Oliver Bolton is the CEO and co-founder of Earthly, a passionate, impact-led team who are empowering hundreds of businesses around the world to reverse climate breakdown and restore our planet. They’re mission is to protect and regenerate -1% of our planet by 2030. Earthly helps enterprise businesses find, screen and invest into the world’s highest-integrity nature-based projects. At the heart of our platform sits a rigorous project quality assessment that screens 106 data points across carbon, biodiversity & social impact.
Recently Earthly was a winner of the COP27 ClimaTech prize, a winner in Uplink’s 2023 NatureTech prize and named 2023 start-up of the year at Retail Week Live. Previous to Earthly Olly founded Europe’s first B-Corp health drinks company Waterbomb, which was the winner of the $3M Virgin VOOM award from Sir Richard Branson and he co-founded the UK’s leading nutrition platform Vitl.com.
You’ve seen his drinks brands in your supermarkets and you may even have bought a personalised number plate from him when he was a teenager.
A serial entrepreneur who after many successes (and failures) he is now putting the planet first – not for personal success, but so he can look his children in the eye when they are older and say, “I did my best'”
earthly.org
https://www.instagram.com/projectearthly/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectearthly/
Um hello new format uh welcome to another episode of gassing powered by Co now I’ve chosen a slightly different format for this um I want you to imagine sort of you know if you got like the Oscars or something like that and then Tom Hanks has one but he’s kind of so
Super uh busy filming on his uh new movie or whatever that he can’t actually turn up to accept the award um my my guest today is um well is is is a big deal I’ve been I’ve been very excited to get him on for some time so this was
This was my option um so I’ve taken it and um I think we’ll do quite a bit more of this uh from here on in um I should caveat to today’s episode with just a little brief story before we get going and before I introduce uh my wonderful
Guest with um I was supposed to have this very flashy microphone set up uh today but uh I went to visit our new European warehouse this week and um I boarded a flight to Hamburg from London uh which was lovely and took off and everything was good and as we came into
Land we came through some clouds and it got uh really bumpy and um as we came in closer to land I it got it got there was like a guy on a seat doing this praying and all kinds of stuff anyway the aircraft goes and goes back up above the cloud
And we wait for a few minutes and the captain comes goes ping he goes hello this is your captain that was a bit blustery but um we’ll be uh just going back into land again uh in about 10 minutes time if you could just all stay
No didn’t say stay calm but you know so um go back around and we go back into landing again only this time we get a bit lower and it is like I mean put it this way I’m not a nervous flyer but I did start asking myself like is this my
Time do you know what I mean like is this like we we all got go one day like am I am I the statistic am I the guy that you know goes down on the flight um into Hamburg and crashes and everyone’s like oh what happened to that Marcus oh
He died on the flight so um anyway same thing aircraft back into the sky um and long story short uh emergency landing in Hanover ground staff strike at Hanover so um you could get off the plane but you couldn’t get your luggage you couldn’t get a taxi you couldn’t get a
Train couldn’t get a car um anyway long story was short I spent eight hours on a plane I started my journey at London he thr and I ended my journey at London he thr and my week since then has just been back to back everything going a little
Bit wrong I get home to my very exciting new podcast setup go to set it up all last night and um didn’t come with a lead um and I’ve then been running around trying to fetch the right lead which I was unable to get so that’s my
Story which we can include or not include but my guest today is olle Bolton of Earthly thank you for joining me olle for having me pleasure to be here um you know sorry I waited for for you to speak for for so long um that’s right that’s all
Right I’ve been enjoying the podcast it’s you know it’s an honor to be on it I’ve been i’ been I’ve been a regular listener you know tuning in and no it’s been really fascinating to kind of like hear the other on what do you make of
The hat and the and and the sticker that stays on because me the hat is it’s different isn’t it it is where’s my hat well I don’t know I don’t know I I don’t think that’s in I’m not sure that’s quite within your image olle can you just tell everybody um it’s it’s
Early.or that’s correct isn’t it yeah earth.org so yeah we we help yeah do you want to give a quick overview well I just want everybody that’s listening uh please just jump on the website briefly just so that when ‘s talking about what it is that they do um you know you
You’ve there’s a bit of context to it um but we we’ll come on to it mate but we’re going to go back a little bit we’re not going to go back as far as the gcsc revision course in Guilford um at all my all my Stage production of The
Lion King um but we are going to take it back a little bit because you’ve been an entrepreneur really um your entire career yeah I mean it’s been it’s been a while and and I think for me it probably started when I was about 14 I was buying
And selling personal number plates and basically buying number plates that that were like surnames and then sending letters to all the people and AFF postcodes that had that surname and trying to flog them these personalized number plates so yeah I think yeah that’s I mean super random but that was
Probably the first my first like business that was involved in do you yeah do you agree do you go by the kind of um that it’s not something that can be taught that it’s kind of just because I get these stories with most of the founders that I bring on they’ve usually
Got a story of Vibes flogging M bars at break time or you know in your case uh number plates which i’ never heard before before which is brilliant by the way maybe you should have continued on that um but what what’s what’s your opinion on that I don’t know I mean I
Think that like like having the hunger from a young age is probably helpful you know given given the you know the the fact that it’s um it’s not straightforward like doing your own business but I think that also like I’ve met a lot of really amazing Founders
That have been like really kind of you know pragmatic about the way they’ve done it they’ve gone and got certain qualific ations they’ve gone and built co-founders that like complement their skills you know got to a really amazing accelerator that’s and that’s been really helpful so I think there’s
Different ways I wouldn’t rule out um you know being an entrepreneur if if you haven’t always had like the hunger to be an entrepreneur you know from from when you’re younger so I think it can be learned that’s interesting okay not sure where I stand on that because um I don’t
Know I just I just think the whole thing’s uh just just so incredibly tough I feel like you have to really really really want to do it I think the resilience P you know like because you know there’s always there’s always massive challenges I think like that
That’s harder and I think that can’t be taught I think you can either deal with it or you can’t and so I think that’s probably more of you know that’s probably more of a thing to focus on and like again I’ve met people that have they they’ve tried something and it
Hasn’t worked and then they’re like right that’s me done whereas I think you know true entrepreneurs you know e even even if there’s been failures they’ll learn and they’ll get back up and they’ll do it again and again and again until they’re successful so I think that’s not something that maybe can be
Learned and that’s just in uh yeah in acting they call that the bug so actors will say you know they see see you at an audition they go ah still got the bug and he be like yeah man until I can get rid of this bug and I think that I think
That entrepreneurship I completely agree with you I think it’s exactly the same it’s that desire to you know for for a lot of people and for me actually personally it’s never been um I’ve wanted to make money but it’s also been um about doing a thing making change um
And and creating and also being much more in control of your own destiny so um you you kind kind of went straight into it and launched uh soft drinks brand and you’ve been in that space which is quite relevant to what I’m doing now for um and still are to some
Degree for your entire degree degree your entire life or working life um why why did you go why did you start there was that was that was that particular the honest truth is it was just it was completely random and when I was studying at Newcastle uh I you know
Had this idea for an anti- hangover drink you know like typical classic student and and and so that that’s sort of where it started from and I was doing some different business businesses at Uni and you know some of the owners of like the venues that we were um
Promoting supporting you know sending students down to I kind of pitched this idea one evening and they were like oh I think you know put together a business plan we could be interested in supporting it so literally that was the only reason why I fell into the drinks
Industry and and you know probably with the knowledge that I I now know of how competitive and challenging you know you’ve got your fmcg experience as well from nutshot um I mean it’s been a great it was a great area to learn and because you have to get everything right from recipe
Branding marketing just because it’s so competitive but I’m I’m I’m not I’m not I’m not regularly advising people to launch to launch Health Rings yeah no it’s uh it’s a difficult space I was at um uh dol’s Cola yesterday if you know that brand um listening to um uh
Their journey and um yeah it’s it’s it’s a tough one so um Ollie had a a drink called um Alibi and but you have another drinks business uh now water juice yes started as watermelon has kind of evolved into this whole kind of all singing or dancing multi-flavored Juice
Drink yeah so it’s it’s all it’s all the same same business and yeah so we built up alivi and sold it to one of our export Distributors a few years ago and then we have we had other brands we have other brands so yeah watermelon um which
Is like a watermelon water product which we launched a few years ago and then we’ve just expanded out the range but but Steph um has been running the business the drinks business now for the last sort of five years and she’s ex innocent and gray so much more
Experienced and and and capable in the drink sector than you know than I am and she’s done a great job King you’re the king definitely not the king definitely not the king so but yeah it’s been a great you know it’s been a great and I think just through that business like we
You know I took it through um becoming a beor in 2015 so one of the 2008 2015 founding um borp companies yeah wasn’t wasn’t it the first ever uh soft drink uh or drinks brand that became a b Corb yeah we were the I think we were the
First in Europe first first drinks soft drinks business in Europe to a b Corb and you know that that whole kind of experience which was a which was a recommendation from Mark cigan who was one of our non-exact advisers um who’s the MD of ell’s kitchen or he’s just
Literally left ell’s kitchen and sits sat on the board of beab for for for many years you know that whole experience has really shaped the whole direction of my career and kind of like understanding how business can be used as a Force for good you know people
Planet profit um you know that that was a real Catalyst for me then moving on to Earthly um you know was was that a bit of an Awakening for you I mean before that point had you had you had much of an interest in conservation that space
Like the planet I mean or or was it kind of like yeah talk talk about that I’ve always loved I’ve always love love nature you know I’ve been brought up like surrounded by nature and so that’s always been a passion but no I hadn’t you know I hadn’t thought about using
Business for impact until we went through the bot process and and you know even going through the B impact assessment you know you get a deep understanding of the strengths and the weaknesses of your company in in terms of purpose an impact and so that was really fascinating and it’s one thing I
Encourage people you know you might not meet the minimum standards required for bort but actually just do the assessment because you’ll learn you’ll learn a lot about um about your business and actually the process itself shows you you know how you can struct structure things you know for for impact as well
Um but that that’s what set me off you know and I got to meet a lot of other amazing businesses and and and Founders you know who are you know who are running these impact Le businesses and so so yeah that was um that kind of set
Me off on a different path you know where you know I want to be financially secure and successful but actually you know the impact and the kind of you’re thinking more about the legacy of what you’re leaving on this on this planet and you know kids feed into that as well
So you know and that’s really been um yeah the focus for the last few years with Earthly you know trying to trying to create something that you know has a real impact in the world and and can help kind of tackle of these these big issues that we’ve that we’ve got ahead
Of us and can I ask you because you’re very close to this subject matter and you know the rest of us are probably just feeding from the guardian or wherever it’s it’s coming um how bad of a state is the world really in is it as
Bad as we’re led to believe is it worse is it better um and is there any hope yeah it’s bad is the simple answer you know to to to not be around the bush there’s definitely hope you know there is there is there’s we have all the
Solutions available now to to fix things it’s just a question of implementing and getting the funding towards them and so you know the big the big thing we’re doing at Earthly is there’s a funding Gap to nature of $700 billion dollar a year um that we need to we need to
Bridge and you know a big part of that is around trust you know trusting you know trusting the projects and you know there’s been media um coverage around lower quality projects and so you know our our objective Earthly is to accelerate funds to projects but to
Build trust and so we we basically built an assessment that you can screen projects across carbon biodiversity and social impacts and kind of drisk Investments for corporates you know looking to invest into nature so I think um Can can you just for for everyone listening can you just just succinctly
Explain um like so earthy came about your business because you went through the spe Corp and you had this Awakening moment but what exactly does it do and who might be listening that might be thinking I could use this business or I could get involved in this business um
Pitch it basically yeah I mean if just to just to touch on the the the sort of the the origin story I guess is the B cor stuff sort of fed into that but um it was in 2018 I don’t know if you remember the report the ipcc they had
This one and a half degrees report it was like we’ve got 10 years to fix fix climate to stay within one and a half degrees so so that kind of came out and that was when a lot of the mainstream press was was was covering the challenges that we had with regards to
The climate crisis and at the same time um my son was born so I had these like two you know on the one hand this awareness of the sort of situation we’re in and then the other you know you start thinking about I’ve just brought this person into the world what’s their
Future going to be like and so for me that was the real Catalyst to then to to to launch Earthly with my co-founder Lorenzo um who who is also he is you know he has some young children and he he wanted to Pivot his career into into having impact as well
Um and you know and the big issue we looked at is this funding gaps in nature and you know why that was and you it’s all around this trust you know businesses want to support nature but they want to know that the projects are doing what they say they do and and
Having impact um and so yeah at Earthly you know simplistically speaking we we work with companies um you know so some of the companies you work with have got Net Zero commitments of 2030 so they’re reducing their their carbon footprint um and their negative impacts but they know
That by 2030 they’re still going to have it’s called a residual emission they’re still going to have a certain footprint they can’t um reduce that they’re going to need to offset so we find we help them find you know leading projects to you know balance out that remaining
Footprint yeah and the other the other half of our clients are you know they’re not offsetting it’s not linked to a footprint but they want to invest 1% of Revenue to Nature or they want to reward and use nature as a gift or as a which
In a way he kind of offsetting right I mean like if you’re offsetting with money are you offsetting your pollution if what’s interesting is they a lot of these these customers are low impact so they’re you know they’re already you know it’s kind of yeah it’s very it’s negligible the negative effect they’re
Having in the world but they want to give give something back to the planet and and they’re using that as a competitive advantage and a competitive differentiation and um I think what’s exciting as well about these types of companies is is they seeing a return so you know they’re they’re gifting these
Nature rewards but it’s driving sales it’s driving loyalty it’s driving engagement you know above and beyond the cost of the nature investment they’re making so yeah yeah it’s kind of we’re no longer just speaking to sustainability managers we’ve got um you know commercial teams who are like okay
Great this is a tool that I can use to actually grow my business and to build my brand and also does you know does good for the planet and olle a lot of your um clients they well they appear to be quite big corporate businesses but is is Earthly working with smaller
Businesses and things like that or is it are you mainly focused on these kind of giant Banks and um Tech businesses and whatnot yeah we we we have 630 businesses that we’re working with and so a whole range you know from from smaller UMES up to you know big
Enterprise clients so anyone can go on on our Marketplace and find projects we’ve screened you know that meet our minimum standards across carbon biodiversity and social impact and and transact with projects and then for larger Enterprise clients you know we have you know we kind of give them more
Support um you know typically so I’d say about 25 of our customers are a thousand employees plus so that is probably more of a focus just because there’s more opportunity for impact with those bigger companies but we want to be as inclusive as possible so we have a self-served
Marketplace for fores and I understand that Earth has a mission but how does it how does it make its Revenue yeah so we we what we do is we we have um two two key areas one is uh like SAS fees so dependent on the level of support that business wants you know
From um we have things like a customer hub for like training of of the team being aware of Regulation um like providing different levels of data around the projects to be used for marketing we do things like webinars and and like help educate um the the teams within the businesses that
We work with so depend on the level of support there’s like a monthly SAS fee that you pay just for everyone listening when only talks about a SAS fee you’re talking about like a sub subscription to your um online business like you would a Shopify zero any of these other things
Exactly exactly but the main the main Revenue stream is through a transaction fee so we you know we typically charge between five and 18% um fees on any transactions or projects and you know what we’ll do though is we’ll group know we’ll have 10 custom customers purchasing from a project or supporting
A project so we’ll group them together and we’ll typically get like a wholesale rate which we’ll then pass on to our clients which often absorbs any fees that we charge um but we you know essentially yeah we charge that fee for kind of due diligence um and to kind of
Drisk the investments into projects um and and a big kind of a big a big move to us has been a you know from it’s called spot purchasing where you’re supporting and purchasing carbon credits biodiversity credits um or natural assets you know as they’re being traded
But a big shift is moving to actually helping companies invest in the creation of new projects so they’re you know they’re paying money up front now and then it’s going to deliver good in the future um but for those companies that have you know got a 2030 Net Zero
Commitment what it means is they can you know they can create a new project that will start delivering you know the credits they need for 2030 but at a at a a much more reasonable cost risk the finances of of that presumably this change this hope um this
Really has to be business-led right it can’t be government l i mean what’s your opinion on that you know who has the power to actually make the changes that need to be made and I’ll just also add um is the biggest problem that we face that frankly these big companies in order to
Make their money really they have sort of no choice but to pollute uh we know that um uh mobile phones are coming from Cobalt mining we know that it’s not sustainable no matter what they tell us all these kinds of things um if if you could make wave a magic
Wand and change government policy or change business policy which would it be yeah it’s a good it’s a good question there’s no easy answer I think we are seeing like regulation coming through which is which is helping um change happen faster because I think that what this all boils down to speed
And and I think eventually stuff will happen but is it going to be too late to you know prevent feedback loops and and some of the things that are you know already starting to kind of kick in with regards to temperature rise and um sea level rise and things like that but
Ultimately yeah we believe businesses can play a really key role um in pushing forward that change but but also people can can put pressure on you know politicians can choose to support businesses that are doing things the right way so you know I think which do you think
Which do you think is which do you think is the most important of those two between businesses and people businesses and government um I I think I think businesses really I think the challenge we have with government is there’s there’s this you know PE the policies around
Votes and and I think that that really matters yeah we have this short-term like cycle which which you know we where we need to be looking longer term multi- deade you know and actually put investing in the solutions that may you know may not be um you know not everyone’s going to like
Them but they’re they’re they’re necessary for our Survival on this planet and so I think that’s the big challenge that we have there is some stuff coming through so like one of the areas that we focus on is is the built environment so the construction industry yeah and there’s this new legislation
Coming in um called biodiversity net gain and basically really simply put if you’re building a a new development you have to um restore biodiversity you know to cover the impact of biodiversity building or development plus an extra 10% so it’s like 110% offset through biodiversity so that’s coming in that’s already come
Into legislation so that’s going to be a great Catalyst for you know for investing in nature protection Restoration in the UK um what’s your opinion on um I see I see I see a lot of things Brands businesses I what what I would call I don’t I think the term is
Greenwashing so um there’s a couple of projects happening out in Saudi Arabia you’re probably familiar with the the the city that they’re building you know the line the line and they’re saying um you know carbon neutral or something um is that nonsense or are we should we
Believe the hype yeah well I think look firstly the pho carbon neutrals kind of agreed that it yes it’s it’s not right and you know it’s it’s being phased out now and and and actually not going to you know with like legislation coming in it’s not going to be allowed you you
Know you’re not going to be to use that phrase so there’s this whole thing around Co um green claims code and and what you can say about things um I think that the the the whole concept of the line is is is pretty nuts like to build something that large and
And it and it’s wide enough the line to fit a stadium in to give you an idea of like the size of it so I actually met when I was at cop I met someone that was working on it they were telling me about it wow they showing me the height
Compared to a nearby skyscraper that was you know 200 meters high you know so it’s going to be a crazy um projects um I think you you know look the the the simple simple answer is it’s easier to not have the negative impact then to to do it and then to try and
Make up for it okay so yeah the we the focus should be on reducing our negative impacts and not having the negative impacts in the first place is the challenge to kind of to sort these businesses out or is it to try and solve the poverty issue do you
Feel like I kind of feel like I can’t see why some of these countries would be incentivized to care at all when we’ve had this incredible Industrial Revolution we have all this cool stuff and there they’re saying well hang on a minute um you know what what about us uh
Why do we have to conform to all of these new rules and stay clean when you guys have just done all this polluting you’ve got everything you need now your air conditioning and everything else um where do you stand on that kind of stuff yeah I mean the hypocrisy no I get it
You know it’s it’s I think the reality is we don’t have a choice but to all work together regardless of what’s happened in the past to do things in the right way to ensure our Survival on this planet I think that’s what it boils down to that there needs to be financial
Support for you know for certain countries to sort of help them with the transition so I think that’s a really key part and you know some commitments were made at you know the last cop and that there needs to be more um on that cop for those listening
Sorry cop for those listening is a is a huge climate conference that takes place does it always take place in the UAE I think it does around the world yeah it changes yeah and everybody who’s involved in this space really ought to be there and does go there and Ollie was there for
What two weeks or something would you yeah for for yeah for half of it for for for about five six days okay and so so I think you know that’s a key point to make but also with the whole just transition and you know money flowing to the right communities the exciting thing
About naturebas Solutions is it’s often those communities who are at the front line of climate change who are most affected you know they’re the ones that can benefit from supporting nature-based projects and so one of the things that we look at when we’re screening a project is you know how involved is the
Community what’s this it’s called benefit sharing you know are they getting Education Health Care are they actually getting a share of the funds that are going to these projects yeah so I think that’s a it can be a great mechanism and tool to to to to sort of
Send money from the global North to the global South okay um and because the point of um my podcast really is is is the entrepreneur and the kind of um the challenges you’ve come into this like like many of us like me with CO2 not
Knowing I mean a clue about gas or how you you know fill cylinders um you you’ve come into this with I guess no prior education if you will in the subject matter um I’m interested um you you you have a co-founder so that must have been a conscious choice because
You’re an entrepreneur some people want to go alone some people want a co-founder don’t want a co-founder um talk to me a little bit about um the challenges of getting this thing set up as well because it obviously going into Tech which was a bit of a new space for
You to some degree um and uh yeah that that process because obviously where you are today is quite a long way down the process you’ve also raised you’ve always been a king a fundraise you’ve managed to raise money which is incredibly difficult so yeah I’m just interested to
Hear um obviously it’s good it’s going well but tell us a bit about the tough times let’s get into the Nitty Gritty when you started it and you know getting it off the ground yeah as you say as you say as you say it’s a whole new area for
Me I’d never been involved in a tech business before so that was and I’d always wanted to I think I was always in excited by the opportunity to scale Tech you know coming from producing a physical products you know where as youve touched on in other episodes you
Know you have to wait for listing reviews you have to physically move stuff around which is 95% water and all of the challenges and trials and tribulations with that so I was always very excited about a digital business which you can you can get the right
Formula and you can just scale it up because because really Earthly the only thing we own are the laptops that we use we work remotely so it’s completely you know scalable and and and with minimal costs and how have you found that building building it completely remotely
Because I know that in your previous businesses you you unless I’m wrong you’ve always had a physical place of business um yeah like how does that work for you not work for you what what are the pros and cons yeah I mean it it it works for the team and yeah people it’s
Not the right setup for everyone so for for some of our younger team members have maybe you know graduated from uni they they’ll go to like local um co-work spaces you know so we provide a budget for them to do that yeah because often they’re in you know they’re in um sort
Of house shares flat shares you know so they don’t want to be working in their bedroom which I completely you know respect and understand um but for us you know it’s it’s the I love the efficiency of you know I’m in I’m sitting in my attic I’ve got screen I’ve got my
Screens around me it’s pretty quiet up here apart for my cat’s been trying to get in so if if you’ve heard a meowing in the background that’s why I’ve got one crawling around my legs actually we speak you but um you said it yeah but I you know I I
Used to commute into an office and and I look at the time that I save and I get an extra you know six hours a week basically of not commuting to just to spend time with my family to spend time on work um and I’ve got privacy but we
We have done stuff to introduce the sort of social side so you know we you know we use slack we’re regularly talking speaking to each other seeing each other through slack um quite big team you’ve got now how how many Star 16 of us yeah wow okay and and just going back then
Just to to try and answer my question tell tell me about some of the challenges because I can’t imagine it’s all been plain sailing well we when we launched um we were Armen originally and that’s right so we were a b2c app basically helping you connect your bank
Card and when you purchase from sustainable Brands either in shops or online we would track all the merchant IDs and you’d automatically get gifted nature Rewards and so we were doing that building up our own community and it was you know it was growing slowly but we had um you
Know we had an approach from Kisha bank which is Spain’s biggest bank and they said look we love what you’re doing in your app can you do it in our app and we were like wait a second we we’ve got 6,000 users Kisha bank’s got 4.4 million
Customers we should just be working you know plugging in our Tech into existing communities and and so that was the kind of the real shift we were hang on a second we should be B2B and at the same time we were like arman’s you know they’re linked to unsustainably you know water
Intensive sort of trees like that’s not the right word for for what we’re doing so yeah we thought we find a name that that worked better didn’t did what it said on the tin and so yeah Earthly was um was was was was one of the yeah was
One of the names that I came up with and we were lucky to kind of get all the the trademark and domain you know domains and stuff so and do you see do you see the okay do you see in the future um you
You may have a b Toc as well um or are you is B2B really um where this business is going my challenge has always been wanted to do everything so my my old old oie would be like yeah yeah we’ll do that but actually I’d much rather support a
Customer that’s that’s that’s that’s doing that with their consumers so like almost do a B2B to C in a way and so yeah so we’ve got no plans to do you know look an individual can come on and can can purchase from the project projects in our Marketplace yeah we can
Support that but um but we know we’re geared around companies you know helping their employees helping their customers just because we can have much bigger impact and we can achieve much bigger scale because going back to the thing we were saying earlier it’s a time it’s a
Time issue you know time’s against us so we’re trying to do stuff grow things as quickly as we can you know without um you know running before we can walk and when you were raising uh money did Earthly uh did this all qualify under SC
Seis Eis yeah seis and E and we still got e allocation we’ve raised three million pounds today um yeah but it’s been you know it’s been um three funding rounds so we’re currently at seed plus but it’s been really it’s been really tough it’s been really really tough you
Know I mean like the last five five years they’re saying I mean it’s never been harder to raise money and then obviously there was a period I guess before you were in Tech where I think I think it was like I’m starting a tech business and they like here’s seed of a
Million quid just go and draw some drawings and I’m being silly no no no but I think having it go back to your point about the co-founder you know having having Lorenzo alongside has been it’s been you know it’s been really great to you know if we’ve had a
Meeting with an investor and and they’ve you know said no to to have a co-founder to kind of De brief and to kind of share that with to share the highs and the lows and um so that’s been you know I’ve really I’ve really loved that and you
Know also as as as we’ve kind of touching on this whole the industry we we work in is you know it’s it’s heavy you know it’s quite it’s quite a deep thing that we’re trying to solve and and and typically so it’s nice to have um
People to share that with you know to sort of share that experience and to kind of go through it all together I bet you have some incredible frustrating conversations sometimes with potential clients who uh just don’t get uh it or the problem and I imagine that’s something that if you’ve got a
Co-founder afterwards you can kind of sit and do a bit of th yeah I mean yeah totally I mean like like two things you know there’s been a lot of media around offsetting understandably you know we we have to we can’t just buy our way out of this we have to actually fundamentally
Change the way that we’re doing business and and and you know reduce our impact on the world but I think one of the challenges has been you know people just associate carbon credits with offsetting when actually a carbon credit is like that’s almost the the unit um and that’s
The um the unit towards nature protection and restoration that that is the most popular and and is the most effective at the moment the voluntary carbon unit which is basically represents a you know a unit of carbon a ton of carbon that’s been removed or a ton of carbon that’s been avoided now
That can be used for offsetting or actually you can just make a donation towards a project and retire a thousand carbon credits you know and not link it to anything and so I think that mindset of you know it’s not carbon offsets they’re carbon credits and they can be
Used in different ways they can be used in in the wrong way and they can be used in the right way so kind of helping people understand that has been you know a challenge and me probably the other thing is you know we’ll speak to clients and they’ll be like oh we’re just
Focusing on reduction for the next decade the the reality is is we just we don’t have the luxury to to do that if we all just focused on reduction and we didn’t actually get money towards nature protection and restoration today then you know we’re toast to to to be blunt
So it’s doing both things it’s working on reduction and at the same time it’s finding ways to kind of get these flows of funding towards you know the the these leading um nature protection and restoration projects and if there’s one thing that we can do as individuals one
Thing it’s a bit of a loaded question but what would you say is the is is the main thing that a person can do or change about their life if they’re not already doing um that that might make the biggest impact I think I think the number one thing is is is voting
Correctly oh interesting I wasn’t expecting that and actually understanding you know really understanding yeah so I think that’s the number one and then I would then I would say you had Nick on the show I’d say getting your pension making sure your pension is aligned you you know with
With what you’re you know with with with impact you know supporting the right companies you know a lot of us inadvertently um supporting through our pensions you know fossil the fossil fuel industry um and then there’s then there’s the other three you know the three um minimizing air travel using a
Renewable energy provider um and then you know cutting out you know meat from your diet and dairy from your diet so those are like the the things but I think you know there’s this whole shift of like just focusing on us and what we can do but again going back to what we
Believe is businesses can be like key change agents yeah and going back to what I was saying about like the regenerative imagine if every company you bought from had this net positive impact on the planet so you know in a way we people are going to consume whether we like it
Or not okay consumption is being reduced as people are buying like more um well-built things and well-made things but if we can turn consumption into like a Force for good where everything you’re buying has this net positive impact on the planet and I think that can be a
Real Catalyst for positive change as well yeah which is which is where you guys come in really because that’s what you’re trying to sort of not teach but encourage businesses to to start leaning towards because I think I feel like I feel like most businesses are about
About greed and profits and rewards for shareholders unfortunately but if if they can be convinced that um their consumers will only buy from them if they can prove that they have these sort of good supplier channels and all the rest of it then that’s better for profits you know that’s what’s going
To drive it and obviously you talk about Nick and having him on and I asked him the question you know can you really um invest in a pension and get the same return from uh you know the better for the planet businesses than if you don’t and he was absolutely adamant um that
You could but but obviously didn’t really have the opportunity to go into greater detail I mean do you kind of do you think he’s telling the truth absolutely yeah yeah he’s definitely telling the truth you know this this is a big shift this green transition is is happening now and there’s there’s
Commercial opportunities to support the companies that are pioneering this green transition um so yeah I think I completely agree with with that and and looking at renewable we’re seeing solar wind you know cheaper than fossil fuel yeah so it’s like it really is a you know no-brainer
Um but I think yeah The Bu the business side is is you know is is really interesting and ultimately you know if if we don’t support nature then we have no businesses we have no us so it’s not a question of like it’s a nice thing to do
We it’s an imper you know we have to find a way to and so there’s stuff happening like the task force for nature related Financial disclosures which is you know sounds very kind of long and Technical but it’s basically looking at nature risks and um nature opportunities for
Companies so that and this is coming into legislation so if you’re um a mining company you need to basically look at how you’re negatively impacting nature and how you know nature can can be a risk to you things like fires floods um and storms Etc and so this
Whole mindset is Shifting where we’re like embedding nature Into the Heart of everything that we do which is what we need to do you know to to survive on on this planet yeah um that that sounds um fair enough and future for Earthly what you
Know what are your kind of do you have you got set targets like where where do you see um the product the business the brand uh sort of five years from now I guess like is it is it something that you’re kind of is this something that
You’re building forever and ever for the greater good or is it did you do you have like an exit strategy y like what’s what’s the plan for the business I’m interested no no exit strategy our our mission is to protect and store at least 1% of the planet by
2030 and and what that translates to is 150 million hectares basically of BL so that’s that’s the target we’re going after um you know and help helping businesses to protect and restore you know that that that that Target which all feeds into the whole um protecting
30% of the planet by 2030 which is the global kind of agreement that was agreed at cop 15 the biodiversity cop at Montreal um so yeah for us you know we we you know we are H open to like how we who we partner with and and like the
The path to get us to there but Loreno and I and the team we’re all Impact Focus we’re not looking to kind of flip the business you know to to make some money um you know we’re doing this to to genuinely have have a you a positive
Impact and going back to the origin story you know with with the you know the birth of my son you know for me a real Catalyst for launching Earthly was I was like thinking about future chats with him you know when he was 13 14 or
You know a bit later in his teens having a beer with him in the pub and I was imagining a conversation where he was like look your generation knew you know we were in the why didn’t you do more you know what did you do and so it
Was thinking about that future chat of like him challenging me you know was the real Catalyst for launching Earthly and so you know I want to be in 10 years time he’s six now so whenever it is we’re in the pub yeah 10 years
Time you know I want to be able to you know we’re in the UK so I’d say I’d say 10 years sounds pretty yeah I want answer if if if pubs if pu if pubs are still in business and that’s a whole other uh it’s probably a whole other
Podcast to be fair um yeah lovely and um now I get it and yeah it’s kind of heartbreaking um to think of you know him kind of saying to you like what did you guys do like what brought me into Marcus it’s really interesting because I’ve you know Lorenzo was saying his
Mate works at all in gas his kids are like 11 10 and they and they they just say to to the dad like you know we’re we’re embarrassed and ashamed about you because of what you’re doing which is you know then it’s the younger generation who are like you
Know they’re openly talking about you know you’re going to die of old age going to dive climate change so like you know this is this is this is a real thing that’s on our doorstep it’s it’s hard to talk about it’s incredibly depressing but um you know there is the
Solutions are there we’re working on them and yeah and you seem and you seem buoyant and positive and you talk about um hope so I don’t think you’d be doing this if you didn’t believe there was any chance of kind of turning around our Misfortune and making a real difference
So that’s encouraging and um you know my my um my business’s um mission is is mainly around convenience with Co that’s why we built the business but as a as an aside of that um you know making sparkling water at home is so much better uh than buying plastic uh bottles
Water and having it in the house that’s not to disrespect soft drinks brands that need to be have no other way of being there but I mean that is and also I remember having a conversation with you which will be a conversation from another day when actually you were
Explaining plastic actually isn’t as bad as like there are very very many good things that plastic can offer us as well as you know causing um a lot of problems um but um as we as we draw this to to a close it’s a bit of a loaded question um
But it’s one I like to ask people that um are listening and thinking about starting a business perhaps for the first time um maybe inspired by what you’re doing um what advice can you give give to anybody that’s thinking about going on this completely Bonkers lonely extraordinarily difficult um time
Sucking uh Adventure um you know you’re a bit older now um this is at least your third uh business that you’ve um that you’ve launched um and I’m sure like me you’ve made a ton of mistakes along the way so what few what few gems can you give
To the listeners to say hey Dodge this or you know I encourage that still making mistakes as well oh yeah of course I mean that’s all part of it yeah I think first of all at the beginning when You’ got an idea speaking to people that have experience in your
In the in the sector that you have your idea and actually you getting feedback speaking to potential customers I think the challenge of friends and family is they’ll just say what you want to hear too nice yeah so I think getting real honest feedback and and you know and
Obiously take everything with a pinch of salt but I was the feedback from the people that have got the experience and are in the industry that I want to go into they’re the ones that I kind of really listen to if that makes sense yeah I think you can you know you can
You can drisk a lot of of of a startup by just get doing your you know doing your research essentially you know what would you be prepared to pay for that what are the features you’d want um and and I think that’s a really really key thing and then raising money and and
Again you touched on this in another epode you know it’s going to cost you twice as much than you think so just having you know raise more money than you think you’re going to need because it’s going to cost you more and it’s going to take you twice as long twice as
Long maybe three times as long so it’s have when you got those projections have have your worst case plan and then work off that and yeah it’s great you know it’s great to outperform your projections and your figures and so yeah that’s that those are probably the things that um
Yeah that I would say I mean a way as well you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re talking about being very open and sharing um your idea from the outset I think there was this certainly when I kind of started getting in any involved in any of this kind of world certainly
From family and things people like oh it all has to be what what you’re doing very secretive and you can’t tell anybody about your idea and this that and the other and I feel like that’s this idea that oh I’ve got a great idea and if I tell anybody someone’s going to
Jump in and compete with me immediately um yeah it’s probably probably a bit City I don’t know no it’s all about the tough thing is the execution and actually doing it and and and so I think yeah don’t be put off if if sharing you know people stealing it and because the
Chance of is there’s there’s a hundred other people out there looking at thinking of similar things but no one’s actually doing it um which is which is the key thing and and I think the final thing is yeah like just just something you’re passionate about you know because
Because when it’s when you have the tough days and the tough meetings if if it’s not something you really care about then and I think that makes it much harder and and you know to to to have motivation and to you know put put put your Blood Sweat and Tears into it
Because it’s when you launch a business it’s always there you know you can never really 100% fully switch off no so you got to love what you do I think to to justify that yeah the the bug has uh has been touched on earlier in the call um
Olle mate fantastic thank you so much thank you for your time um guys go and check out uh early.or have a little look around um you know whoever’s listening uh you might find some um some great stuff on there and uh tune in for the next one I’ve got another very exciting
Guest coming on uh in the next uh two weeks um olle until next time um if you next time just stay with me for a little bit because I understand that um once I hit stop uh we it needs to upload for a little bit so I’m just going to press that