on the wrong things is a productivity trap. Focus on meaningful outcomes rather than just staying busy. Check Your Inner Peace Again Periodically check in with your sense of inner peace. If you’re feeling conflicted or stressed, revisit your time management strategies and priorities. Build Confidence Through Action If you’re avoiding a task due to a lack of confidence, start it anyway. You’ll build skills and knowledge as you go, and progress will boost your confidence. Focus on Quality Over Quantity While perfectionism can be a trap, focusing on quality will make your work more enjoyable and efficient. This prevents repeating tasks due to poor performance. Earn Your Breaks Set milestones and work toward them. When you reach those points, reward yourself with a break, making it feel deserved and refreshing. Get Fresh Air and Eat Well Take care of your body with regular breaks, fresh air, and healthy meals. Avoid pre-packaged food when possible. Nutrition and movement are essential for sustained focus. Manage Your Emails Emails can be a huge time-sucker. Set dedicated times to check them, and prioritise responses based on importance. Filter out unnecessary emails to stay focused. Stay True to Your Values As you prioritise tasks, ensure they align with your core values. Time spent with loved ones may be more valuable than climbing the career ladder. Track Your Time Spend a few days tracking where your time goes. You might be surprised to see which tasks take up the most time, helping you adjust accordingly. Don’t Stress About Deviations Plans are essential, but life often throws curveballs. If you veer off course, replan without stressing. Adaptability is key to sustainable time management. Develop Critical Thinking Skills Strengthening critical thinking will help you make better decisions and organise tasks more effectively. Use the Eisenhower Matrix The Eisenhower Matrix helps you categorise tasks based on urgency and importance, ensuring you focus on what truly matters. Focus on One Task at a Time Multitasking is less efficient than focusing on one task at a time. Concentrating fully on a single task ensures higher quality and quicker completion. Apply the Pomodoro Technique Break work into 25-minute intervals with short breaks using the Pomodoro Technique. This method is effective for maintaining focus and productivity. Build in Buffers and Breaks Schedule breaks into your day to maintain concentration and energy. Reflect on your progress during these pauses. Create a Productive Environment Your environment plays a significant role in your focus and productivity. Eliminate distractions and organise your space for optimal efficiency. Plan Ahead At the end of each day, week, or month, plan for the next. This keeps you organised and provides a sense of control. Leverage Your Most Productive Time Identify your peak productivity hours and use them for your highest-priority tasks. You’ll achieve more when you work in sync with your natural energy levels. Apply the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) Focus on the 20% of tasks that yield 80% of the results. This helps you maximise productivity and focus on what truly matters. Block Out the Start of Each Day Dedicate the first part of your day to personal preparation, whether it’s exercise, breakfast, or reviewing your schedule. This sets the tone for the day ahead. Delegate Where Possible Consider which tasks can be delegated to others. This frees you to focus on higher-level tasks aligned with your long-term goals. Focus on Outcomes, Not Time Shift your mindset from “hours worked” to “results achieved.” This helps you prioritise effectiveness over simply being busy. Previous Next Start Your Business Improvement Journey Our business improvement programme and smart operations provide clarity and a clear pathway forward for you and your team. Get Started

Introduction What is Estimating Software Why is it Essential Today How Can It Benefit You Can it Improve Profitability HBXL Estimating Software Buildertrend ProEst CostX by RIB Software PlanSwift Conclusion In This Article Top Construction Estimating and Planning Tools: Streamlining Project Success In the fast-paced world of construction, accurate estimating and efficient planning are crucial to delivering projects on time and within budget. With tight deadlines, complex designs, and numerous stakeholders, construction professionals need reliable tools to manage their tasks effectively. Tools like HBXL, Buildertrend, and ProEst have become essential for contractors, estimators, and project managers, offering features that simplify the entire process from initial estimate to project completion. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most popular construction estimating and planning tools available today, focusing on their features, benefits, and how they can help you streamline your construction projects. An Introduction to Project Estimating Tools In today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment, project estimating tools have become indispensable for accurate project planning and execution. These software solutions are designed to simplify the complex task of forecasting project costs, resources, and timelines. By integrating diverse elements such as labour, materials, equipment, and overheads, they enable professionals across various industries—whether in construction, IT, or manufacturing—to create precise and reliable estimates. The ability to predict expenses accurately and allocate resources efficiently is crucial for setting realistic deadlines and avoiding unexpected financial setbacks. Ultimately, project estimating tools are key to ensuring that projects are completed on time, within budget, and with optimal resource utilisation. What is Estimating Software? Estimating software is a specialised tool that enables businesses and professionals to accurately predict the costs, resources, and time required for a specific project or task. It automates the process of generating estimates by factoring in various components such as labour, materials, equipment, overheads, and other project-specific considerations. Widely adopted in industries like construction, manufacturing, and engineering, estimating software plays a critical role in budgeting, bidding, and project planning. By enhancing accuracy and efficiency, it reduces the risk of financial miscalculations, helping organisations stay competitive and maximise profitability. Why is Estimating Software Essential for Modern Construction Businesses? Estimating software is vital for modern businesses because it ensures accurate project planning and cost management, which are essential for staying competitive. By automating complex calculations and integrating real-time data, this software helps companies predict costs, allocate resources effectively, and set realistic timelines. It reduces the risk of budget overruns and missed deadlines, providing businesses with the precision needed to make informed decisions. In a landscape where efficiency and accuracy are paramount, estimating software is indispensable for achieving successful project outcomes. How Can Estimating Software Benefit Me? Estimating software offers a range of benefits that can significantly enhance your project management and planning processes. It helps you accurately forecast project costs, allocate resources efficiently, and set realistic deadlines by automating complex calculations and integrating various data inputs. With these tools, you can minimise the risk of budget overruns, streamline your workflow, and make informed decisions based on detailed, real-time insights. Ultimately, estimating software empowers you to manage projects more effectively, ensuring they are completed on time and within budget. Can Estimating Tools Enhance My Profitability and Productivity? Yes, estimating tools can significantly boost both profitability and productivity. By providing precise cost forecasts and optimising resource allocation, these tools help you avoid costly errors and inefficiencies. With accurate estimates, you can make informed decisions that minimise waste and reduce overheads, leading to improved profit margins. Additionally, by streamlining the estimation process, these tools save time and enhance operational efficiency, allowing you to focus on strategic aspects of your projects. Ultimately, leveraging estimating tools can lead to more successful project outcomes, greater financial performance, and enhanced overall productivity. 1. HBXL Estimating Software HBXL is a UK-based construction software company that has earned a strong reputation for its user-friendly, feature-rich estimating tools. Designed specifically for small to medium-sized construction businesses, HBXL’s EstimatorXpress is a comprehensive solution that combines estimating, quoting, and planning in one package. Key Features: Automated Estimating: EstimatorXpress simplifies the estimating process with its built-in calculators and templates, allowing users to generate accurate estimates quickly. The software automatically factors in labour, materials, and overheads, reducing the risk of errors. Integration with CAD Software: HBXL’s software integrates seamlessly with PlansXpress, the company’s CAD tool, allowing users to create detailed plans and automatically generate estimates based on these designs. Project Management Tools: Beyond estimating, EstimatorXpress offers project management features that help with scheduling, resource allocation, and tracking project progress, ensuring that projects stay on track. Customisation: Users can customise templates, reports, and pricing databases to fit their specific needs, making the software versatile for a wide range of projects. Why Choose HBXL? HBXL is particularly popular among builders and contractors in the UK due to its comprehensive approach to construction management. By combining estimating with planning and project management, it reduces the need for multiple tools, saving time and improving accuracy. 2. Buildertrend Buildertrend is a cloud-based construction management software widely used by builders, remodelers, and specialty contractors. It’s designed to cover all aspects of construction project management, including estimating, scheduling, communication, and financial management. Key Features: All-in-One Solution: Buildertrend combines estimating, project management, and client communication in one platform, offering a centralised hub for all project-related activities. Pre-Built Templates: The software offers pre-built templates for estimates and proposals, which can be customised to fit the specific needs of the project. Scheduling and Communication: Buildertrend excels in keeping teams and clients on the same page with its integrated scheduling tools, real-time updates, and messaging features. Client Portal: Clients can access a portal to view project progress, approve changes, and communicate directly with the construction team, enhancing transparency and client satisfaction. Why Choose Buildertrend? Buildertrend’s strength lies in its comprehensive suite of tools that cover the entire project lifecycle. It’s an excellent choice for those who want a single platform to manage everything from estimates to final payments, particularly in the residential and small commercial construction sectors. 3. ProEst ProEst is a cloud-based estimating software tailored for general contractors, subcontractors, and construction managers. Known for its robust estimating capabilities, ProEst also offers features that support bid management and takeoff. Key Features: Accurate Estimating: ProEst provides advanced estimating tools that allow users to create detailed cost estimates with precision. It supports multiple project types, including commercial, industrial, and residential construction. Digital Takeoff: The software includes a digital takeoff tool that simplifies the process of measuring and quantifying materials directly from digital plans. Bid Management: ProEst’s bid management feature streamlines the process of managing bids, helping users track bid status, communicate with subcontractors, and manage documents in one place. Reporting and Analytics: ProEst offers robust reporting and analytics tools that provide insights into project costs, helping users make data-driven decisions. Why Choose ProEst? ProEst is ideal for larger construction companies that require sophisticated estimating tools and robust bid management capabilities. Its digital takeoff feature is particularly useful for contractors who work with complex blueprints and need to ensure accuracy in their estimates. 4. CostX by RIB Software CostX is another powerful estimating tool known for its 2D and 3D takeoff capabilities. Developed by RIB Software, CostX is widely used in the construction industry for both estimating and cost planning. Key Features: 2D and 3D Takeoff: CostX allows users to perform takeoffs directly from both 2D drawings and 3D BIM models, providing flexibility and precision. Integrated Workbook: The software integrates takeoffs with a workbook that automatically updates costs as measurements are added, ensuring real-time accuracy. Customisable Reports: CostX offers customisable reporting features, allowing users to generate detailed cost reports tailored to their specific needs. BIM Integration: With its BIM integration, CostX is well-suited for projects that involve complex 3D models, making it easier to visualise and estimate costs accurately. Why Choose CostX? CostX is ideal for construction professionals who work on projects involving detailed architectural drawings or BIM models. Its advanced takeoff and estimating capabilities make it a top choice for those who need precise cost calculations and want to streamline the entire estimating process. 5. PlanSwift PlanSwift is a digital takeoff and estimating software designed to improve the accuracy and speed of construction estimates. It’s known for its ease of use and powerful features that cater to both small and large construction companies. Key Features: Digital Takeoff: PlanSwift ’s drag-and-drop interface allows users to perform takeoffs directly from digital plans, simplifying the process of measuring materials and calculating quantities. Custom Formulas: Users can create custom formulas within PlanSwift to tailor estimates to specific project needs, enhancing the flexibility and accuracy of the software. Integration with Other Tools: PlanSwift integrates with various other construction management tools, making it easy to transfer data and keep all aspects of the project aligned. Reporting Tools: The software includes robust reporting tools that allow users to generate detailed estimates, proposals, and material lists. Why Choose PlanSwift? PlanSwift is particularly popular among contractors and estimators who need a straightforward, yet powerful tool for digital takeoffs and estimates. Its user-friendly interface and customisation options make it accessible to a wide range of users, from small businesses to large enterprises. Conclusion Choosing the right construction estimating and planning tool is crucial for the success of your projects. Whether you’re a small contractor looking for an all-in-one solution like HBXL, or a large construction firm in need of advanced features like those offered by ProEst or CostX, the right software can make all the difference. These tools not only help in generating accurate estimates but also streamline project management, improve communication, and ensure that your projects are delivered on time and within budget. By investing in the right technology, construction professionals can enhance their efficiency, reduce errors, and ultimately deliver better results for their clients. As the construction industry continues to evolve, staying ahead of the curve with the latest estimating and planning tools will be key to maintaining a competitive edge. Introduction What is Estimating Software Why is it Essential Today How Can It Benefit You Can it Improve Profitability HBXL Estimating Software Buildertrend ProEst CostX by RIB Software PlanSwift Conclusion Related Articles Top Construction Estimating and Planning Tools: Streamlining Project Success Project Estimating and Scheduling Construction Project Management Managing Subcontractors in Construction 15 Key Features of Construction Estimating Software What is Estimating Software? A Deep Dive into its Evolution, Functionality, and Impact 50 Construction Estimating, Scheduling and Management Tools

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Neil Lawson of Geoenergy on Heat Pumps Neil Lawson of Geoenergy Discusses Heat Pumps Heat pumps are highly efficient heating and cooling systems that extract heat from the air, ground, or water sources and transfer it indoors or outdoors as needed. They offer significant energy savings, lower utility bills, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NEIL So this is one of the biggest things that's being missed is, if you were to ground couple your cooling and store the energy in the ground, you can halve the carbon of cooling where they store the waste heat refrigeration in the summer and use it to heat in the winter. PAUL Hello, and welcome to Rethink What Matters, the podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families, and a greener, cooler climate. And today, I'm going to be talking with Neil Lawson of lowcarbonfarming.co.uk. And we're going to be talking about something every one of us should be using, and that's heat pumps. So yeah, great to be speaking with you about heat pumps because they’re some kind of a miracle device, aren't they? It generates something like four hundred percent efficiency. So definitely interested to learn more about that. And I went to lowcarbonfarming.co.uk, your website, and it says here, “The way we produce food needs to become more sustainable and less damaging. With this in mind, the Low Carbon Farming team set out to improve greenhouse heating systems to meet this challenge, and in doing so, created a world first.” NEIL Well, a little bit of background about that story. It all comes from walking down the river behind me one day and noticing some ducks enjoying a swim on an area that was slightly steaming, which got my interests going. So I followed the little stream that they were on which is a little tributary into the Thames, followed it up to its source, and it arrived at the Oxford sewage treatment works. So literally knocked on the door, asked what it was about, learnt a bit more or was invited in officially to learn a bit more about their process and a quick five packet calculation when I was there, there was around enough heat to heat fifteen thousand homes just being discharged into the river. So this was a a plentiful source of heat that every city would have through its water recycling centres. You basically take all the raw sewage and rain water goes into a sewage treatment works and it comes out as clean water which is discharged into the river. That clean water has a heat value. So it's anywhere between nine and twenty five degrees centigrade depending on the time of year. That's a very abundant source of energy for a water source heat pump. So took that idea, looked for something which was a large demand and that was seen as greenhouses, building them local to cities would be good for food miles or transport miles rather than we currently ship things in from Morocco and Southern Spain and the idea went from there. The world first aspect of it was taking waste heat from clean water discharge into a river and using that in a heat pump. When I do a show or a panel discussion, one of my favourite questions is, “Hands up who's got a heat pump.” Two or three people put their hand up and I enjoy pointing out that everyone has a heat pump. It's the fridge in the kitchen. That is fundamental heat pump. PAUL But I think if you put your hand behind your fridge, It's pretty warm back there. Are there other areas other areas of industry? NEIL Every city has a housing need, has a schooling need, has a heat need. PAUL Right. So anywhere you require heat, it's applicable. So this sounds too good to be true in a way. All this heat, this you know, out there that's going to waste and we can turn it into usable heat. What are the challenges in doing this thing? NEIL It's actually recognising the opportunities, a heat pump in the heat pump cycle, the refrigerant boils at minus twenty. Anything that's warmer than minus twenty is a useful heat to us the warmer the better. The joy of the sewage treatment works was it was between nine and twenty five degrees C, so you get very efficient heat pumps, but we just need to look around this. Power stations got huge cooling towers which are pumping out steam although thermal power stations are less and less these days. Data centres are being built everywhere they have to cool their processes inside. So they do that by rejecting heat. PAUL You mentioned minus twenty. Anything over minus twenty? It's pretty much everywhere, isn't it? NEIL It is. Hence, heat pumps work in Scandinavia where their temperatures are very cold even on their source heat pump. The heat pump cycle is a quirk of physics. We harvest low grade heat by boiling refrigerant, turning it from a gas to a liquid and then compressing that. So turning it from a liquid to a gas and then compressing that gas again back into a liquid and the byproduct of that compression cycle is heat, which is what we harvest to do space heat or hot water heating. PAUL I need to just try and think about that a little bit more. I know you can't -- it's just not possible to get some more out than what you put in no matter how clever the technology. What's actually happening here? NEIL Well, if we talk about the efficiency and we hear words of four hundred percent or five hundred percent, but actually that efficiency is the ability of the heat pump to turn one kilowatt of electricity which is used by the compressor which is compressing maybe three kilowatts of low grade heat which have been harvested from the surroundings outside around us, whether we water or air or a waste heat from somewhere else. So it's one kilowatt of electricity plus three kilowatts of low grade heat which is free and that generates four kilowatts of useful heat. So that's where the four hundred percent efficiency comes from. PAUL But if you've got something that say minus ten, what can that become? NEIL With the efficiency of a heat pump is its ability to take the low grade temperature and turn it into a high grade temperature. So if for example you have air at minus ten, which we do in winter, to produce fifty degrees centigrade into your radiators, the heat pump or the compressor is having to lift it from minus ten to plus fifty. So it's a sixty degree lift and those efficiencies will be closer to two hundred percent hence the warmer our waste heat, the more efficient the system. PAUL Are there other examples you could give us of where heat pumps have been used to great effect? NEIL Yeah. So we are used to heat pumps for cooling, perversely every office or building has a gas boiler for heating and a heat pump for doing cooling. But that same heat pump could do both heating and cooling. So they're seasonal. So we just have to challenge the status quo or the norm of building services engineers who are very used specifying gas boilers and heat pumps to make them think about air source which can do both or even ground source. The challenge with air source is we are venting our waste energy into the atmosphere, into the air and waving goodbye to it. If we were to employ ground source, we're capturing that waste heat and we're storing it in the ground for the opposing season. So if we use our heat pump in summer to cool down our building, we put the waste heat into the ground. It's then there and available for winter when we want it for heating. So this is one of the biggest things that's being missed is (that) people talk about the decarbonisation of heat because we're used to fossil fuels. But if you were to ground couple your cooling and store the energy in the ground, you can halve the carbon of cooling or the cost of cooling. Which is something that's been done successfully in supermarkets, such as Sainsbury's. They installed around thirty of their supermarkets with ground source heat pumps, where they store the waste heat from refrigeration in the summer and use it to heat in the winter. And their biggest benefit or cost benefit was the fact that they halved their cooling costs. PAUL Presumably it's quite an expensive exercise. They're quite capital intensive. Maybe less easy for private residences, you know, people at home to implement. NEIL Well, if we talk about the challenge and the capital expenditure, we're talking about a ground source heat pump or a water source heat pump and your energy is very low. It could be under the house, it could be under the building, it could be in the river next door. What it needs is investment from someone like government to start communal collectors getting together where we can share heating and cooling. So we talk about district heat schemes. We currently have a third generation district heat scheme is the burning of fossil fuels to generate heat. A fourth generation is a mixture of fossil fuels and low carbon. So a mix of the heat pump and a gas boiler. A fifth generation is an ambient heat network or a condensed solute. So this is this is a pipe full of water effectively that could be anywhere, it could be around ten, twenty degrees centigrade and it's sufficient for people who need heat to absorb heat from it. Those who need cooling to reject heat into it. So this is where you start to join the various users together and suddenly your efficiencies -- if one kilowatt of electricity into a compressor can generate four kilowatts of heat. At the same time it generates three kilowatts of cooling. So suddenly you've got an efficiency of seven hundred percent. PAUL So what are the problems in take up here then? Is it just the alternatives are less efficient or just cheap? NEIL Gas is cheap. We've had it since England converted from town's gas to North Sea gas from the seventies onwards. So we're talking about a whole new technology. That investment that went into the gas main and gas infrastructure now needs to be put into a communal collector or fifth generation heat network. Then suddenly heat pumps in a box will come down in price as volume goes up. And if we can get it to the point where we just connect to the pipes in the road like a gas boiler, suddenly it's like flight. But that asset in the ground has a sixty plus year lifespan. Yes. So we talk about heat and people think of hot water or sixty five degree centigrade, that's what we have to store. But if we're to store a load grade heat, maybe twenty degrees, that actually takes the pressure off the grid because in winter when you need your heating most, your base temperature of twenty degrees is a lot warmer than your air source heat pump is trying to harvest from something like minus eight and thermal mass should be in a building level. So a building is built of bricks and mortar and has a thermal vest to it. So you all don't need to come home and turn your heating on at six o'clock and hit that big peak. It's now all about matching supply and demand, removing those peaks and reducing our generation costs. PAUL I was speaking with the university earlier today they're looking at smart heating and distributed heating and looking at heat pumps, too. And they mentioned aqua heat pumps and using the water in the ground as opposed to the ground. Is that a third type of heat pump, or is that just ground source, by another? NEIL No, we would call that a water source. So if you take London for example, it's built on a huge chalk aquifer. So if you drill down sixty five metres in central London or so, you get into a big lake. And actually that water level is rising and starting to threaten the underground. So there have been a lot of studies on dewatering the underground. And there's, as an example, there is passive cooling of Green Park tube station which are wells drilled near the tube station, extracting water from the aquifer, go through heat exchanges to cool the tube and then discharging back into the aquifer again. There's about one point eight megawatts worth of waste heat there that could be used by an adjoining building. PAUL Just thinking about a company that's maybe a data centre then. What could they look for to see if heat pumps could work for them? NEIL So data centre probably already has a heat pump, but they call it a chiller. So, it's currently doing their chilling and it's venting all the energy into the atmospheric air, but the people who design and build data centres are very precious about a tried and tested system. They're very reluctant to try something new. So here we need to challenge now. PAUL Mission critical question. You don't want those computers to cook. Maybe a different example then. NEIL There was an article on the Telegraph a few days ago about due to the sudden heat wave they're having to fire up some coal fired power stations to produce enough electricity to provide people with Tulum as the air conditioning systems come on. Right. So going back to the example of -- PAUL That's mad, isn't it? That's crazy. NEIL It is mad. If you had stored your waste coof from winter in the ground, you could now be using it passively. Passively means you're not running a compressor. You're just running a circulation pump and bringing out water in the ground that's say five or six degree centigrade. And that's more than capable of cooling a building whether it be a domestic property or a commercial building. PAUL Right. Okay. So a hot country is making good use of this then. NEIL So take a hot country, Dubai or something like that, desert, very hot. All of their cooling is done through cooling towers. Where they're effectively evaporating water or try to discharge their heat into the atmosphere. If they were to put pipes into the sea and take seawater at a deeper level, they could bring the cost and therefore the carbon and the energy required and they're cooling way down. PAUL And so this is quite a relatively new technology. Is it being developed at a great rate? Is there a lot of investment going into him heat pumps and improving the technology? NEIL So in the UK there's an aspiration to have six hundred thousand heat pumps installed a year by 2028. But there is no -- apart from that policy and that headline, there's no drive behind it. Our biggest challenge today for domestic heating is the spark gap. So the cost of electricity is more than four times the cost of gas. Therefore your heat pump has to be more than four hundred percent efficient. The cheapest type of heat pump is an air source and a lot of funded systems going in our air source heat pumps. They use the boiler upgrade scheme which is a five thousand pound grant, but it’s going to cost them more to heat their homes if they get an efficiency of two hundred fifty percent. It's going to cost them a third more to heat their homes. When utility bills have gone through the roof, very few people could afford that extra current. PAUL And what about on the maintenance side of things? Is it more? Is it quite costly to maintain? NEIL There are very few moving parts. If you look at an air source heat pump, you have a compressor and you have a fan, and an expansion valve. In the ground source heat pump, you'll have compressor and a circulation pump on the ground side. So very few moving parts. So the longevity of a ground source heat pump is potentially twenty five years, an air source heat pump anywhere between ten and fifteen. That depends on its location. Is it near the seaside? It's the salt corroding the fins, are there leaves or trees around that sort of thing? PAUL So it sounds like that it’s, from a maintenance perspective, not overly complicated or difficult to take care of it. Everything is buried in the ground somewhere and you've got to dig it up, you know, every ten years or whatever. So it's accessible. NEIL Yes. Very, very accessible. In fact, one of the things about ground source heat pumps is very much a hit in the discrete technology. So it is buried in the ground because it's probably a fluid around the ground. PAUL But the domestic market, you mentioned there are some targets there. But they're not going to be able to -- I mean, people don't have the money to buy them in, you know, and implement them at the moment. So there's definitely some work to be done, isn't there, to get people to actually start taking up heat pumps domestically? NEIL Yeah, if we look at someone like Jersey, their energy tariffs are -- they have a heat pump tariff which is twelve pence per kilo hour for electric see. Their gas is eighteen pence per kilowatt hour. So if you look at the efficiencies, if it's a four to one, it’s going to cost them three pence per kilowatt hour for their useful heat from their heat pump. And if it's eighteen pence for gas and it's ninety percent efficient. It's going to be about twenty pence per kilowatt hour or useful heat from their gas boiler. So suddenly you can get a payback in your heat pump. It's massively cheaper to run. PAUL Right. Just explain the spark gap again, please. NEIL So we look at the cost -- PAUL That's the difference between gas, and the electricity price, I think you said. NEIL Yeah. Exactly that. So currently, gas is-- sorry, electricity is more than four times more expensive than gas. And perversely, our electricity price. PAUL And why is it called spark gap? NEIL I don't know. It's just a terminology that's been adopted. Probably it's the spark that was – PAUL Let me talk of the stalker and gas music burners. NEIL Yes, exactly. But perversely, our electricity price is driven by the price of gas because we're very reliant in our currently centralised grid while using gas peaking plant to make up the difference. And we also have the green levies. The green levies were put onto the electricity price whereas now they should be put onto gas to decarbonise. PAUL We've really talked a lot about how to implement and how they work and how applicable they are. But we're really being driven here by the environmental side of things. Because, you know, environmentally, they're much better on there. They they're not producing lots of CO2 and nitrogen. So what's the environmental footprint like? NEIL Our point of view is for a heat pump, there are no emissions. You can have them in a house, there's no CO2, there's no carbon dioxide, there's no NOx as you say. There is an argument that we're reliant, we're quite reliant on gas and potentially coal at the moment. So there's a very good app called Grid Carbon which you can log into. And you can see what the grid carbon content or the carbon content of the grid is at an instantaneous moment in time. PAUL Yeah. Exactly. So we need to, I think, pay more attention from environmental standpoint. NEIL If you go back to the first months of COVID, there were satellites in space that could monitor CO2 or greenhouse gases and the cities which is clearing. That's a lack of use predominantly from cars and vehicles, but gas boilers are the same. They do produce CO2. PAUL And heat pumps are, you know, are a big part of low carbon farming because they're so efficient. Because they're taking heat which already exists, using that to heat the green houses, if I've understood this correctly. They're not-- there are no carbon, there are no toxins coming out of it, no climate warming gases, CO2 and the and the rest of it. So our heat pumps and low carbon farming. These two are made for each other, are they? NEIL They are. Especially in this country. A lot of our tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are imported from Spain and Morocco and Portugal. And actually by importing from there, we're exporting grouts. A drought. We have a huge rainfall in this country. In our two greenhouses, all the rain, we capture off the roof, we store in reservoirs, and we use to water the plants. So we're not importing any water. There is actually a need for CO2 to feed the plants for the photosynthesis cycle. And we do that by using CHP gas engines but we pump all the CO2 from the exhaust into the greenhouses to feed the plants. We mustn’t forget that heat pumps also run on electricity. PAUL Yeah. I know. I mean, I think we have to-- there (has) to be two separate conversations, I think. I think we have to separate the efficiency of taking the energy and converting it into whatever we want versus the sourcing of the energy. You know? So, you know, if you plug one of these heat pumps into a wind turbine, or a solar panel, you know, then we've got what we want then, I think, haven't we? We've got something which is completely clean. NEIL Exactly that. The village where I am here, we developed and built the largest hydro on the Thames in our little village which we then crowd funded out to the local area. So we got four hundred forty kilowatts of hydro in the river which runs pretty much all the time. So we could heat and cool and generate electricity for our village out of the river with absolutely zero carbon. That's one of the best examples, potentially, utopia. PAUL Brilliant. That's fantastic. Yeah. Well, that's it. We need to start using this utopia word a little bit more often, you know. Because we need to be heading towards a good vision here. How many people or houses is that looking after? NEIL We're not, sadly, we're not doing it yet because the electricity goes into the grid and gets lost. But on paper there's no reason why we couldn't. So we've got, with thousand people five hundred houses. Actually the Sandford-on-Thames or the mill used to be the paper press for Oxford University. So it was a mill generating its power from the river. PAUL There must be quite a lot of loss though in putting that energy into the grid to got to travel down the wires and then get sent off into various different locations. So I should imagine quite a bit if it gets lost in the process of distribution, transmission? NEIL I think it gets used locally. The biggest loss is actually we sell the electricity for five and a half pence per kilowatt hour and I have to buy it four hundred metres away for thirty-four pence per kilowatt hour. So I think I suffer the biggest loss which goes to the big six. PAUL Yeah. Well, you know, we want to get this message out there. You know? So you could do a lot more if you got more, and you and your business could do a lot more if you got more of that money. And which countries are we looking to for inspiration here? Are we leading the world with this? I think you mentioned Germany. Or Scandinavia? Or who's ahead of the curve here with heat pumps or low carbon farming? NEIL So if we look at heat pumps, definitely Scandinavia. Their heating oil prices were at petricom prices. So they've been incentivised since the fifties to make their homes efficient. Not only thermally efficient but also in the use of heat pumps electricity. So a lot of the challenges that we think are stumbling blocks, they've overcome. And we need to be looking to them and taking note of what they do. So we talk about the grid can't support all of these heat pumps. Every house in Sweden has a sixteen and three phase supply which is about twice the size of what we have here. But on their heat pump they have a monitor. So if the cooker is on and the freezer is on and the washing machine's on and the heat pump holds off for all of five, ten minutes, you're not going to see the house go cold in that time. It just stops you drawing all the way in the peak. These are the sort of-- this is what a smart metre should have been for. Sadly we have installed a whole network of dumb metres. PAUL Okay. But that's being corrected, I think, isn't it? Because you hear a lot about smart metres today? NEIL Smart metres are good for the utilities to remotely read your bill, but they haven't taken them any further. I remember tomorrow's world diagram, if you remember that, back in the seventies. PAUL Of course. NEIL Yep. They had a programme where you could have an intelligent metre that could turn your fridge on and off, turn your freezer on and off, your washing machine and things like that and control what's going on with your grid. Sadly, it never happened. PAUL So from your perspective then, Neil, in your customers and your clients and, you know, the clients that you'd like to have. Are there smaller budgets that you work with or, you know, domestic? Just give us a bit of a feel your typical clients are in. NEIL So, currently, we don't. Currently, we don't have a typical client. We work from domestic all the way up to commercial. We currently, there's a lot of investment in the public sector decarbonisation scheme. We're involved with that. We work as assessors for Salix, so we review the bids. We also do feasibility studies for clients and we'll do detailed design for contractors. One of the gaps I identified in the market was there are a lot of people out there who can weld pipe, fit pipe drill holes and things like that. But what was really missing is the in-depth knowledge of applying a heat pump. So we have a design team of seven engineers who were probably the most experienced in terms of years within the country and have a huge, not only do we design, but we have experience of installation, commissioning, operating running and servicing heat pumps. So happy to talk to anyone who is considering their energy has heating loads and cooling loads. And is serious about doing something not just offsetting by a little bit of forestry in the Amazon. PAUL Yeah. I know this whole offsetting thing is yeah. I got to try and not offset, basically. Well, offset as little as possible, haven't we? Brilliant. Alright. I really appreciate your time, Neil on this podcast. It's been really insightful. We've learnt a lot. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Where should they get which? Should they go to lowcarbonfarming.co.uk? NEIL Or geoenergy design or geoenergy.co.uk PAUL Once again. Thanks very much, Neil. NEIL No problem. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Previous Next

Alexandra Faure discusses Marine Conservation Alexandra Faure of Ocean Culture discusses Marine Conservation Marine conservation is vital to safeguard Earth's oceans, preserving their biodiversity, ecosystems, and the services they provide. Overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change threaten marine life. Conservation efforts involve creating marine protected areas, enforcing sustainable fishing practices, reducing plastic waste, and mitigating climate impacts. Alexandra In our community. We've got an amazing organization called Mars, Mars, Mars. And now they've been doing so. They're massive corporation and they've been doing coral restoration projects for 15 years now. They've been doing amazing projects all over the world and regenerating coral reefs. It's just the most amazing thing. So we recently started working with them to tell their story and our co-founder of Ocean Culture, Life Times and Rain went out to the Sheba reef that day, the reef that they're doing in Indonesia. And this was once a barren reef. There was nothing, there was all bleached. And there over the last few years they've just managed to grow this amazing coral reef that's full of life and it's just like it's like it was never dead. It's just the most amazing thing. And Tamsin got back last month and she was quite like emotional. She was like, It's just incredible and it really does give you hope to see organizations doing this kind of thing. Paul Hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, the podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families and a greener, cooler planet. And today I'm joined by Alexandra Faura Sustainability associate at True and Board member of Ocean Culture Life Charity in Jersey. And we're going to be discussing marine conservation. You know, in Haiti. You know, it doesn't take long when we think about marine conservation to come up with ocean acidification, ocean warming, you know, coral reefs receding, plastics in the ocean. There seem to be so many challenges to marine conservation. And it's such an important part of, you know, such an important part of the world. I first we could if you could start off by telling us a bit more about true and ocean culture, life, charity and your role. Is that. Alexandra Yeah, of course. So now just to go back to what you said earlier, we know exactly we do need to remind ourselves that the ocean takes up 70% of the Earth's surface, and most of that is international waters. And there's no rules and regulations out there. So we really don't even know, like we know the slightest slightest amount of detail of what's actually happening out in the oceans right now. So it's really important that we that we tell the stories of what people are doing out in ocean and what's happening the good and the bad. So, yeah, well, basically what we did ocean culture life, we are a Jersey based charity and we have a community of over 500 guardians and storytellers all around the world. So we are based in Jersey, but we have global impact and we helping these individuals and organizations tell the stories about the positive impact that they're having on the ocean. So we kind of bridging the gap between science and storytelling and giving a voice to the ocean, which is actually our most undervalued asset and most underfunded SDG. And even though it is literally fundamental to life on Earth, I think people forget it because they don't have an emotional connection to it or they don't actually see the impacts of what's happening out in oceans. Yeah, so I've been volunteering for Ocean Culture Life for the past sort of five months, but supporting them and following their journey for the past two years, we just yeah, I think two years old now and our founders are Tamsin Reid and Matt Porteous. Matt Porteous is a storyteller himself. He's an amazing ocean photographer. And yeah, so that's my passion project. I like to say I love, I love the work I do with Ocean Life. I'm just connecting with individuals all over the world that are doing amazing work. So my day to day job, but I don't like to call it a job as I work for True, which is a sustainability consultancy. And I say that and I support a job because I love what I do. And it's all about aligning organizations to the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, and helping them improve their impact across all the SDGs. Paul So just recently the Arctic Ocean was in the news because it's been the warmest it's ever been. And yeah, to you that's happening. What's, what's the impact of that that you're saying. Alexandra Yeah it's it's quite frightening. I think the record is broken and it's 20.96 degrees Celsius an average, which is far greater than any temperature we've seen in the past. And the knock on effect of marine heatwaves and marine temperatures reaching these kind of extortionate heats is it's dramatic. And there's a few points I can touch on with this. The first one is that the oceans are our largest carbon sink and absorb so much carbon from the atmosphere. I think it's it's more than 25% of carbon emissions go into the ocean and the oceans are so saturated carbon and reaching such high and seas and temperatures that they're unable to absorb carbon. So this carbon, so we're having to stand atmosphere which then accelerates global warming even further. And then we in this horrible cycle, you know, so that's the one thing. So the second thing is the sea glaciers are melting, and this is going to have a really negative effect on sea levels increasing. And I actually before this podcast, I was on a I was on LinkedIn and I saw an article that someone posted on what's happening out in Slovenia and they had floods this week, two thirds of Slovenia was destroyed in the flood. And now the knock on effects that this has on the social development SDGs and and how much is it going to cost to like, redevelop this country? It's it is terrible. And that's just one of the other things that we're going to get with these increasing sea temperatures right. Yeah. The third yeah. So just to touch on the last thing, which for me is, is the most significant point is the coral bleaching that's going to come from the sea level as the sea temperatures increasing. Yeah. So another thing that I saw in the news, which is a knock on effect of the sea temperatures increasing, is that there was a 100% coral mortality in in a coral reef restoration site of Florida. Now this is something that we're definitely going to see more of in the years to come, and it's devastating. And then there was another thing, again, due to sea temperatures increasing, which is that in the Texas Gulf, on the Texas Gulf Coast, there was just tens of thousands of fish, dead fish that were on the shore there. And it's just it's really sad to see this because I can I can this is it's only going to get worse in the years to come if we don't start to do something about it now. And the the social development goals that we're trying to achieve as well are really going to be the progress towards. It's really not going to be great because of the knock on effects of what's happening in the oceans, right? Paul Yeah. I mean, I've also heard that the ocean warming causes the ocean to expand, which is another driver of sea levels rising. Alexandra Yeah, exactly. So there's going to be some coastal communities. I think Venice is one of them, actually. I know Venice is one of them. It's already going underwater. Paul And another topic that's often in the news is plastics. Plastics in the ocean. There's this Atlantic garbage patch, and then there's the Pacific Garbage Patch. And you have stories about that. Alexandra Actually, it's yeah, it's really it's really frightening to see. I'm quite lucky. In Jersey, we do a lot of beach things here, but we don't see it visually here. So we have an ocean culture life. We have workshops that we run with the schools throughout the year and we do beach cleans with them and we educate them on the Sustainable Development Goals, but obviously focus on SDG 14 and the importance of SDG 14. And you know, they've grown up in Jersey and they don't see the amount of plastic on the beaches and stuff and we show them pictures of what's happening around the world and what shorelines do look like. I mean, in South Africa, it's crazy. You cannot walk a meter along the beach without just filling up a bucket of rubbish. It's yeah. So we trying to not freak out the children in Jersey, but show them what's happening around the world and educate them on the impact that they as individuals are having if they don't recycle and and use products sustainably and think about what they purchasing and think about the lifecycle of that product, the purchasing products. Paul And we do talk a lot about coral reefs and the receding and the such. They're so beautiful under the coral reefs, but are they more important to marine life than just being very beautiful in terms of the marine ecosystem, if you like? Alexandra Yeah, it's a significant amount of marine life live and rely on coral reefs as their homes. So when when sea temperatures are increasing, it causes the algae that grows on, that provides energy for the coral reefs, it causes the algae to expel it, to wear the coral kind of cooling down in a way. But this it it expells the algae. And over the back of that, it doesn't have energy for photosynthesis and so dies. And we call this coral bleaching. And once coral has bleached, it goes it's white color and it's not so pretty anymore. I've seen lots of bleached coral reefs and it's really quite emotional and scary to see because at that point, the ocean marine life there, the ecosystem has to move on to go find another coral reef. And yeah, I mean, just to tell you a story, I was in Bali a few years ago and I'm I love scuba diving. It's something that I've grown up with and I've scuba dived in many different reefs in the world. And I went diving in and to Ghana and Bali and Indonesia and we went out and got down to the bottom and I expected to see this abundance of life. You know, it's body scuba diving in Bali and it just as far as I could see was it was literally a coral graveyard and it was the most emotional thing to see. There was absolutely no sea life there, no fish. It was just devastating. And there is there is hope. I'm just to tell you another story at Ocean Culture Life, we have in our community. We've got an amazing organization called Mars. I don't know if you know Mars bars. Paul And that's the chocolate bar. Yeah. Alexandra Yeah. So Mars, that's the conglomerate. And within that, they've got a few other brands and Sheba Sheba cat food. I'm not sure if you're aware of that, but Sheba Cat food is one of their brands and now they've been doing so. They're massive corporation and they've been doing coal restoration projects for 15 years now. They've been doing amazing projects all over the world, regenerating coral reefs. It's just the most amazing thing. But they've never been able to tell the story. They've never had the time and resources and whatever it may be. They've never known how to tell the story of the impact that they having. So we recently started working with them to tell their story. And our co-founder of Ocean Culture, Life Tamsin Rai went out to the Sheba reef that day, the reef that they're doing in Indonesia. And this was once a barren reef. There was nothing, there was all bleached. And there over the last few years they've just managed to grow this amazing coral reef that's full of life and it's just like it's like it was never dead. It's just the most amazing thing. And Tamzin got back last month and she was quite like emotional. She was like, It's just incredible. And it really does give you hope to see organizations doing this kind of thing. So yeah, it's. Paul Possible that it's possible to restore bleached coral. Alexandra So you can't restore it as and you can't bring it back to life once, once it's bleached, it's bleached. But basically what you do is you take a you cut off a small piece of coral that is still alive and you tied onto these structures. They're like star shaped structures. And then it starts to grow kind of like a garden and and they're planted like thousands of these coral restoration structures all over this reef. And it's just grown into this amazing, beautiful ecosystem. And fish have starting to come back. It just began. It's like a few fish and all. There's like manta rays and turtles and it's yeah, it's incredible. Paul So mangroves comes up quite a bit as well, you know, for carbon offsetting mangroves apparently are a great, great resource. Yeah. But they too with salt marshes and seagrass beds, they, they form an important part of sort of coastal ecosystems. Really. Alexandra Yeah, exactly. So we actually another one of our ocean guardians is a organization in Jersey that are helping. We've got a massive seagrass ecosystem here in one of our ports, and they're protecting this this port or harbor and let the sea grass grow because it's at sea coast rates, a lot of carbon and it absorbs a lot of carbon and which is what we need. We need, you know, as I said earlier, the carbon, the ocean is our largest carbon sink. So we need organizations like this that are protecting these areas so that it can continue to absorb the carbon that we don't want an atmosphere. So that's another one of our ocean guardians that are that are doing incredible things locally in Jersey, which is great. Paul Great and marine protected areas. Can you tell us a little bit about those please. Alexandra Yeah. So marine protected areas, they basically areas around a coastline that's, you know, a lot of dredging or do any unsustainable fishing practices in them. And so you all out like out scallops or fish or off a rod or whatever, any sustainable fishing you of course are allowed to do. But any of the horrible other types of unsustainable fishing, you know, a lot of do in those areas. AlexandraAnd I've got a story about this too, actually. I was out in Fiji in 2019 and I was doing a marine conservation project where we were basically assessing this marine protected area. It was just a little island called Taveuni and it was a very remote island. There was no like kind of big communities there, no tourism, nothing like that. So I had expected to see again an abundance of life. It's a marine protected area in a remote area, a remote island like, you know, a city. There'd be a lot of sea life. And there was just nothing. There was hardly any fish. There were all the coral was bleached. And the reason why the call was beach wasn't actually this time because directly because of the ocean being too warm. There it was because they had too many crown of thorns. Crown of thorns. It's basically like a and it's it kind of looks like a giant starfish. And they go over the coral and they eat the algae of it and they reproduce really quickly. And so within a matter of days they can destroy a whole coral reef. So we were basically, as horrible as it sounds, we actually had to they had to cut the number of coral of a crown of thorns in that area and extract if there were too many because they were another, they were just destroying the reef there. So that was a marine protected area and it wasn't looking great, but it wasn't because of human activity, it was more because of just this ecosystem was off balance and there were too many crown of thorns and. Paul And invasions and invasive species. Alexandra Yes, exactly. Then invasive species. Paul Habitat destruction is obviously a really, you know, big problem on land as it is below or below the sea, below in the oceans. And how much of habitat is habitat destruction do you see in the way that you're doing or the stories that you're coming across? Alexandra So one that comes to mind, a story that I actually heard recently, which is quite a devastating story. So again, out in Indonesia, there's a lot of coral reefs there. And the local fishermen there's kind of because of the coral bleaching that's happening out there, there's kind of a lack of fish in the sea as it is. And some of the local fishermen are going out and they have these like explosive bombs they called coral bombs, I believe, and they throw them into coral reef. And instead of just, you know, fishing a few fish, it destroys the whole entire reef and all the fresh fish float to the surface. And that's how they collect their fish. And so that's a good example of habitat destruction that's happening. And it's probably not only in Indonesia, it's I mean, Tamzin was saying she was literally snorkeling the one day looking over the the Sheba coral restoration project, and she just had this boat and the water and you just know, okay, that's another coral reef gone and. Paul Something of a movie. It's literally fish float to the surface crazy. Alexandra You just yeah, that's why we have to tell the stories of what's happening in the world, the good and the bad, because both can can change your actions and help you do something about about it. Paul And that brings us on to perhaps, you know, there are there are cultural practices here. There are there are there are ways that people live and make their living, you know, in terms of fishing and how much of that is an issue for you. You know, their whole way of life is dependent on the way that they fish or they interact with the oceans. Alexandra The main kind of worry that I have with the future that we of literally going to live in one day because we're not doing enough at the moment, is is the impact that by not achieving SDG 14, the impact that that's going to have on local communities, there is a massive amount of communities around the world that rely on seafood as their main source of protein, and there are local communities all over the world that rely on fishing as a form of income. And I'm not talking about the big dredging harbor boats and talking about local fishermen that are walking along the beach just trying to make a living and try trying to have a job and making an income. So the impact that that that destroying the ocean is going to have on communities around the world is is quite frightening. And we talk a lot about in the workshops at Ocean Culture Life I do with the local school kids here. We talk a lot about the impact that is the interconnectedness between SDG 14 and the other Sustainable Development goals. And by achieving SDG 14, you know, you can help achieve no poverty, which is SDG one and zero Hunger and good health and wellbeing and affordable and clean energy and decent work and economic growth. There's just so many connections between the SDGs. So by helping achieve SDG14 you really are off the back of that impacting so many other SDGs. Paul That's such a good point, is something which we try to focus on the boardroom as well is very much about joining up the dots. Yeah, so on the SDGs so the more joined up the our the better. And SDG8 is decent work and economic growth. Yeah so for us of the WaterAid that's the central SDG you know if we can get that right whilst you know whilst supporting the other SDGs and making sure they are a part of decent work and economic growth, then we really create the future that we all want to see. And if we don't connect them up, then we can't do it. Actually, I don't believe in, you know, the SDGs. They're embedded in 193 governments around the world, but not many people know about them, which is a bit crazy. Alexandra It's it is quite scary. The amount of people that don't know about the Sustainable Development Goals. And we really need to also I guess you mentioned culture life. We are so in a way just trying to give a voice to the SDGs and just let that be a common language. Everyone should know about them. And it's interesting you said that and how do you guys focus on decent work and economic growth? Because I have always and actually wrote a dissertation on this when I was at university. I've always said that individuals always have individuals and organizations always have one focus. They always have one that they like to try to focus on, which is great. I for me that SDG 14 but it is important that we while achieving that goal, we look at all the other SDGs as well. And so yeah it's yeah so I guess it ocean culture life we've we've obviously focusing on HSG 14 but also keeping in mind and so educating people on other SDGs just as you guys are with SDG eight. Paul I think you just give me an idea for a great survey actually just to go out into the streets and ask people their favorite SDG. Alexandra That's literally what I did in my dissertation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's really interesting. And, and we did at an organization level as well. I and I sent out a survey once to our, to the employees at our office and I, and I said what is your favorite SDG and why. And it was so interesting to see that literally every single person had a different kind of focus SDG, that they like to dedicate a little bit of extra time towards. And yeah. Paul So mammals, what's the impact that the impacts would be having on one of the mammals in the oceans, the dolphins and whales? Alexandra Yeah. Well I think the there's a, there's going to be a major and it has already been a major disruption in different ecosystems because of the sea temperatures increasing and basically big mammals are having to relocate to colder to cool the oceans and that disrupts the whole ecosystem. And actually, I think it was one or two years ago when I when I went back to South Africa and I heard stories about how shark livers were washing up on the shores. And this is something that no one had ever seen before. And we couldn't work out what was going on. Like what Predator does a great white shark have in the South African oceans? And turns out that it was the killer whales. They were coming up towards South Africa and and going for the great white shark livers. And I think this is another thing that we're going to see more frequently specifically this example, but we're going to see more frequently and random events of, you know, mammals, marine mammals being found in locations that they haven't been before and maybe finding new predators or. Yeah, it's really disrupt the ecosystems. Paul So aside from the storytelling, what else are you doing to get your message out there and to help with marine conservation? You mentioned some workshops that you're running. Alexandra Yeah, So there's a few different things and there's a few things in the works that are coming out next year, which I can give you a little preview on the like. So the one thing is every year we run grants where organizations donate to charity and to like a grand part. And one of our guardians and storytellers will submit a story to us or a project that they want to do, but they need funding for and we will go through. We have external examiners that go through these grant applications and they're also amazing and we hope to get to a point one day where we can support all of them. But at the moment we support about 15 grants I think got to be at five. This year we're doing 15 grants and we give them a bit of money to help them tell their story or expand the impact. And then another way locally in Jersey, we run workshops with the different schools here and we teach them about the Sustainable Development Goals and focus on SDG 14. So what's to come? Which is super exciting for Ocean Culture life. We've had quite a few organizations recently come to us and ask how they can help, and I'm talking like the law firms and like mass corporations in Jersey. And they said, How can we help? Can we can you guys run CSR Day for us, which is a corporate social responsibility day and CSR is great because they create impact and it does do something with its beach cleans or helping out of the workshop, whatever it might be. But we really want to expand on the impact and take and take organizations through a partnership journey. So what we implemented from next year is we basically going to take organizations that want to get involved in Ocean Culture life and support us through CSR days or or donating to us. We take them through a year long partnership by which every quarter we run a workshop with them where we educate them on what's happening around the world in terms of marine conservation and what ocean life doing. And yeah, running these workshops throughout the year. And in those workshops we educate them on sustainable development goals, SDG 14 what's happening around the world in terms of marine conservation and what they can do both at an individual and an organization level. And then throughout the year, along with those workshops, we are going to have CSR days type things that they can get involved in in terms of on the ground impact in Jersey. So that's really exciting. Paul How can they reach if they want to find out more about that, where should they go? Alexandra So we are in the process of launching a platform on our website by which you can go. If you're an individual or an organization, you can get involved with us through volunteering and enable us to have or scale workshops. And then for organizations, we'll have an area on our website where they can select a day and a time and the amount they want to donate and what their budget is for the Partnership for the year. And so that is all in the works and we are going to launch that in January next year. Paul Right. And what's the website address? Alexandra The website is Ocean Culture Dot Life. Paul So just tell us how many actually how many people are there in ocean ocean culture life and how many employees. Alexandra So we are really tiny, actually. We have two co-founders, Matt Porteous and Tamsin Raine. And then in terms of volunteers, it's just me and Lindsey Raine, who's Tamsin sister. And then we have got a secretary on the board, which is Sina. So there's just five of us, but we don't like to see it as we're the only people in the team because we really have a community and it's the community that's part of the team. You know, they and they are the brand and they're telling the stories. Paul So what's your biggest frustration that you. Alexandra My biggest frustration. Oh, I guess I want to frame it as the message I want to give to organizations and individual organizations and individuals separately. A big frustration in terms of organizations is that they just aren't doing enough. We in the last few months, we've seen the impacts of climate change and global warming on the oceans and on the land, but specifically for us, on the oceans. And that should be enough to make you want to change the way you do things. We really, really, really need to reduce our carbon emissions. We are reaching we are fast approaching the 1.5 degree global warming Paris Agreement number that we've all been seeing everywhere for the past few years. And once we get to that 1.5 degree global warming increase, we're going to have lost 70 to 90% of our coral reefs and to a point that they cannot be they cannot come back to life, they will be bleached and destroyed. And that is really frightening when you when you're working in the ocean space and you constantly say on a daily basis, these these are marine ecosystems being destroyed. And on the flip side, you're not seeing organizations doing enough. It is really frustrating. So I would love organizations to take Mars as an as an example. And with what Mars is doing around the world, what they coral restoration projects, take that as an example and improve your impact and do things like that because of every organization around the world. Did what Mars was doing and did something impactful in the ocean space, we would be in a completely different space. And then and to tell that story, most importantly, you know, they need to they need to really tell the story of the impactful things they're doing. And when they are doing good, tell people that you're doing good. And yeah, we need to get rid of the greenwashing. Paul I think that you want to talk about your frustration on the individual side of it. Alexandra I wouldn't say it's a frustration on the individual side of things. I think as an individual you can be doing a lot like you can be with cycling and cycling and cycling to work and composting and all of those amazing things that definitely do have an impact. Don't if you're doing those things, don't for one second think that you that it's not doing any good because it really is. But I think at an individual level we really need to think about the organizations that we are supporting. We need to have a look at organizations and critically analyze what the impact is. And, you know, distinguish greenwashing from not greenwashing. I mean, it's only supports organizations that really are having a good impact and doing good because that in return is going to force an organization to do better. And then again, at an individual level, tell your story. And it doesn't necessarily need to be through photographing. You can do what I do and write and speak to people and well, you can do Ocean Culture Life, one of our one of our brands images on all of our merchandise. It's all drawn by one of the ocean storytellers. He's an artist and he draws pictures about the ocean and marine conservation. So you can tell your stories in many shapes and forms that it's really important that we tell stories because it does really have a massive impact on people's actions. Paul I think really does. It really does. And especially with the oceans, because I think people are very tend to be very remote from the oceans and the seas. And then they're not really that close to the most people are living next to the sea. So they really need these stories and pictures that they tend to bring home to them. Alexandra Yeah, well, I think back to how the ocean impacts life on land and interconnectedness between the different goals. You may not be living near the ocean and you may not see on a daily basis what's happening under the ocean. But if you're in a country right now that's experiencing flooding and fires and all of those other horrible, extreme events that is off the back of global warming and also off the back of what's happening in the oceans, the ocean is it's reaching a point where it's not able to absorb any more carbon, which is accelerating global warming and causing these extreme weather events that are happening around the world. So whether you live inland or by the sea, you do and you will feel the impacts of global warming on the ocean. Paul And to what extent do different governments get involved in helping the cause of marine conservation. Alexandra In terms of like rules and regulations? In Jersey with fishing, we do obviously have marine protected areas on areas that you can't fish fish in and can fish in a media as the restrictions on what species you can fish at different times of the year. And the problem I think, comes in with the big dredges out in the international seas where there on are rules and regulations and they can take what they want and it's every man for himself. And I think that's where the problem comes in and who implements the rules and regulations for that. I'm not sure, but I know that something does need to be done about it. And maybe it's maybe it's just the pressure from consumers and from organizations. Yeah. And I think one thing that you can do is just when you buy seafood, take it sustainably sourced. All seafood now in the shop should have a some kind of label on there telling that it's been sustainably sourced or where it's come from. And that's a good way to that's a good place to start. Paul Alexandra, thank you very much for your time on this podcast and sharing with us. You know what you're doing there at Ocean Culture Life Charity and helping to educate all of us on the challenges of marine conservation and just how important it is and sharing your stories with us as well. Thank you. Alexandra And thank you so much for your time. Paul. It's been great. Previous Next

Kathy Xu of The Dorsal Effect discusses Ecotourism Kathy Xu of The Dorsal Effect Discusses Ecotourism Ecotourism, a sustainable travel trend, harmonises exploration with nature preservation. It encourages responsible travel, fostering environmental awareness and local community engagement. Emphasising education and minimal impact, ecotourism promotes wildlife conservation and supports socioeconomic development. Kathy And the whole idea of flying to Lombok in itself already makes me uncomfortable. Like, Oh, do we really need to take another flight? Can we justify this fligh? Right? Especially if I'm bringing a group of school children like so many people on a flight. But can I justify bringing them down? I try my best to be sustainable about the meals as possible. So one of the things is on that. Dorsel Effect trips we don't serve seafood, but so yeah, but then the schoolchildren, sometimes they would be like, Oh, but why is there no seafood? Why is there no meats? It's just the worst trip ever. I can't wait for it to be over, you know? So it's it's just very difficult. Paul Hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, The podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families and a greener, cooler planet. And today I'm joined by Kathy Xu of Dorsal Effect in Singapore. Kathy is an environment and marine advocate, sharks and ocean lover and eco tourism business lead. We're going to be discussing eco-tourism. So eco tourism is such a big subject and it's a little bit about dorsal effect first. Kathy So I run the dorsal effects. I basically see it as an eco tourism outfit where I provide shark fishermen in Lombok, Indonesia, with an alternative source of livelihood. So basically getting them to move away from shark fishing, but paying them better when they take tourists out snorkeling on boat trips, it's the dorsal effect. Paul Okay. All right. And yeah, if you can expand it a bit more about what exactly eco tourism is, because it seems like it could be a lot of things. Kathy Yeah, that's a huge question. Like I, I asked myself that question many times and well, because I feel like eco tourism, just like most other buzz words in today's day and age, like sustainability, like circular economy, they all seem so big and they sound so good. Yeah, it's so hard to advocate. Ah, it's so hard to run them the way that they should be easily carry it out. But most of the time I struggle. I struggle with calling myself eco tourism because what does that actually mean? Is that because. Because I'm doing it for shark conservation? Is it because I'm doing it to provide an alternative livelihood for the fishermen who would otherwise not be able to make that much money? Is it that I'm doing it in a way where there's less impact on the environment, but is it is it that I do it in a way that I make sure that the people who are who come on the trips with me don't do shit like polluting the waters or eat meat on the trip? Paul So tell us a little bit more then about Dorsal Effect. How far do your customers come from or their local or do they come from across the Well. Kathy Yeah, most of the time they come from Singapore and Malaysia because I think like I'm based in Singapore, so they hear about it through my talks that I give in schools. Are companies or just any kind of events that are happening in Singapore itself. But because I also have a social media presence. So I do have customers who come from Australia, Europe, America, all parts. It's just not as frequent as the ones who come from Singapore or Australia. So I that's mostly because that's the direct access from Australia to Lombok is the easy way to fly. Paul And how did you, how did you become interested in eco tourism? Kathy Yeah, so to go back to the roots of it, back in 2011, my brother asked if I wanted to go on a trip with him to Exmouth and Western Australia, and I said Sure, what are we going to see there? And he said, Oh, we can snorkel with whale sharks. So I thought, Oh, that's really cool, let's do it. And it was really fascinating trip for me because it was nice to see how they run their trips in a way that they were very strict with the tourists. We were things we were not allowed to do. They would give ourselves, restrict briefings to tell us how far, how close can we swim to the whale sharks, what should we not do? Basically, they had the welfare of the wildlife in mind first. So I was really impressed with the way they were running things. And he got me to think about this whole like this whole concept of overtourism. It feels like everyone is trying to run tourism in a way that that reaps the most amount of profit as quickly as possible. But do we really think about the welfare of the of the wildlife or about the impact on the ecology and ecosystems around us? But we were running the trips and I felt like this out in Australia that did it. And I was just really impressed with them and I wonder if that was something that could be done for sharks in other parts of the world as well. Paul Okay. All right. So what impact are you seeing? You know, the climate change and climate change changes is having on sharks. Kathy Okay. So I think one very direct impact would be like the whole fishing impact, right? But with climate change, it's very hard for the fishermen to know when they can go out like what used to be good times for them to go out to catch fish or sharks or whatever it is that they catch right now. It's so unpredictable and it's very like precarious situations for fishermen. So that in itself, I hope, gets the fishermen to see that, hey, you know, this is a very unstable trait. Things are not as predictable as it used to be, but also not catching as much as much sharks as we would like to. This is just too hard and too dangerous and too scary. So I guess that's one aspect of it. I’m no scientist but I've read papers about how scientists have tried to this is, I think in Florida, if I'm not wrong. So they were trying to determine what were some of the zones that tiger sharks were swimming in. And after determining that they actually designate that like marine protected areas in the in the zones that the sharks tend to be swimming in. But because of climate change and the waters warming, the sharks tended to swim away from these zones up north to cold to cold. Don't want this. So what was initially designated as Marine Protect, that didn't work as well for the tiger sharks anymore. So I guess these are some of the impacts that climate change has on sharks. Paul That's a part of ecotourism. It's just being greener in your in your tourist choices and your holiday choices in terms of your transportation or where you're going or what impacts you're having when you get to your tourist destination, Right? Kathy Yeah. Yeah. You have a point there. It's just that I think sometimes it can get a little bit complex as well. And coming back to the whole idea of marketing buzzwords they tend to like, companies tend to sell things that look good or sound good to others. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're not unfamiliar with the idea of greenwashing and blue washing. So, yes, one thing that companies tend to do and some are promoting carbon credits with your flight, but the thing is, I, I see it as greenwashing because I think when you go on a flight, there's just too much of a carbon footprints that you're having that carbon credits just cannot justify it. And there's just so many loopholes when it comes to talking about carbon credits. Paul So I think we've got to be really careful of these carbon credits and we yeah, they have their place, but as you said, not in marketing. MM Yeah. When you're giving your talk to schools and companies, what are they most interested in hearing about? Kathy Oh I guess it's different for both like for schools because they are mostly children of students with teenagers. They tend to like to hear about like sharks, interesting facts about sharks, the ecosystems, biology, scientific facts and stuff like that. Whereas with companies I think they're looking at, they're more interested in impacts like what is the environmental impact, What does it mean, What does ecotourism actually mean in terms of definitions? Is there a way to balance profits with doing good? Paul What's your biggest frustration? Kathy I get frustrated with myself. I mean, I have to start with myself. I can't just criticize other companies and not talk about my own company. So for me, I find it a struggle because if people want to if if people don't live in Lombok, obviously they have to fly into Lombok. And the whole idea of flying to Lombok in itself already makes me uncomfortable. Like, Oh, do we really need to take another flight? Do we can we just can I justify that flight? Especially if I'm bringing a group of school children like so many people on the flight, Can I justify bringing them down? Yeah, that's that's just one of the things that I constantly feel so frustrate them myself about. Yeah. I think another thing is the meals that we have on the trip. I try my best to be sustainable about the meals as possible. So one of the things is on that also is like trips we don't serve sea food Yeah, I mean of course because we're trying to protect the sharks and sharks are part of the ecosystem. So marine life, right? It's all interlinked. But so yeah, but then the schoolchildren, sometimes they would be like, Oh, but why is there no seafood? Why is there no meat? It's it's it's the worst trip ever. I can't wait for it to be over, you know? So it's it's just very difficult. Paul Yeah. Well, part of their education when your customers have completed one of your trips, what would you say is their overall impression? How have they come away changed? Kathy Of course. I hope that they go away change. Sometimes it doesn't happen. I'm just glad that most of the time it does. So I do collect the feedback from them after the trip, especially with the school children. Right, Because I spend so much more time with them. It's I guess the nice thing is because we do beach cleanups and trash audits as well. So one of the takeaways for them would be to think about the whole idea of single use plastics like can is there a way that they can reduce the amount of single use plastics in their life? Paul Right. Kathy Oh, yeah. With the with the no seafood policy, is there something that they can incorporate into their lifestyle as well? I get it. You know, on day one, they too, they might complain about it, but because we do a nightly lectures with them about marine conservation and the whole problem behind eating seafood, sometimes they do go away thinking about it like, oh yeah, maybe there is something wrong with eating seafood. Maybe I should change the way I make my my diet dietary choices. Paul Changing people's behaviors in the way that they think is really key. So shark conservation and is that is that a subject which is growing in popularity, if you like? Is it is it a subject which more and more people are looking? Kathy I guess I have been in it for so long that right. I don't really know if people are talking about it as much as they would like to. I know back in 2011 when I first started on this journey, a lot of people were very interested in the whole campaign of saying no to shark fin soup. So that was quite a thing. But I guess over time on this journey, I also started to see that it's a lot more complex than that. Just because people are saying no to shark fin soup, it doesn't mean that are they're not eating sharks anymore. Because if you say no to a part of the shark, the fish, you have to do something down the supply chain as well. You have to not just provide all the livelihood, but maybe even talk about fishermen still using the same gear. Is there a way you can change their gear and get them to see that, you know, catching or doing something else would also yield them the same kind of profit? So it's just such a we problem that it's yeah, it's difficult to wrap our heads around. But I think one of the things about the whole say no to shark fin soup campaign for me was that I felt I was a little bit too simplistic while it was sexy during the time, but it also sounded simplistic. There's so many more layers to the issue itself, and I think after having Journey the last ten years as a shark conservationist, I feel like it's not just about the sharks, right? It's about everything in the oceans. If we managed to so-call save the sharks, but we don't save everything else in the ocean, that's not a very pretty ocean either. Paul And so what are the threats to sharks then? Is it fishing or other other threats? What's what's driving the shark conservation movement? Kathy Yeah. So I think overfishing is still a problem, although I don't think it's limited to just sharks. As I said, I think that's a big problem with overfishing the ocean as a whole. Like they're just taking more than we should be taking. And yeah, one of the one of the things that I see also is that fishermen not just in Lombok, but just around everywhere, especially in Southeast Asia, fishermen are not paid properly enough. So if you don't pay them well and seafood is not expensive, they're just going to want to try to take more and more and more. But over time, they also realize that, hey, the oceans are depleting. It's harder and harder for me to get more fish. So what do I do? So that's the increased sense of desperation as well. Paul We don't need a lot of sharks here in the UK. Is shark meat Is that part of people's diet? Kathy Yeah, I think the thing about at least in Singapore, is that we do eat shark meat, but there are no proper labels. Ah, transparency in terms of what we're eating. So. Paul Right. Kathy Let's say you're eating shark meat. You would think it's fish because most people just associate that as, Oh, this tastes like fish or it's fish. Yeah, but it could be shark meat and people are none, none the wiser in that sense. So I think proper labeling is something that needs to happen. Paul And are sharks reared in farms as well? Kathy So sharks, stingrays, octopuses. Yeah. Most most species of marine life it's you just can't harvest them like they for various reasons. One of it could be that you just don't have enough space for certain species of sharks. They another another thing could be survivability. They can't really live in small spaces that well, or you can have the conditions that are right for them. Another reason could be their fertility rate. They don't. They just don't give birth to enough young quickly enough. So that's no way to farm them properly. Right. Although it doesn't happen for all species. But yeah, it's just we just don't have enough infant species level information of all the sharks to know for sure what can be farmed, what cannot be farmed. Paul I mean, I don't want to follow that. I'm just wondering know, protecting marine wildlife is really important, isn't it? Because I think if the oceans fail, if marine life fails, then, you know, the rest of the planet fails with it. So and so what keeps is what keeps driving you forward then, Kathy With ecotourism and shark conservation. Kathy Friendship is to tribe, I think over the last few years, I've I've come to appreciate having a tribe of people who are like minded and will also see things the same way and understand the importance of the oceans. So just having that support has been very, very, very fulfilling for me and it keeps me going. Yeah. Paul Okay. Can you share any, any other stories with us about ecotourism, shark conservation? Kathy Yeah. So for one, eco tourism is something that I increasingly am struggling with. Like, I feel like there's just too much greenwashing happening around the idea of tourism. Everybody wants to travel. The pace off the wall is getting faster and faster and faster. That scares me. I don't even know if eco tourism could be an answer anymore. But on the flipside, when it comes to shark conservation, because I've been also working on some projects with very good people in Singapore. Yeah, I won't go into the details about the projects, but just just being able to be more involved in shark sciences and using science as a way to promote conservation. That's something that I don't know. I find it a little bit more hopeful, although I don't know if I'm running out of time to. Paul Yeah, do you get any support from the government with that, with your is is that much investment from the government in shark conservation. Kathy Yeah. Not so much financially but we do we do like engage with the government and they are on board with the whole idea of shark and stingray conservation. I guess it's an ongoing conversation that we have. Yeah. Paul Okay. So you do the tours, but you also mentioned beach cleanup. So what other sort of projects or initiatives that you involved? Kathy And so the beach cleanups are just a part of the trip as well, like the meals, beach clean ups getting the fishermen's wife to cook vegetarian meals for the school students. That's all part of the package. But as you were mentioning of our shark conservation, I also do work at the fishery parks in Singapore. So we do have two fishery parks, you know, go indoor fishery part in Singapore where we import seafood. General seafood. But I could I could my friend, who is the principal investigator of this project, her name is Naomi Collection. She's she's a shark. Scientists in Singapore and we're trying to and we're doing work at the fishery ports in terms of trying to find out what kind of species of sharks and stingrays are we importing into Singapore and is there any threat on certain species over the years? So that's a long term study that we're working on. Like in Singapore, we import seafood we don't really catch. So much seafood around. I want this. They're mostly imported from the region. So like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia. So we're trying to see what kind of species are we importing. Is there an increasing trend of these species becoming extinct over time? These are some of the things that we're looking at. Yeah. Is there a way that we can work with the region to perhaps advance conservation aims not just within Singapore but in the region as well? Paul Yeah, You know, I just think ecotourism is, as you say, such a big subject, isn't it? Because I think everything we do when we go on holiday, you know, is impacting on the environment, isn't it? So yeah, we, we get there. It's how we it's how we interact with the local communities. It's kind of everything we do at home, but abroad, if we've also tried to do that in a in a green way, in an eco friendly way, I guess is one way of looking at it. But then there are specific things we can do, as you say, like shark conservation, supporting supporting organizations that are doing something specific to help with marine life, which I think is what you're doing with your shark conservation. Kathy Even the idea of slow travel, I don't know. That's something that could be become popular, like just getting people to see that you can travel slowly if that's a way to get to another land in a slower way without having to fly. Can we do it instead? Yeah, just appreciating every day and every little step of that of the idea of travel rather than, Oh, everything has to be fast. I only have two weeks. Let's keep busy as much as we can. Paul I think that's a great point, isn't it? I mean, in a way we've we've reduced the whole world into some great big theme park. You know, I guess walk around in a couple of days, see it, and then go home and carry on with why we were so slow travel then. Kathy I've been thinking about it quite a bit during the pandemic, like when everyone had to slow down. That was great for me. And I thought like, Hey, finally the wall is slowing down, as it should. But then now it feels like we're going back to the pace that we were just before the pandemic. Again. Paul Exactly the same experience. You know, people had the time to talk to each other. You know, we were great queuers in the UK. We didn't like queuing up and having a chat and booking to people when I was buying a cup of coffee outside and, you know, speaking to the to the vendor of the coffee. And he said, yeah, you know, people are more relaxed that we're all going to miss this, not to. Yeah, we well it was, it was, it was just that we all slowed down. We were all. Yeah. So maybe we need to start the slow movement. That's what we need to do is. Kathy I totally agree behind you on this Paul. Oh, another thing that I've been thinking about also is I see the I see. I see how science can be very, very impactful and helpful for policies and almost everything that we do. So I'm wondering if science can be a big part of eco tourism as well, instead of making big claims that, you know, we are taking care of the environment or taking care of the wildlife, how about showing it to us through science? Because I just got my master's in science communication. So I was thinking, can we use science to back up tourism as well? My thesis was basically on how to communicate the consumption of sambal stingray So in Singapore this is very popular, the sambal Stingray So we eat a lot of stingrays in this dish. So in my thesis, I was trying to find out what would get people to eat less of sambal stingray, or shift, our consumption habits when it comes to eating the dish itself. Paul Do you think science can help us here then, in solving the problems of marine conservation and eco tourism? Kathy I actually I strongly think that science can help us. It's just that, yeah. So to me, I think that the biggest link needs to be between communicating scientists from the Academy point of view to the masses, all of us. Paul Yeah, I think the part of eco tourism is just the exchange of ideas. Is this cultural exchange that that tourism drives and helping people to understand different time of different cultures that can probably help to drive the right behaviors in terms of looking after the climate. And yeah, again, marine conservation and conservation in general. Kathy And that's a good point that you've brought up too, because it also links back to slow, slow traveling to. Right? Like if you travel slowly, you get to know the community rather than just looking at it as an observer, you get to know the wildlife. You might even get to know the names of, let's say you go to an area and you're sitting with the workshops every day. You might get so used to seeing the workshops that you actually identify the different personalities of the different workshops that you see. And I think that's priceless. Paul Is tourism a big industry in Singapore? Kathy Oh, it's huge. It's one of the yeah, it's like Singapore. It's such a melting pot of so many cultures. We depend so much on tourism for our economy and our economic growth. So I think that's something that we kind of run away from sending. Paul Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you think that tourism can impact so negatively on the identity of our country or population or village because of the tourism? Kathy I don't know. I think it really depends on the people who are traveling, like tourism on its own. It's, it's, it doesn't have a personality, but it's the people who come into the different countries and what kind of mindset I'd be bringing with them. So I think it's also important that we think about narratives and languages. How do we speak about certain things? If we're not talking about tourism, How can we speak about tourism such that getting to know the cultures and, and, and, and getting to know what is happening in the country on a deeper level is also a big part of traveling. Paul So it's been fantastic to speak with you, Kathy, on this podcast or about ecotourism and shark conservation. Thanks very much for sharing your time. Kathy Thanks for having me, too, Paul. I had fun. Thank you. Previous Next

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Jon Bishop CEO at Envest Discusses Microfinance and Poverty Jon Bishop CEO at Envest Discusses Microfinance and Poverty Microfinance, a financial service targeting low-income individuals, has emerged as a potent tool against poverty. By providing small loans, savings, and insurance to those traditionally excluded from formal banking, microfinance empowers individuals to launch businesses, invest in education, and improve living conditions. This access to capital fosters entrepreneurship, ignites local economies, and creates a ripple effect that uplifts communities. Paul Great loan to make to to to enable somebody to buy a solar panel, especially in Africa, you know, if it's gonna deliver electricity and then whatever they can do with that electricity. John Yeah. When they get that electricity, Paul, One of the first things I see is that, the performance in school goes up because the kids can read at night. They also see fewer respiratory problems because people aren't breathing kerosene fumes. Paul Hello and welcome to rethink what matters the podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families, and a greener cooler climate. And today, I'm joined by John Bishop, CEO at Envest in Madison, Wisconsin, US of A. Are we going to be discussing Micro Finance and Poverty. John Good afternoon, Paul. To be with you. And, yeah, it's a great podcast to be doing, micro finance and poverty because I think micro finance can probably help with nearly all of the United Nations seventeenth sustainable development goals. Not just SDG one, poverty. Certainly, the first six are may have a very strong case and even the next two or three. And then all the others are impossible with, widespread object poverty. So I I think you're right. It really does influence about half of them directly and all of them in some way or another. Paul Right. Yep. So if you could if we could please start off with, how you became interested in microfinance, and your journey to creating Envest. John Be delighted. My educational background is in evolution and ecology, and I was a and remain a very strong environmentalist. And after I, I left, the the biology world, I I became very, very interested in, in, sustainable development. And I came to realize by living in rural Panama that that poverty was a major threat to to the environment, especially to an environmentally sustainable economy. And so I realized that that social issues and environmental issues were not separated as they often are. That they they're one and the same thing that that if you don't take care of people, you they can't take care of the planet, because they're the incentives are just all wrong. So I became interested in micro finance, really, because I was an environmentalist, and I was looking at a sustainable way of addressing poverty. And so I, I read I went back to business school and got an MBA, and microfinance was among the things that I was interested in. The others could can be summarized pretty nicely by looking at your podcast page. You've interviewed folks who are doing a lot of the other things I was really interested in. So that's I came to microfinance through my, my environmental, aspirations and and hopes. Paul Would you like to talk a little bit more about setting up and invest in that in that journey? John Absolutely. I after completing an MBA, I have mine as a master's in international management from Thunderbird in Arizona. My fortunately, my first job out of business school was managing Micro Finance fund, here in Madison, Wisconsin, which is why I moved to Wisconsin, and it's been here ever since. It was a it was a wonderful opportunity. I was working at that point with a fund in Nicaragua. And, I loved what we were doing. We were a nonprofit. And the one thing that that I thought was missing was a more market based approach. We ran on on some revenue, but also there was a a fair donative element to it. And, we were raising donations. And it seemed to me that to be truly sustainable, it had to be a true business endeavour. And I thought that was absolutely possible in micro finance. And so I eventually, set off to to establish my own fund, which I I wanted be very market based. I wanted it to be a for profit, but with the the mission and the the values of a nonprofit. Because I think for profits, and and all this resonates with you. For profits can be every bit as moral as any other mission based organization. And that's what we seek to create at at Envest. That we are a for profit market based business that is as concerned with the well-being, people on the planet as any nonprofit ever would be. Paul Could you explain what microfinance is. John Of course. Microfinance at the very simplest level is small loans and other financial services, savings and and insurance generally to very low income residents who who have needs for credit that back ass as access to to credit. In many countries, especially outside of the the West. Banking simply isn't available to, lot of low income, very credit worthy people. That situation is improving, but not fast enough. In microfinance, a typical microfinance institution, they could be either a nonprofit or a for profit. They tend to lend to very low income folks who the local banks won't serve, and they have figured out that these are are excellent credit risks. It's often, but not exclusively for entrepreneurial ventures. Think somebody working in a, who has a stall in a marketplace, in a a large city or a a fairly small village anywhere in the developing world. They they sell a few products. They need some working capital to buy those, products, buy the inventory that they sell. They need a stand. They need a little bit of equipment. If they're repairing anything, they need, the the tools and, a little bit of infrastructure. If there are small scale farmers, they need the inputs. They may need the land. So it's the need for for small amounts of money, just like a a business in in the West would need just with fewer zeros on dollar amount or euro amount depending on where the world is from, four pound. And so the these institutions are very often founded by local folks, and so they understand the the business culture, the, the social environment in a way that that I never could. I I will I will never understand the social, and business culture of Uganda, in a way that I would need to to lend there. But by lending to an institution in Uganda, I, I strengthen them and rely on their, their knowledge of the the areas. So it's folks who need access to to credit so that they can pave their own pathway out of poverty and to to create a, a dignified existence. Paul So you're lending to institutions. You're not actually lending to the, end user of the money. John That's exactly right. We lend at present, we lend to about twenty institutions in twelve countries, and that those institutions lend to the local folks who need it. We do not lend to to end borrowers. That's just not our core competence. And we don't want to get in there and compete with local folks who who are doing that. We want to to support their efforts, not compete with them. Paul And are those institutions set up specifically to work with you? I mean, do you create those institutions, or do they already exist? John They already exist. They they're sovereign independent institutions. In most cases, they've been operating for years and years before, we come on the scene. They're borrowing from several different lenders like us from both domestically and, all over the well, not all over the but for the most part, Europe, and maybe a few North American lenders. Paul So does the borrower need to have access to the internet to access to access these funds? John It depends on the institution. For most of them, no, phone banking and and cell phone payments are becoming more and more common, especially as, cell phone ownership increases even at the very lowest end of the economic spectrum. And so we're seeing more and more payments by mobile money, and which usually requires an internet connection. But There are certainly a lot of end borrowers of these institutions who do not have, internet access. Paul Okay. But, but it is still they need to have some kind of technology to be able to use this, don't they? I mean, they're gonna need a phone. I suppose everybody has a phone now even in the poorest places of the world. John Yeah. Yeah. It's really and, again, some of our our partner institutions, do work with people who who have no phone, no nothing. And so it really is organization specific. It it really depends on their products. But, yeah, even at the very lower end of the, economic people have phones. I remember, one time I was being taken to see some borrowers in Nicaragua, and we were crossing a bridge, and there were women down in the, the river washing their clothes on rocks. And I saw one of them, put her clothes down on a rock and pull a phone out and answer it. And I thought, my god, the women washing clothes in the river are answering their cell phones. This was quite a while ago. I didn't have a cell phone yet. So I that was kind of the this for you to buy a cell phone for me. Yeah. Paul What is a Grameen bank ? Is that is that related to what you're doing? It's very much what we're doing. Mohammed Yunas founded the the Grameen Bank back in nineteen seventy four in Bangladesh, and he was one of the early leaders in microfinance. It sprouted up independently in quite a few places. And a lot of people, consider Mohammed Munas to be the father of microfinance. I think microfinance is one of those things that actually has quite a few fathers. But, but, yeah, he so and he figured out the he, along with a lot of other figured out the group lending idea that people who didn't have, physical assets that could serve as collateral. Could cosign on each other's loan. And so if one person doesn't pay, the rest of the group has to pay it. And and so that there there were quite a few things in that that were really kind of brilliant. One is that you you really reduced the the risk because one person doesn't pay, the loan still gets repaid. But it's a it's a lot more profound than that, and that when they're forming up their groups, people have to choose their groups. And if everybody wants to be in Rosa's lending group, that tells you a little something about Rosa, and she's probably a pretty good, lending risk. If nobody wants to be in Enrique's lending group, it tells you a little bit about enrique and maybe you don't want your money in his hands. Lots of people know and review. That's a great idea. Just just wanna put that in But, it, it was a a way of doing due diligence on people. You didn't know, but you could tap into village knowledge, And and also when people are getting a little bit behind, the other people in the group will come over and say, Hey, you know, It'll be there'll be a bit of pressure. There'll be some help. And so it the the the group lending model it's getting less used, but it's still quite popular and especially in Africa. And that that was one of the real breakthroughs and microfinance back in the early seventies was to figure out how to lend to very, very low income people who had nothing to offer as collateral. Paul But that's not the only type of microfinance that exist then. It's possible to lend, you know, differently, not just to groups. John Certainly as and especially as, as there's economic advancement once people do have some assets, then asset backed loans. In a lot of ways, they're really more efficient. A lot of people start in group lending situations, and then they graduate to individual loans. Once they have of something that will serve as collateral. A television set is off from the first piece of collateral. Land can do it. Quite if, if you have a beauty salon, the mirrors and equipment for the beauty salon often can serve as the collateral. So they can when you can match, what they use for their business to collateral. They can get away from the group loans, but the group loans are still a wonderful place to start folks who are just too far down the economic spectrum to be able to do that. Many of our partners have both individual and group lending. Thank you. Or not all, and some do only individuals, some do only group. But a lot of them have a a mix of the the two products. Paul And if they fail to repay the loan, what what happens then? So if it's in a group situation, the the rest of the group has to pay if it's in a, an individual. What happens depends on the organization, also depends on the circumstances. All of our partners, as they kind of think down our list, really, the, the first question they ask is, are they not repaying because they can't because they won't. If they if they can, but they won't, then it it usually goes to a judicial action. After it goes to collection and then to something judicial. Right. What's more common is that people absolutely acknowledge they need to pay. They want to, but they can't. And then there there's usually a workout. There's restructuring. The loan may eventually get lost, but, but there there's it's a much more collaborative approach. If something happens. Give me just a final cap on that question. What happens if they don't, repay? They don't get any more loans. And and that's a huge incentive that if you repay your loans, you'll get additional loans and for a greater amount. And so you're actually in, in most situations, you're in better shape if you repay your loan than if you don't repay your loan. Yeah. Paul I'm thinking they I'd imagine they all want to repay, but they probably don't get a lot of support maybe in helping to run their businesses or And so I was just thinking the risk might be a lot higher and, you know, they're already they're already in a in a in a difficult position to then find themselves in a more difficult position, you know, could could make things worse for them. John That is one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that if you're in a especially in a fairly small village, and you're selling some fairly basic product. At least at a very small scale, you likely don't have much competition. Right. And so while the the part of their business opportunity is precisely because of lack of infrastructure. And so a what a lot of these loans are doing is they're going to finance the provision of this infrastructure that a lot of businesses business services become available because they get financing to provide them. Before cell phones became so prevalent. One of the major activities for for lending was for people to go around through villages with a phone and sell phone calls. That was that was the Grameen bank did a lot of that. The late nineties and early two thousands. That's been supplanted, but that gives you the kind of, an idea of the kind of thing that, was actually a business service that was, available. If there wasn't a pay phone, then in the village. So the the lack of infrastructure often results in the business opportunity itself. Paul And can you share some stories, some success stories that you've seen through, through through the lending that you're doing? John Well, I'm glad this is a three hour, podcast because I Yeah. You know, just only one, one or two. Just, you know, good news stories because we need a lot of we need more good news stories on, you know, to share, don't we? Because, you know, that they the challenges that we have in the twenty first century, we wanna know that we're making progress as well. I've got several. I visited, a store in rural Nicaragua one time. They they sold clothing and food items and stuff. And, there a lot of people in the village could only come at night, and they didn't wanna buy clothes at night because they it was dark. When they borrowed money to buy a solar panel, they had light. And their clothing, sales to skyrocketed as a result of getting this solar panel financed with a loan. The other thing is that that, that house now had a a workable television set in the evening. And so it was the only TV set working in the evening, and so everybody came and watched it. Would buy a a bag of chips while they were there. And so their their business just skyrocketed as a result of buying this, the solar panel. Another, more recent one, one of my colleague, our our East Africa rep, was just visiting person in South Central Uganda, who took out loans because she's the same stress, and she can, she needed to buy a sewing machine and cloth and tools and And so she could she could buy more cloth and and just turn out projects more quickly. She also trains local kids who don't who can't afford the school fees to be, tailors as well. And so at in addition to running her own business, she's a very civic minded person, and she is able to bring them in as a print and then they can, go off and set up a shop somewhere else. And so a lot of people would look at these kids as competition, but she just sees it as as giving back. And this is somebody who lives a very simple life, but she's still, is able to give back because she has access to, to credit. And so a lot of people are getting a useful skill because this one woman, their name is Naomi. Has access to credit. And when when our representative, and that told me that story, it was when it is like, something I've seen so many times, but it it was just one of those things that reminds me why I do what I do. Paul Really like that story. So how often are you seeing that, through the lending that you're doing, that you're creating jobs? John It's it's constant. It's so we we What we're really providing is access to credit, which is obviously providing livelihoods, about fifteen thousand people are getting access to credit because of our activities. I wish that I I would love to put three more zeros on that number, and then another couple of zeros after that. But, as we grow, that's really what we look at is access to credit. Because when you give access a credit, you're providing a livelihood to that person. And very likely, a a job or two or three around that person, and they're becoming a, a part of the financial ecosystem in their, their community. They they're now able to buy more products for their business, and that's supporting some other entrepreneur. And so you get a a a real financial ecosystem. Paul So you you're lending the money to sort of entrepreneurs people who already have some idea or they have an idea or a group of people have an idea. So they're not they're not completely on their up as these people. They have got food. They've got, you know, they're not they're not in complete poverty by the sounds of it. The people that could help you helping here. Could that be fair? I mean, how low down the spectrum of poverty. Are we able to go with microfinance to help poor people? Yeah. John Good point. It's getting pretty far down the the economic spectrum. It is to your point, the people have absolutely nothing and have no way of, putting together a business are going to be hard pressed to to, to take advantage of this. But even then, there are stories This isn't one of ours, but I I remember reading about a woman who bought a barrel of toothpaste and started selling toothpaste by the spoonful in the market. And, she, you know, she had there was no skill other than being able to take a spoon and dip it in there. But what she had was the intelligence and the foresight to realize that that people didn't have toothpaste and they couldn't afford tubes of toothpaste. And so even people pretty far down the economic spectrum, can very often figure out some financially lucrative activity that they could do if they could just buy the barrel of toothpaste. Paul And the institutions that you work they you work with, are they also delivering education awareness programs that there is this credit available? And if they have got a bright idea about toothpaste you know, here's here's a way of accessing it because oftentimes people just don't know this this sort of thing exists. John Yeah. So the one thing I that I think is, I I do wanna be clear about most, most microfinance institutions require six months to a year of experience with the the business in question. So this isn't startup capital. And it, it often gets presented in fact. And I just wanna make sure that we're clear that it usually is to people who have a going concern. Very often, they don't have much of a going concern, but they are already doing whatever this is, and they could be doing more of it. If they could buy, you know, some tools, if if they just had a hammer something like that. Mhmm. And and also, I wanna make it clear. We're we're generally not talking about twenty eight dollar loans. The our the average loan size in our portfolio is about eight hundred dollars. Still, that's That that's, that's a fairly, fairly small amount of money in the that can keep a family going. As to the kinds of educational, opportunities that the institutions give a lot of our partners have basic numeracy training programs. They have marketing. They have they call it commercialization. How to get your your product to market? In a few cases, especially in the the agricultural dependent ones, they help them get their their product to market. And so the the institution often serves kind of as a cooperative, a receiving co op so that they can get better market prices and that they can get them bulk rates and things like that. That's not the norm, but we do have a few partners who do that. Gender rights, training programs are fairly common. These things are getting a little less prevalent as the competition gets greater, but they still do have those those kinds of things. And so there usually are some sort of training opportunities, usually having to do with marketing and and basic numbers and basic accounting. So it'd be great to see that, you know, that through this microfinance is being delivered, to these entrepreneurs that, you know, they are creating jobs, you know, they're increasing the the local economy. And then that would filter through to improved, you know, health care. An education so that everybody benefits from it. I mean, are the investors there? Paul Are there sufficient numbers of investors, you know, who want to invest in these sorts of funds. John We have eighty seven investors right now. We hope to improve that their their real challenges just to find ones that there are a lot of people who would love to invest, but they don't need the in that net worth requirements. Paul And do these do these investors have to be very, philanthropic and altruistic in in their investments in ideology or would they be getting somewhere else where they get a higher return? John Our our return is near market. If you compared it to to something in the same level of perceived risk, it probably doesn't perform up to that. But it's not heavily concessional. And that that's really part of the the the goal and division of investors to to deliver near market to market rates of return, because that's when it becomes sustainable. As far as the the investors, some have a a fairway philanthropic mindset, but most need to make a a market rate of return, and they're willing to take a very slight haircut for the the mission, but they won't take, you know, they won't go for a zero percent or a one percent return. They they need a a near market return. And so I I would say that. Describes ninety percent of our investors. Paul And do you put any restrictions on the types of businesses, borrowers that you'll lend to? John We vet the institution. We make sure that they're their values and what they're lending for is consistent or consistent with what we do. One thing that I'm particularly interested in is, supporting renewable technology, solar panels efficient to stoves. And so we're particularly interested in in lending to, micro finance institutions that have solar lending products. That's a lot more prevalent in Africa than it is in other parts of the world. And Our main source of growth right now is Africa. Paul Seems like a great, a great loan to make to to to enable somebody to buy a solar panel. Especially in Africa, you know, if it's gonna deliver electricity and then whatever they can do with that electricity. John Yeah. Would they get that electricity, Paul? One of the first things I see is that, the performance in school goes up because the kids can read at night. One of the first things they see. They also see if you're a respiratory problem because people aren't breathing kerosene fumes. That's brilliant. Paul And I heard, a little while back actually that there is a very tight correlation between power not going down every five minutes and GDP. And I think you just made a very good example that education improves because the the lights are John And then if we can get especially these developing countries to to get the lights on without producing the fossil fuel, the fossil fuel that we do. That that's really my dream. To be use microfinance to, to build up economies, like, going a a more sustainable route. Than the one we took. To make a one point that I think is kinda interesting, we're getting access to a lot of people about fifteen thousand people. We're also strengthening these institutions. And when you strengthen institutions, they have more power to do things in their community, and they hire more people, and they can educate more people. So beyond the the micro entrepreneur level, you're also helping these micro finance institutions that are able to branch out into other financial products. And quite a few microfinance institutions have become banks over the years in many countries. You know, Grameen Bank didn't start out as a bank. It was, it was what they called it a bank, but it didn't have a banking license that very first. And a lot of institutions that start out as lending, as micro finance lending institutions, then become, financial institutions and then be get a bank license. So a lot of these these MFIs, you you could really consider it a breeding ground for banks. And having banks that that have their their roots as, social and impact organization. It's certainly not a bad thing. Having a lot of banks that that have impact and and social progress in their DNA is is a positive So that that's another aspect, of microfinance well beyond just the folks with the hires, but, the confidence that it it breeds within a country. John So SDG sixteen, you're supporting that as well. Peace justice and strong institutions. Paul Yes. Absolutely. John, it's been absolute pleasure having you on this podcast. Thanks very much for your time and in sharing your knowledge about microfinance and and your journey as well to setting up and Envest. And, yeah, you know, thanks very much for the work you're doing and helping to address poverty in the areas where you are and create opportunity where perhaps, you know, it didn't exist before. So again, thanks very much, John, for your time on this podcast. John Thank you so much. Thank you for the invitation. And also thank you for highlighting the efforts of so many others. I looked at your podcast page, and there are a lot of people doing a lot of good work. And I think what I do is important, but so is what they do. And thank you for highlighting them. Previous Next

< Back The Matching Principle The matching principle is a fundamental accounting concept used in accrual accounting that dictates that expenses should be recognised in the same accounting period as the revenues they help generate. The principle aims to ensure that income statements reflect an accurate representation of a company's financial performance during a specific period by aligning the costs with the associated revenues. Key Points of the Matching Principle Revenue Recognition: According to the matching principle, revenues are recognised when they are earned, regardless of when the cash is received. This ties into the revenue recognition principle, which is an essential part of accrual accounting. Expense Recognition: Expenses should be recorded in the same period as the revenues they help to generate. This means that costs are not recognised when they are paid but when the related revenue is recognised. Cause and Effect Relationship: The principle relies on the cause and effect relationship between revenue and expenses. For instance, the cost of goods sold is matched with the sales revenue of those goods in the same period. Depreciation and Amortisation: The matching principle is also applied through depreciation and amortisation. For example, if a company buys equipment, the cost is not expensed immediately but rather over its useful life. This matches the cost of the equipment with the revenue it generates over time. Examples of the Matching Principle Inventory and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): When inventory is sold, the cost associated with producing or purchasing that inventory is recognised in the same period as the revenue from the sale. Prepaid Expenses: Expenses such as insurance or rent that are paid in advance are initially recorded as assets and then expensed over the period they benefit. Employee Salaries and Wages: Salaries and wages are recognised as expenses in the period employees provide the services, even if the actual payment occurs in a subsequent period. Importance of the Matching Principle Accurate Financial Reporting: By matching expenses with revenues, the matching principle ensures that income statements reflect the true financial performance of a company during a given period. Consistency and Comparability: It promotes consistency in financial reporting, making it easier for investors, analysts, and other stakeholders to compare financial statements across different periods and companies. Compliance: Adhering to the matching principle is essential for compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In summary, the matching principle is crucial for accurate and reliable financial reporting, ensuring that the expenses associated with generating revenue are appropriately matched to the period in which the revenue is recognised. This alignment provides a clearer picture of a company's financial health and performance. Previous Next