The Sussex And The City Podcast

– Episode 17:

The Case For Bold, Female-led Climate Entrepreneurship In Sussex

Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Maddy Cooper – Founder of Flourish

This episode is brought to you in partnership with:

Plus Accounting – The leading B Corp certified firm of Chartered Accountants dedicated to Brighton & Hove. Serving growth sectors from video game studios and creative industries to healthcare, property, life sciences and cutting-edge tech, their team support start-ups, scale-ups and long-established enterprises with tailored tax planning, R&D claims, audits and advisory. 👉 plusaccounting.co.uk

🔍 Episode summary

Richard speaks with Maddy Cooper, founder of Flourish – a Brighton-based agency pioneering the intersection of sustainability and artificial intelligence.

After two decades running big-brand campaigns, Maddy walked away to build something new: a platform that helps businesses turn genuine sustainability investments into legally compliant, motivating marketing. In this conversation, she shares candid reflections on the barriers facing ambitious founders in Sussex, the risks of “greenhushing,” and why the region must decide whether it wants to stay small and safe – or back the kind of scale-ups that could put it on the global map.

This is a bold take on female-led innovation, AI, climate responsibility and what devolution could mean for businesses that want to do good and grow fast.

This is a good companion piece to episode 15, and the conversation with Simon Chuter.

 

🎯 Why this matters

"Businesses in Brighton and Sussex have an opportunity to thrive if they really embrace sustainability. But too often I see small-scale thinking. Big, bold, ambitious thinking requires bravery — without it, we’ll be blocked in our growth."

 

🧠 Topics covered include:

• Why sustainable marketing is a growth driver, not a “nice-to-have”
• The legal and reputational risks of greenwashing
• Sussex’s habit of celebrating smallness vs the need for scale
• What Cambridge and Singapore get right about growth and innovation
• Why Sussex risks being left behind without deliberate support for scale-ups
• Female-led entrepreneurship and the leadership gap
• What a Sussex mayor could do: showcase scale-ups, convene academia and business, and fuel ambition with funding
• Sustainability as competitive differentiation for Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers

"A business like Flourish can be – and will be – the next Brandwatch or bigger. But no one here is helping me do that. At the intersection of sustainability and AI we can transform industries, careers and communities. What’s missing is the support, the money, and the ambition."

📚 Further reading and references

• Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership – courses and research on sustainable business
• UK Competition & Markets Authority: Green Claims Code – guidance on avoiding greenwashing
• Innovate UK – national innovation funding and support programmes
• Brandwatch – Brighton-born global social intelligence and analytics scale-up

🎧 Production credits

Host: Richard Freeman Guest: Maddy Cooper Sound design / editing / original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey Production management: Letitia McConalogue Recorded at: Projects: The Lanes, Brighton

📣 Get involved

Want better public communication in Sussex? Want to help shape devolution in a way people understand?👉 sussexandthecity.info – for more episodes, resources and events.