Accelerating the Global Transition to Net-Zero
In Episode 8 of the #MettaTalks Season 3 Podcast 🎙 we were joined by Ian Ormerod, CEO of Switch2Zero. Switch2Zero aims to accelerate the global transition to net-zero #carbonemissions for people and businesses everywhere.
Switch2Zero believe that by working to make the path to net zero as quick, easy, and affordable as possible — and by forging a supportive community of like-minded individuals and businesses that can help — more and more of us will succeed.
Check out some highlights from our podcast below, where we chat with Ian about understanding your carbon footprint, learning how to reduce it, and incorporating sustainability into your business practices.
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Listen to the full podcast episode on:
Spotify: http://bit.ly/40tmRqj
Google: https://bit.ly/3MyLURv
Amazon: http://bit.ly/3TFBzs5
Apple: https://bit.ly/3Qf0st1
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Wil: Can you tell us about your background personally, and what your journey was to starting the business and where you are today?
Ian: So, don’t hold it against me — but I was a banker for about 27 years! So in fact, in fairness, to me, I had a fabulous time, thoroughly enjoyed it, But increasingly, I got intrigued and fascinated with building digital businesses.
So originally, when I left BBVA (based in Madrid), I thought I’ll do another corporate gig but in the UK. And while I was thinking while I was off in the first six months, really through interacting with my kids, if I’m honest, I got increasingly guilty about the state we were leaving certain things in. And that’s what got me more intrigued about doing something different.
And I ended up after sort of a process of elimination, really feeling that my skill sets, all the experiences I’ve had in banking, the black book I have and all the network I have is best suited to going after the sustainability problem. And that’s where Switch2Zero came from.
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Wil: You’re open and committed to being transparent, including running an open ledger, where anyone can see exactly how you invest members money to drive climate change reduction. What kind of response have you seen from your customers from operating in this way?
Ian: Yeah, super positive is the really short answer. I suppose there are some hard metrics that we’re very proud of, the first being we have 100% member retention, so everybody that has done anything with us — whether it’s a subscription, or an instant purchase, or an integration to our E commerce offerings — we’ve had 100% renewal, so no one has decided it’s not for them!
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Wil: Have you seen any issues over the last few years around things like greenwashing or the confusion around the rules and regulations given they’re still developing?
Ian: You know, being really candid, I think that you know that the market sector is in a bit of a mess. And it’s crying out for regulation, particularly in the area of voluntary carbon offsets.
For me, I think we need collectively to call out and challenge bad practice more, there is a reticence to do that. I think mainly because, what I find fascinating about this sort of space, is the seed of it is sort of based — understandably — in science. There are lots of academics that are contributing to that conversation, who have quite different opinions in terms of what’s the right direction to go in. And I think we need to create a clearer and more straightforward articulation about the actions that we want to promote.
So for me, it’s a question of celebrating the positive actions, and driving more and more consistency, about the way in which we measure things and the rigour associated with those. And I also think we need to go after people that are definitely doing things that are incredibly economical with the truth — is probably the politest way of saying it!
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Nicole: What barriers do you think business owners and founders might be facing that’s stopping them from achieving net zero at the moment?
Ian: I think there’s a fair few. In terms of the barriers for me, they kind of drop into a number of different generic buckets —
1. The first for me is time, you know, most people running businesses are spinning so many plates, you have the macro environment on top of that, where margins are tight, pressure is there, they’re facing a lot of natural challenge to their business and their business models. And therefore, anything that they spend on sustainability has an opportunity cost because they’re not focusing on something else. And so how we can make it as fast and easy as possible to take positive action is important. I think access to expertise is difficult, particularly when you’ve got all the mist of different opinions around and a myriad of potentially different solutions in an unregulated market. And so having the capacity of an access to expertise is important.
2. Data is an issue, it’s very hard, particularly when calculating footprints to understand the ease of access to data so that you can understand those things. And it’s not universal in looking the way that those approaches are taking place. Access to solutions, you know, even if it’s something, like putting solar panels on your factory — let’s say you decided to do that. More often than not, you end up googling solar panels, you know, which is ridiculous if you think about it, and you know, what you should be able to go to and the increasingly you’re seeing capacity coming into the market. But you can go and see specialists in this space that are independent, and can give you a view of the solutions out there and the options, rather than finding your local person that might fit solar panels.
3. And I suppose lastly, for me, it’s finance. So you know, these things are expensive. And we need to consider and reevaluate the models we use in the way that these things are funded. So if a business is looking to transition to net zero by doing multiple things, and purchasing multiple pieces of infrastructure or capital goods, whether it’s big machinery or other things, a lot of that requires finance. And we need to structure that finance in a way that makes it affordable for those businesses to transition and be able to pay the bills at the same time. And for me, that’s pretty broken at the moment and we need to sort that out, which is something with a banking background I’m very keen to get into.
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Wil: How have you seen the reporting space but also this more broadly from a development point of view? Do you think there’s been a positive or negative development in terms of the topic as a whole?
Ian: I think, broadly, we’re definitely going in the right direction, whether we’re going fast enough is a whole separate point. But I think climate reporting is starting to become more consistent globally.
You’re seeing streamline energy and carbon reporting in the UK, it came into force in 2019. It takes a big chunk of businesses and mandates specific reporting in specific ways. The EU has a corporate sustainability reporting directive that comes into force next year, that’s very, very similar to what the UK is doing, which is good news, because it gives consistency, both in terms of the triggers that mean, you have to report in terms of your size and number of employees or revenue and things. And the US is on the cusp of coming on board in a similar way.
On top of that, you’re seeing a significant uptick in the number of climate laws and regulations coming in, that aren’t just reporting. So that might be building regs, it could be the outlawing of combustion vehicles from a certain time or gas, you know, power boilers, all that sort of stuff. And alongside that, as a result, you’re seeing a massive uptick in lawsuits and class actions. So in other words, there’s consequence to not doing stuff.
We are seeing now a much more clear or transparent, consistent set of regulations coming in of laws underlying some of that transition and driving it and you’re seeing carrots too. So a lot more grants andsubsidies coming out, particularly in the US, actually, that is really enabling people to transition and know how they need to transition and report on that. So it’s much, much better than it was four years ago.
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Nicole: What is the biggest piece of advice that you could give to any founders or business owners who might be listening in right now around incorporating sustainability into their daily business practices?
Ian: Great question. There’d be two things for me that because I think you’ve got to do them in tandem. The first is, just get on with it and do something positive and learn from there. So don’t wait for the complete plan, get in the game, because you’ll learn, you’ll get smarter, you’ll do something more. And to be honest, that’s kind of a general lesson from being in business anyway, if you’re on the sidelines, you’re not going to learn anything, or certainly as much, and you’re not going to win. So getting in the game, I think is really important.
But combined with that being really transparent and clear about what you’re doing. So don’t dress anything up of being a utopian solution. Because you don’t really know. Be clear that you don’t necessarily know but that it is a first positive step. I think your customers appreciate that. They’re humans, they’ve probably experienced exactly the same thing in their own workplace or in their own life more generally. So be clear about the way you’re communicating what you’re doing, but show tangible action. And I think once you’ve done that and you’ve created some initial momentum, you can start to engage your customers positively and you can start to build from there.
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Wil: What do you think will be the next big innovation in the sustainability world that could really make an impact?
Ian: Oh, that’s quite a friendly question, actually, because I have a new soapbox speech about this, it must be said, well not that new. Actually sorry to kind of bend the question slightly. But I think there are three things that need to combine. And the three things I’m really excited about, and I hope they come together is —
1. Hydrogen power, so as hydrogen as an energy source, so to help us accelerate transition away from combustion, there’s some exciting developments in that space. But it’s not scalable and commercial to the same extent it should be.
2. And I think that’s moving fast, is direct carbon Air to Air capture. So I think ultimately, we’re going to have to start sucking this stuff out the atmosphere. So the faster we can get to being able to do that at scale at a unit cost price, that’s achievable. And I think we’re making significant headway on that side.
3. And then last, but certainly not least, is nuclear fusion, you see it in the press. But I do think there would there have been some exciting steps forward with a positive energy gradient where you’re effectively creating more energy than you’re putting into the to the reaction. And if we can continue to refine that, albeit, I think we’re probably at least 10 to 15 years away from anything on a larger commercial scale.
^ So those three things combined. They’re not the silver bullet for everything, but they would make an enormous difference to our ability to have a more sustainable environment.
More about Switch2Zero
Switch2Zero aims to accelerate the global transition to net-zero carbon emissions for people and businesses everywhere.
They believe that by working to make the path to net zero as quick, easy, and affordable as possible — and by forging a supportive community of like-minded individuals and businesses that can help — more and more of us will succeed.
They might be a new company, but that’s their big ambition — net zero for everyone — delivered through a one-stop dashboard that puts everything anyone needs for this journey in one, simple-to-use, transparent, place.
Listen to the full podcast episode on:
Spotify: http://bit.ly/40tmRqj
Google: https://bit.ly/3MyLURv
Amazon: http://bit.ly/3TFBzs5
Apple: https://bit.ly/3Qf0st1
Check out some of our other articles —
- How to make your startup both innovative and sustainable
- $10M in funding for ESG Reporting
- ESG and Sustainability Strategy
- How to “Speak Startup” in the PR World
- Financial Planning with Impact
- Ecosystems Thinking
- 15 years in Climate Tech — What’s Changed?
- Analysing Iraq’s Startup Ecosystem
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#Metta #MettaTalks #startup #founders #ecosystem #entrepreneur #technews #startupbusiness #startuplife #tech #innovation #sustainability #netzero #carbonfootprint #carbonreduction #carbonoffsetting #ESGgoals
