Sustainability Solved

Matthew Sawyer is the MD of SEE Sustainability, a sustainability consultancy helping SMEs improve their triple bottom line.

Nigel Parkin is the owner of Institution is a multi-award winning boutique cafe located in the Georgian Market town of Bedale.

In this episode, Matthew shares his experience working with Nigel and they chat about their experience turning Institution into a more sustainable business.

Highlights:

• Understanding of SDG and getting the team on board
• “Within a period of 6 weeks we were able to reduce our waste bill by 60%.”
• Using social media to shout about sustainability campaign
• SDG 12.3 Reducing Food Waste
• Reducing coffee waste, sourcing more local produce and reducing packaging
• Closing the information gap between knowledge
• Biggest challenge of reducing carbon footprint

Useful link:

Nigel Parkin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigel-parkin-b139bb159/

Institution Cafe in Bedale http://cafe.thisisinstitution.co.uk/

Matthew Sawyer https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-matthew-sawyer-mb-bsc-gradiema-66325110b/

SEE Sustainability https://seesustainability.co.uk/

Timestamp:

[03:00] Understanding of SDGs

[05:00] Improving waste management of the cafe

[10:00] Environmental impact from the customer’s perspective

[15:00] Asking questions of suppliers

[20:00] What has been the biggest struggle?

[25:00] Once piece of advice to audience

Ifeyinwa Kanu, founder of IntelliDigest. 

Food waste and plastic waste are two global challenges attracting a worldwide concern. IntelliDigest is developing the world’s first intelligent, kitchen fitted and automated bio-upcycler (IntelliAD). IntelliAD could be deployed locally in food waste ‘hot spots’ such as restaurants, hospitals and schools. IntelliAD will take unavoidable food waste and convert it to high-quality bioresources that displaces the need for plastics thereby providing convenience, money saving and evidenced regulatory compliance to users.

Highlights:

• challenge of waste treatment
• small scale anaerobic food digester for onsite waste treatment
• turning food waste into biodegradable packaging
• changing behaviour towards waste

Useful link:

IntelliDigest

Ifeyinwa Kanu's Linkedin

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Woon Tan is the founder of Podcast Publishing, where they focus on helping impact businesses share their message through podcasts. Podcast publishing helps impact podcasters launch and scale their podcasts.

Highlights:

• Why podcasting is growing
• How to get started in podcasting
• Woon's career from insurance into sustainability
• Are all financial companies as bad as everyone thinks
• Advise on getting involved in an impact career
• Influencing change using podcasts
• Sustainability, climate change and environmentalism in Malaysia

Useful link:

Podcast Publishing: http://podcastpublishing.help/

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Alan Donnachie is the Head of Estates and Facilities at the Regents's University London.

Highlights:

• challenges of greening a university that is part of the Crown Estates and within a Royal Park in central London
• installing BMS systems
• working with international students more 
• having effective windows in old buildings
• environmental efforts vs perception
• how to get more savings from sustainability efforts
• priority of reducing carbon emissions

Useful links:

Regent's University London - https://www.regents.ac.uk/

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AdGreen exists to support the advertising industry’s transition to environmentally sustainable production methods; working in collaboration with trade bodies and other industry organisations to accelerate the adoption of best practice.

Highlights

• Making production sets more sustainable
• Reducing production waste
• Challenge of lack of benchmark and measure
• Jo Coombes career in advertising
• Working with brands, agencies and production companies
• Why #greenproduction can't be left with showrunners

Useful links:

AdGreen - https://www.adgreen-apa.net/

AdGreen Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/AdGreenAPA/

AdGreen Twitter - https://twitter.com/AdGreenAPA

Jo Coombes Linkedin - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jocoombes 

Albert - http://wearealbert.org/

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Michiel Vos is the founder & CTO of Coco Pallet. He is a serial entrepreneur specialized in the Circular Economy and Bio Based products. 

CocoPallets replace single-use one-way wooden export pallets; fewer trees need to be cut and shipped for these purposes. They buy the coconut husk from the farmers, creating extra income at the bottom of the pyramid. The farmers stop burning the coconut husks; which reduces the air pollution. 

Highlights:

• Why a Linkedin post turned viral
• The problem with the current pellets market
• Carbon footprint of travelling to Asia and transporting from pallets
• Keeping track of pellets
• What it means to be a circular economy business
• Building a pellet factory
• Being data driven

Useful links:

CocoPallet - https://www.cocopallet.com/ 

Michiel Vos - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michiel-vos-29628418/ 

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Alison Woods talks about her journey from charity work to the founding of Lilypads. Lilypads is a reusable sanitary pad made from natural material. Lilypads support vital work in rural Kenya tackling period poverty and stigma. They help girls access reusable sanitary pads so they do’t have to miss out on their education or turn to unsafe alternatives.

Highlights:

• How solving a research problem lead to a much bigger problem.
• How to create a sustainable product and make the business model sustainable.
• Choosing to be a BCorp
• How Alison is iterating and getting feedback in developing the sanitary pad.
• How Alison is prioritising social media and face-to-face conversations
• Advise to entrepreneurs and people looking for more purpose

Useful links:

Lilypads - https://lilypads.org.uk/

Lilypads Twitter - https://twitter.com/Lilypads_UK

Lilypads Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lilypads.uk/

Alison Wood’s Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonwood-lilypads/

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Naeem Arif is the author of “Customer First” and MD of NA Consulting and United Carpets. In this conversation, Naeem shares his experience of advising large businesses on organisational culture,  managing multiple companies and treating customers first.

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Highlights:

• Chasing happy customers is better than profits
• Working with employees and organisational culture
• Business transformation for large organisations
• Global village and diversity in the workplace
• Demand for sustainability in companies
• Millennials won’t sacrifice meaningful work for more pay
• How treating one customer with kindness lead to more customers

Naeem Arif's Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/naeemarif/

Customer First - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Customer-First-Naeem-Arif-ebook/dp/B07PFKR6GP

NAC Consulting -  https://www.naconsulting.co.uk/

High Profile Club - https://highprofileclub.com/

United Carpets & Beds - https://www.unitedcarpetsandbeds.com/

Sapiens - https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/

B1G1 - https://www.b1g1.com/

B Corp - https://bcorporation.uk/

Sustainable Developement Goals - https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

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Brendan Thompson is the co-founder of Renegade & Longton, the pioneers of elderflower and sparkling wines. We talk about sustainable packaging and the production of wine.

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We are thrilled to be interviewing Jon Leland from Kickstarter. Jon Leland is the Senior Director of Strategy and Insights at Kickstarter, the world's largest platform for funding creative projects. He leads their Environmental Impact Group which is tasked with meeting their public benefit commitments to reducing the impact of their operations and ecosystem on the environment.