This Might Just Work - Ideas for a Tired Planet

In Episode 2 of The Startup Diaries, we continue documenting our journey to build No Longer Known - a sustainable fashion brand with a mission to raise awareness about endangered species.

This week, we tackle the crucial challenge of idea validation, setting ourselves an ambitious 48-hour challenge to secure three paying customers before creating any designs.

We discuss pricing strategy, sustainable manufacturing challenges, and debate how to create a premium product that balances environmental impact with quality.

Join them as they navigate the early stages of building a planet-positive business, sharing honest insights and lessons learned along the way.

To be one of the amazing 3 to help validate our idea head towww.nolongerknown.com and follow the instructions to make a deposit

In this episode, I sit down with Benedict Macdonald, award winning author turned ecopreneur, to explore his fascinating journey from wildlife television producer to founder of nature restoration company Restore. Benedict shares how his childhood fascination with butterflies led him to a career in conservation, eventually leaving a successful career in wildlife television to tackle the challenge of transforming land use in the UK through innovative business models.

We dive deep into Britain's complex history with nature, discussing how centuries of wildlife removal have shaped our landscapes, and explore the emerging opportunities for restoration through new financing approaches. Benedict offers fascinating insights into his current projects, including an ambitious plan to restore Atlantic rainforest in the Hebrides, while also sharing practical advice for urban rewilding and garden biodiversity.

Our conversation covers everything from the role of wild boar in ecosystem restoration to the potential for nature recovery in cities like Berlin. Whether you're interested in conservation, sustainable business, or simply want to understand how nature and economics can work together, this episode hopefully offers valuable insights into how we can build businesses that help nature thrive. We wrap up with book recommendations and Benedict's optimistic vision for the future of British wildlife.

Welcome to the very first full episode of the Startup Diaries series, where I am finally going to attempt to build my own planet-positive business. Hopefully putting into action what I have learned from nearly 100 hours of interviews with other founders here on Innovate Eco.

In this episode, I first introduce our new co-host (who will also be my co-founder). We then go on to explain the business we have chosen to try and create, where the idea came from and then start to get into some of the challenges we foresee, which will be topics for future episodes.

I hope you enjoy this mini-series and do get in touch with any thoughts or comments [email protected]

Happy New Year everyone! Just a quick update to say things are changing a bit in 2025 and I'm trying some new things.

As well as doing traditional founder interviews, we are also starting a side series called 'Innovate Eco - The Startup Diaries'. In this new series, we are going to attempt to build a business of our own in the open and document it in podcast format.

Hopefully, you'll enjoy this and find it useful. The aim, as always with this channel, is to help existing ecopreneurs and inspire more people to start a business, so I thought it was time to walk the walk.

Please also subscribe on YouTube for more content as we move into video too.

Find us at:

Elena Doms, is the visionary co-founder of Earth Plus, a startup with an audacious goal: to create the largest soil and CO2 cleanup in history, working hand-in-hand with nature. 

Elena's journey is a fascinating one which we dive into in detail in this episode. Born and raised in the Arctic, she spent 18 years witnessing the effects of climate change firsthand

From there Elena's impressive career has spanned from being a Director at Mastercard, where she merged digital and sustainable transformations, to becoming a LinkedIn influencer and top voice

Now, with Earth Plus, she's working with her team to develop innovative solutions that not only clean soils from chemical pollution but also capture CO2 using plants. Not only that, but these plants are then transformed into local, circular construction materials, contributing to the decarbonisation of our cities.

Find out more about Earth Plus at https://www.earthplus.eu/

Useful Links:

Pollution Map of Europe

PFAS Map

PFAS Map 2

A guide to safer products

An app to help find safe foods

Book Choices:

Connect - Simon Lancaster

Connecting the dots - Christian Busch

Please connect and message me on LinkedIn

In this episode, I chat to Mikael Hietala the sustainability officer at Croatian startup Earthbound Sneakers. Earthbound (Croatia's first B-Corp) is tackling the many issues caused by fast fashion by creating truly stylish and comfortable shoes.

In this episode, we talk about the issues with fast fashion as well as a wide range of topics from growing a business in a de-growth world, why big brands find it hard to adapt, why its important to still create things people find cool and stylish (not just sustainable), carbon tunnel vision, the power of being an intrapreneur and innovating within a company and much more!

Mikael's book recommendation:

Capital in the Anthropocene - Kohei Saito

To learn more about Earthbound head to their website here.

In this weeks episode I speak to Cameron Dowd, co-founder and CTO of Inverto, a startup who are connecting businesses with local communities to plan, plant and monitor coastal ecosystems at scale.

We talk about all sorts in this episode from Cameron's background in robotics, his work flying drone medical suppliy deliveries in Tanzania, why we shouldn't get 'carbon tunnel vision', the amazing uses of mangroves and why they are so important and his ecopreneur journey so far.

To find out more about Inverto head to www.inverto.earth

In this week's episode, I speak to Lindy Damen founder and CEO of EVRgreen Studio. A gaming company designing bespoke games for sustainability.

We cover all sorts of topics including:

Links to things we talk about:

Among Trees

Pollinator Park VR

Post Growth Entrepeneurship

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

In this episode, I sit down with Jamie McCallum, the founder of Force For Nature. With experience in F1 marketing and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences, Jamie combines this experience to bring a new perspective to driving private funding into nature projects.

Jamie is the founder of Force For Nature, which aims to empower Rangers, the unsung heroes who work as park wardens, foresters, community scouts, and indigenous guardians. Despite their critical role in delivering nature-based solutions aligned with the UN's 30x30 targets, many Rangers face challenges such as inadequate staff numbers, pay, equipment, and training.

Through strategic business partnerships, Force For Nature provides Rangers with the critical training, earned income, and improved status they need to excel as guardians of our planet's natural resources. In this episode, we explore Jamie's journey, Force For Nature's innovative approach, and the transformative impact their work is having on both Rangers and the natural world they protect.

Find out more about Force For Nature by going to

Their website

Instagram

LinkedIn

In this episode, I speak to Dan Watson, a multiple award-winning Product Design Engineer and the Global Winner of the 2012 James Dyson Award for design engineering. Dan's outstanding work earned him seed funding from Sir Richard Branson, leading him to establish SafetyNet Technologies, where he now serves as the CEO.

At SafetyNet, Dan and his team are working closely with the fishing industry to design accessible and effective precision fishing tools that are helping to keep our oceans healthy and thriving. By reducing bycatch and minimising the environmental impact of fishing, precision fishing plays a vital role in protecting marine biodiversity and ensuring a sustainable future for our planet.

We cover various topics from his award-winning product design to his tireless efforts in making technology accessible to anyone with a problem to solve or an idea to explore. Discover how his groundbreaking work is revolutionising the fishing industry and contributing to a more sustainable future.

To learn more about Dan Watson and SafetyNet Technologies, visit their website at https://sntech.co.uk/.

Book Recommendations:

Let my people go surfing - Yvon Chouinard

The three-body problem - Cixin Liu