Season 2, Episode 12 - Game Changers and Transition Makers: Season Two wrap-up

Ben McAlary:

Hello and welcome to ESG Matters @ Ashurst. Today marks the final and very special episode of our Game Changers and Transition Makers series. Over the past six months, we've spoken to people driving innovation in the ESG space. Entrepreneurs from around the world have shared their stories, motivations, and lessons learned along the way as they help shift the world towards a more sustainable, equitable, and just future.

In this episode, we'll dig into some of the reoccurring themes of the series, as well as key takeaways from some of our guests as we wrap up what's been a fantastic season two.

My name's Ben McAlary, and I'm joined by series two co-hosts, Elena Lambros, Ashurst Risk Advisory, ESG and Sustainability partner, and Lorraine Johnston, Ashurst's partner who specialises in ESG regulation. Hello and welcome to you both.

Elena Lambros:

Hello. Wonderful to be here.

Lorraine Johnston:

Lovely to be chatting with you both.

Ben McAlary:

Fantastic. So given that we're looking back over season two, it seemed very appropriate to get you both on this wrap-up episode. I want to start with you, Elena, over the course of your episodes of Game Changers and Transition Makers in season two, I can imagine your guests have provided a lot of light-bulb moments. What's one of the key takeaways that resonated with you?

Elena Lambros:

I found myself fundamentally changed by many of the conversations I've had over the past six months. All of our guests are innovators and disruptors, all of whom working towards a better world, and that can feel overwhelming sometimes. So I find myself really drawn to the idea of incremental change and that any positive action is still action.

Ben McAlary:

It's an important counterbalance to the common messaging of we have to do this perfectly and we have to do it right now, isn't it?

Elena Lambros:

Yeah, absolutely. That's right. And while thinking big and thinking scale is so important, sometimes we need to be reminded that small actions matter too, and they actually can form the foundation of bigger changes down the line.

Ben McAlary:

And you touched on that in episode one with John Mellowes from BioCarbon. He had a great perspective on meeting industries where they are.

Elena Lambros:

Yeah, that's right. So BioCarbon is an Australian company aiming to decarbonise the global steel industry, which doesn't sound small scale at all, but as John shared in our conversation, they realised that there were greater gains to be made if they met the industry where they were and designed their product to slot seamlessly into existing technology. Let's take a listen.

John Mellowes:

From our point of view, I guess our success to date has been, we haven't asked industry to do impossible things in short periods. Essentially, we're saying, "Replace this with this, it'll cost you next to nothing, and you'll help solve this problem." And I think that's kind of what we need to do. Yeah, we often focus or say, "Well, we have to change the whole system, or we have to do..." Yeah, not really. Maybe we can just change it bit by bit, incrementally. There's nothing wrong with incremental change. It's less turbulent. It's easier for people to accept. I think we're all a bit... often too judgmental about what other people are doing and what other industries are doing.

I look at the steel industry, which produces 8% of the world's CO2, and they're looking at in the blast furnace route, changing some of the coal that they're using out for charcoal, and it'll be a pretty small reduction, 2, 3% at the start. And you'll hear people say, "Oh, that's not enough. We need to fix this by such and such a date. So they've got to do more." Well, let's understand that 2 or 3% is better than 0%, which is what we had yesterday. Let's take any gains we can get without being negative about it. I think if we're better off, we should take those gains. Don't let perfect be the enemy of better.

Ben McAlary:

That was John Mellows from BioCarbon summing up a crucial idea that change doesn't have to be revolutionary and overnight, it can be a practical step-by-step process. Lorraine, does that message resonate with you, the idea that ESG space can sometimes get bogged down by the pressure for immediate change?

Lorraine Johnston:

Yeah, I think similar to Elena, I think there needs to be an emphasis on both. Of course, we need the visionaries who go after the seemingly insurmountable challenges because that kind of courage drives innovation, but we also need the impact that comes on a smaller scale because that builds belief and hope and momentum.

Ben McAlary:

Yeah, it's a great point. So you do need those big, bold visionaries, but you also need the smaller, tangible actions that often keep people really motivated and on track. And your conversation with Poppy Mardall from Poppy's Funerals in episode six really embodied that balance, didn't it?

Lorraine Johnston:

Yeah. Had you told me that a conversation with a funeral director would have been one of the most uplifting chats of my year, I may not have believed you, but not only has Poppy worked to make the funeral industry more kind, more caring, and more human-centered, she's also done it in a way that is sustainable in the green sense of the word, yes, but even more so because they're mindful of growth and expansion. Poppy believes her impact is being felt more deeply because she's been purposefully cautious. Here's some of what she had to say.

Poppy Mardall:

So, we're careful about our growth. We have had opportunities to kind of splash ourselves around and I think we're really mindful of wanting to make sure that this happens in a way that we can sustain the quality of the experience for the people we're supporting. We are not looking to be sort of Tesco or the Coop. Mostly, I think, because we think our approach is quite naturally about innovation and progress and kind of pushing the conversation on. And I think it can be challenging when you get to that kind of scale to stay in that place. But we think if we got to 5% in greater London, we would... We already have had a significant impact on the sector. So I'll give you two examples. One, a kind of big one, one, a small one.

We started off with Poppy's offering this very, very simple service that was all about having a kind of affordable, simple cremation. And this service is now known as direct cremation and is very widely offered. I'm not saying it was us that did that, but we were very much part of a movement to kind of push funeral directors to think more openly about providing services that their customers actually wanted and needed as opposed to packaging up a kind of gold, silver, and bronze package, and assuming that's going to work for everyone.

On a much smaller micro level, this makes me so happy, so our shop in East Sheen is on the corner on the Upper Richmond Road. It's all glass, it's full of light. We have our kind of daily branding on the outside. All of the language on the window is "Come in, come and have a chat, come and ask us questions. We're here for you at any time." And people do that and that's great. And someone popped in yesterday who lives in Barnes just around the corner and said that she'd noticed that her local funeral director that has had these blinds up for 35 years in the last few months has taken the blinds down. And I'm like, that is 100% a victory. Just that tiny act of like, maybe we don't have to hide what happens in here. Maybe we could let people see in and make this experience kind of less nervy and scary when their time comes.

Ben McAlary:

That was Poppy Mardall of Poppy's Funerals proving that transformation can happen even in unexpected places. Elena, this brings us to the flip side of that conversation and that's scaling the impact of ESG. What stood out to you about making big change work?

Elena Lambros:

One of the biggest takeaways I found was thinking collaboratively. How can we work within the system that already exists along other organisations who are already doing good work and make a real impact on our shared goal?

Ben McAlary:

And one example that comes to mind was a more recent episode where you spoke with Joel Tasche from CleanHub, an organisation on a very large mission to end plastic pollution in the ocean.

Elena Lambros:

Joel is a great example of someone who thinks big while understanding that his organisation is part of a larger ecosystem with aligned goals. Here, he shares how looking at the existing industry first helped him to see the gaps and recognise where his skills would be best put to use.

Joel Tasche:

Before I started CleanHub, I was working in a software company, and that was obviously a startup. So the word that gets thrown around the most is scale, scale, scale. And I think this is exactly what we need for plastic pollution as well. So when I was in my research phase for CleanHub, I said that I want to come up with a solution that can scale, that has the ability to scale. To understand why we have plastic pollution, maybe we step one step back and look at it. So roughly two and a half billion people around the world are not connected to waste management services, so there's nobody that's coming to pick up their trash from the backyard. It sounds very unsexy, but this is where plastic pollution starts because people still consume, people still produce waste, and especially as prosperity grows, people produce more waste.

And this is what we see in many emerging countries. Plastic is consumed and if nobody comes to pick it up, what are the options they have? It's like they dump it in the next river, they dump it in the ocean, they dump it in the environment, not because they they are bad people, but because there's no choice. The service is just not provided, but you still need to get rid of the plastic waste. And we said, "Okay, this is where we have to start." There's a bunch of players out there that collect it from the ocean directly. This is obviously needed because plastic is already in the ocean, so we need to collect it from there as well. There's a bunch of people that are doing fantastic work in the rivers of the world collecting it before it actually goes into the ocean. And we said, "Okay, if all that is already... not solved, but if people are working on that, we need to go one step back and actually start on land and connect these two and a half billion households to waste services."

And I think that model itself is already quite established in many parts of the world, so we didn't have to reinvent the wheel. But the actual problem is funding because that is a service, and services cost money and don't yield profit. That's the nature of a service unless you have a customer that pays for it. So what we said as CleanHub is we need to find brands that want to see a cleaner future. They want to see clean oceans. And this is what we did. We started to look for sponsors for waste management activities. On the other side of the spectrum, we started looking for local entrepreneurs in the communities in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Tanzania. We're now also in Guatemala who want to run waste management services in their community who might already do that and want to expand their business.

And in the end, this is the platform that we're building. On the one hand we have the sponsors, and on the other hand we have the community waste managers. And what we do then on top is make sure that the entire integrity is given so that there's compliance, that we build track and trace software to make sure that we can actually verify the collection of the plastic waste. We can verify working conditions in the hubs. And that's the entire idea behind CleanHub. And the mission that we are on is basically to put a CleanHub into every coastal community that needs one to stop plastic before it goes into the ocean.

Ben McAlary:

That was Joel Tasche from CleanHub proving that thinking big doesn't necessarily mean starting from scratch, and it's more about leveraging what's already in motion. Lorraine, I know you also explored this theme with ShanMae Teo from Climate Impact Partners. She shared an incredible example of a large scale project with deeply human impacts.

Lorraine Johnston:

Yeah. When I spoke with ShanMae from Climate Impact Partners in episode three, she shared the story of a tree planting project in India. And I think this is a wonderful example of both sides of scale. While it's an ambitious program, planting something like 10 million trees in one region of India, the impact being felt was both expansive and very human centered. I'll let ShanMae explain.

ShanMae Teo:

We are working on a project in India with an NGO that has been experienced in developing water structures for the region as well as tree planting. And this project will work with communities and farmers to plant around 11 to 12 million native trees, a variety of species across 200,000 hectares. So we actually provide trees to these communities and these farmers, we are going to give them a share of revenue from the carbon credits.

These projects also provide new sources of incomes because these trees are fruit trees, so they will actually get produce that comes out of these fruit trees, they're mango trees, et cetera. These farmers can actually double their income because of these fruit trees that are growing on their land. Because these are fruit trees and they're providing them an income, they will take care of the trees, which ensures that the trees grow and have durability and permanence, which enables the strength of the quality of the carbon project. And of course, we have new jobs that are created from tree nurseries and also the ongoing labor that we pay these communities to maintain these trees.
Alongside planting trees, we're also installing dams, wells, boreholes, which will not only ensure that the trees survive, but also provide improved water supply to the villages around the project areas. So the way we think about carbon credits is that these carbon credits that will be purchased by corporate clients from these projects, that's what makes all of that impact possible. It's like the circle that continues to... you have trees that the communities looked after them, the trees absorb carbon, and companies are actually supporting that impact. So carbon makes that all possible.

Ben McAlary:

Yeah, such a compelling example of how ESG initiatives can be both ambitious and deeply personal. Now let's talk about action, Elena. Say you're part of an organisation wanting to strengthen its ESG commitments, where do you start?

Elena Lambros:

Brilliant question. And to answer, I'd like to share a grab from my conversation with Ash Knop, CEO of Wilderlands, who I spoke to in episode five. Wilderlands works with brands, organisations, and individuals wanting to contribute to the protection of biodiversity. And Ash had some fantastic suggestions on what questions to begin with and how to use the answers to drive forward momentum.

Ash Knop:

I'd probably start by asking you what part of the business are you working on? And by that I mean are you looking to engage with your staff because we work with staff gifting platforms that enable your staff to receive 10 square meter bundles of protection. Are you looking to, I guess, enhance your product offering to your customers? Say for instance, this year we've partnered with a beauty brand called al.ive body who for every product sold of a collaborative product that we developed with them, one square meter of our Coorong Lakes Project, which inspired that very product is protected, which is a fantastic outcome.

Are you running an event? We have partnered with organisations whereby a footprint of that event is protected and we create 10 square meter bundles for each of the delegates. And we've even created augmented reality experiences in these event spaces to bring nature in. Birds flying around your head and the like. So some really cool ways to engage various stakeholders within your business. But if you're coming to us with an ESG mindset and looking more at what does nature positive mean for us, and this is increasingly where inquiries are coming from, I'd suggest there's a couple of things that we can do.

One is A, I understand what it is you're trying to achieve. And if for instance that is you have operations, you have assets, and you know that your footprint and your operations on those assets take up a proportion of that, but there is the potential for protection of remnant patches of vegetation on site that they themselves could become projects or be, shall I say unitised, but we've got the ability to very quickly assess the viability of ecosystems to their value to assess whether or not they are worthy of being, I guess, projected on our end and can enable that process in collaboration with that company to help fulfill whatever goals may be aligned with that, whatever claims are required to support that.

Ben McAlary:

That was Ash Knop from Wilderlands making the case for finding the right ESG approach for your business. Lorraine, thinking back on your discussion with Roger McKerlie from the Environmental Business Network, he made a really strong case that ESG has shifted from a niche concern to a more core business strategy. What was your key takeaway from that conversation?

Lorraine Johnston:

Yeah, I took a lot out of that discussion, but I agree. What was once managed by environmental professionals in the corporate basement is now a boardroom level issue that demands the attention of executives, including CFOs. And in this soundbite, Roger explains how organisations are increasingly recognising that sustainability commitments can have a direct impact on business performance, reputation, and even share price.

Roger McKerlie:

I mean, I suppose we would say that the environmental issue of sustainability has gone from being tactical to strategic in that space of time, which obviously has captured the attention of the board. And increasingly what we're finding is the interest of the chief financial officer in organisations, especially as organisations look at their carbon commitments and whether that actually has some impact on business issues like share price. But yeah, it's definitely gone from being a specialist function, if you like, where you'd get organisations looking at what impact a business had on watercourses and on tree preservation orders and things like that. Very, very clear environmental issues to becoming much more about how a business functions and its kind of social license to operate, if you like.

Ben McAlary:

That was Roger McKerlie from the Environmental Business Network, and that wraps up such an insightful season of Game Changers and Transition Makers. Elena, Lorraine, thank you both for hosting this wonderful series.

Elena Lambros:

It's been a pleasure.

Lorraine Johnston:

And thanks for hosting us.

Ben McAlary:

And thank you all for joining in to not only today's episode, but all of season one and two of Game Changers and Transition Makers. If the energy transition is something you are passionate about, why not listen to another one of our podcast miniseries, Powering Change over at Business Agenda where you can hear about innovative companies who are shaping the global energy transition? Just search for Ashurst's podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, thanks again for listening and goodbye for now.