The EcoSend Podcast

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[00:00:00] Chris W: Welcome to the EcoSend podcast. Be inspired, educated, and entertained by the world's most ambitious leaders putting climate at the top of their agenda.

[00:00:18] James Gill: episode of the EcoSend podcast. I'm James, the host, and I'm thrilled to bring you another show today. For those of you who are new to the show, The EcoSend podcast is a show where we talk to wonderful, inspiring leaders who are making the world a little bit better in their own businesses. Today I'm joined by Tim, Tim Maiden from Green Small Business.

[00:00:41] And Tim is the founder of, of this consultancy and they focus on driving authentic climate action among small and medium sized businesses. We've been working with Tim actually at EcoSend and he's been tremendously helpful. So Tim, I'm very excited to have you on the show. How are you doing today?

[00:01:00] Tim Maiden: I'm very well, thank you.

[00:01:01] Yeah, and it's great to join you on this, on this podcast. Yeah, delighted to be here.

[00:01:07] James Gill: Yeah, no, thank you so much Tim. No, it's great. I've, you've already been incredibly helpful for, for us. So I'm, I'm sure this episode is going to be packed with some very, very interesting ideas, some helpful tips and tricks.

[00:01:21] I'm, I'm looking forward to it because you've been helping us understand our own carbon footprint as a business. And I've learned a lot already. So I'm hoping we can, we can learn a lot more. And maybe before we dive in, though, it'd be great in your own words, Tim, like, what do you what do you do? And tell us maybe a little bit more about green, small business.

[00:01:40] Tim Maiden: Yeah, so I guess, well, you said in your intro, we try to Drive authentic climate action within businesses. In some cases that involves measuring the the impacts of the business, particularly the carbon footprint of the business. In other cases, We just go straight to action with all the businesses that we work with, we are trying to drive meaningful change in the way that they manage carbon and the way that they manage all of their environmental impacts.

[00:02:21] Typically, it involves carbon footprinting. And then action planning around that carbon footprint and the wider impacts of the business. And, and I guess as the name suggests, we specifically focusing on SMEs, small and medium sized businesses. So we've tried to set up a. systems and our software in such a way that we can work really efficiently and in a way that is manageable from an SME perspective both in terms of of time commitments and in terms of costs in, in terms of our fees.

[00:03:02] So yeah,

[00:03:03] James Gill: we know all the businesses that we work with, because

[00:03:07] Tim Maiden: a human being involved, that there's a kind of personal aspect to it. But we also rely heavily on systems and software to make it as efficient as possible.

[00:03:19] James Gill: Thank you, Tim. That was that was actually a great summary. And I know that as a customer of yours, It's been very refreshing sort of working with green small business because I think many people on the maybe many people listening may have found there's there's quite a few options out there for sort of understanding a business's carbon footprint and there's big consultancies that will do things and maybe they're more tailored to bigger businesses and as a small business I think it can sometimes be difficult to know where to go where you don't necessarily have the budget to work with a huge consultancy but then I would say there's sort of some amount of skepticism for some of these tools that sort of say they can do everything in a one click automated way.

[00:04:02] It's been really quite refreshing to, to actually speak to you and your team and have that human side to it, which seemingly is, is actually pretty crucial to truly understanding a business's footprint.

[00:04:16] Tim Maiden: Yeah, I mean, we're very much trying to find that center ground, you know, there are the extremes that you've described.

[00:04:24] There's the fully automated, you know, connect up your financial management software to our app and we'll magically work out your carbon footprint and tell you what to do about it. And then there's the, the high end big consultancies that are largely out of the reach of a lot of small businesses because of the fees involved.

[00:04:47] And we're trying to find a middle ground, something that, that is manageable from an SME perspective, but without losing the impact, that's, that's key for us, we're in this business to drive change authentic change.

[00:05:05] James Gill: Yeah, that's, and that's, that's totally it. I, I think as well. And I know for us, like, at times, like, there's this real desire to be measuring as precisely as possible.

[00:05:16] And I think sometimes that desire to measure can actually become the bigger thing rather than actually taking actions. It's like, how, how long do you spend, I think I, I had a quote the other day that was sort of like something around like, if you suspect. Ah, I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something like, if the, if the crystal ball is telling you to change, how long do you spend trying to clean the crystal ball to make sure it's telling you to change before you actually change?

[00:05:43] Tim Maiden: Yeah, yeah. There's this sort of obsession with management, with measuring measurements, you know, people trot out that, that line, which is you know, essentially, if you're not measuring it, you can't manage it, as if it's, it's kind of you know, the gospel truth. It's unquestionable. Actually, it's not true with lots of businesses.

[00:06:08] We can, we can identify the authentic climate action that needs to be taken without doing any measurement. Yeah. Measurement might be helpful in terms of understanding priorities and identifying where we need to really focus our efforts, but it's, it's often not essential. And I think we need to get over our obsession with, with measuring.

[00:06:34] And it also often just misses the bigger picture. I think that's actually a very bold thing

[00:06:38] James Gill: to say, Tim. I hugely respect you for saying that because Bigger picture questions to think

[00:06:42] Tim Maiden: about which we don't capture when we do a business carbon footprint. You know, your business is a really good example, right?

[00:06:52] Sure. EcoSend. We can measure the carbon footprint of EcoSend and the platform and the operation of the business. But there's a bigger picture that would be missed if that was our only focus. And that is, what are the kinds of clients that you're serving? What impact are they having on the world? And what role can you play in influencing those clients?

[00:07:18] It would be, it'd be tragic if we worked with you as a business and didn't think about that bigger picture. We have lots of, lots of clients like that, you know, think of Think of an architecture practice, you know, we've got lots of architects that we work with and we can very easily measure their carbon footprint because they're essentially just office based service companies.

[00:07:44] It's not complicated. If that's all we thought about with an architecture company, we've been missing the most important question of all, which is what on earth are you designing? And how are you designing it? Yeah. Yeah. What's the result in the wider world of, of, of your design activity as an architecture practice.

[00:08:05] So, you know, measurement is great. It's, it's, it's useful, but it's it's not always necessary and it can often miss some of those bigger picture questions, which is so important.

[00:08:19] James Gill: Yeah. It's. It's actually, it's so, it's honestly so refreshing hearing you say that, Tim, because you know I'm hearing you say that and talk about those things and it's like, it's actually so rare that that kind of conversation is actually happening, I think, even for, you know, I know there's so many businesses more than ever that want to do the right thing, but I think there's a lot of businesses that are also quite new to this world and trying to find their feet.

[00:08:47] Absolutely. And. It's, it's almost like to, to question the importance of measurement might be, might be really frowned upon and, and, but yeah, Tim, thank you. It's, it's, it really is so refreshing to, to hear about. Yourself and the real aim of principle business, focusing on action over just measurement, like it's so easy to get hung up on, on measurement.

[00:09:18] And I, I just, I really think that's almost like it really underscores actually like the urgency with which we do need to do something like businesses need to take action, individuals need to take action. And that clearly. From my read must come from your, you know, your own drive. So I'm keen to hear about your own journey into caring about the planet, caring about sustainability, starting Green Small Business.

[00:09:42] Like where, where did it all begin?

[00:09:46] Tim Maiden: Yeah. I mean, I guess if I, if I trace it back all the way. Yeah. I'm not a religious person anymore, but I was brought up in a, in a deeply religious Home. Right. Had a very, very religious upbringing. Okay. And that I'm sure was the start of my kind of commitment to the environment generally.

[00:10:16] Also, I, you know, I grew up on the edge of the Lake district where, where I. I'm back living there now, which is amazing and spent just a lot of time in nature in the outdoors and through that developed a deep appreciation for, for the natural world. And I think combining that with my faith at the time and that sense that I had through that faith of a responsibility to, to care for that.

[00:10:49] You know what we thought of at the time as a sort of created order. I think that, that instilled within me the kind of environmental values that, that I, that I still retain, even though the religion bitters. Long since gone. Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah, and it's, it's followed me through my working life. I, you know, I was a very kind of involved in, in activism for, for a long time.

[00:11:23] Particularly in the in the nineties and, and early two thousands with friends of the earth and Oxfam and, and others. And then I've worked professionally on environmental issues for a long time, 25 years, probably counting.

[00:11:45] James Gill: That's, that's incredible. I, so I guess you really. You know, I, I dunno, I always, I sometimes conscious of being in somewhat of a bubble, but I, you know, I, I certainly see every, you know, most of the businesses I talk to have a, an agenda of some sort to be caring about the, the planet.

[00:12:04] It's clearly something a lot of people and consumers care about. How, you know, how, how have you seen that evolve then since sort of like the, I guess the late nineties? You know, how, how's, how's that changed? Have you, have you kind of. I can only assume a positive change, but I don't know. I'm keen to hear what you feel it's been like.

[00:12:29] Tim Maiden: Yeah, I mean, I've only been working exclusively with business for the past four years. Five years prior to that, I was involved in kind of a public policy to a large extent working on big research contracts for for the UK government, for Scottish government and other mostly public sector bodies.

[00:12:55] I think On the business side, it was, it was very much a niche endeavor for a long time. And I think in the last probably three to four years, it has very much gone mainstream in the UK, I honestly think one of the, one of the biggest drivers for the, the growing awareness of the issues that we see among the business community was.

[00:13:26] I think it was 2022 when we had, when we had the COP26 in Glasgow, we had David Attenborough's series going you know, ballistic and, and really raising awareness of the of the urgency of the issues that we faced. We had Greta Thunberg on headline news. As well. And that's when we saw a real uptick in interest in green, small business.

[00:14:04] And I put it down to those sorts of. Things hitting the mainstream media. I think that really did have an impact. And then there's been other other changes taking place in the kind of the policy landscape or the, the wider landscape, if you like, within the public sector, there is increasingly. Widespread requirement now related to carbon accounting, carbon reporting, the need for what's called carbon reduction plans.

[00:14:39] That's driving a lot of interest in the issues for the first time for a lot of businesses, any business that's involved in supplying to the NHS, for example, is now having to think about these issues. And then the other big thing is in, in private sector supply chains, there's been huge change. So we work with.

[00:15:06] Suppliers to AstraZeneca, for example, you know, multinational pharmaceutical company, Tesco, companies with very big supply chains, thousands and thousands of often small businesses in their supply chains. When they make their grand commitments on around carbon, the only way that those commitments can be delivered is if they pass on the requirements down their supply chains.

[00:15:40] So all of a sudden, therefore, you have thousands of businesses having to measure their footprints, take action on their footprints, set targets for their footprints. And You know, there's, there's just endless demand now for carbon related services within the, within the business community.

[00:16:05] Chris W: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:06] Tim Maiden: No,

[00:16:09] James Gill: it's, it's actually, it's actually incredible hearing. Like, you know, to, to think about that, that ecosystem of business where. Yeah, as a, as a small business, sometimes you sort of like, well, if you're the size of Tesco, you can afford to put a, a team of people to, to make these commitments and to communicate it clearly.

[00:16:32] And I guess for a lot of small businesses, it's not that they've not wanted to. Make steps in the right direction. But as a small business, it's very hard to, to justify the time on anything other than keeping the lights on and and, and, you know, making sure you've got more money than you're spending every month.

[00:16:53] And so I guess it's, you know, there's a combination of that desire to do good, but also some level of push from whether it's from big business, whether it's from government policy to, to do things. to do things better.

[00:17:11] Tim Maiden: Yeah, we're very much trying to be cognizant of those sorts of realities for for small businesses that just don't have huge resource either in terms of time or money to devote to to these issues.

[00:17:30] Yeah. There's so much else to think about when you run a small business as you as you know very well. Yeah However, however good your intentions are. Yeah, whoever committed you are personally as a business owner There's so many things that you've got to manage day to day just to keep the show on the road Yeah, yeah, and so, you know that I suppose that's what comes back to the The kind of fundamental design of green small businesses.

[00:17:59] We're trying to hit that sweet spot of, of being impactful and having meaningful discussions with small businesses without overburdening them in terms of time and cost and bureaucracy.

[00:18:13] James Gill: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I, I, I think it's so such a needed way of stepping in the right direction, what you're offering, because.

[00:18:27] I think there's, there's also this fear, I think, and it's a big thing with whenever the topic of sustainability comes up that I think so many businesses are afraid of, of doing the wrong thing or of trying to, you know, I think so many businesses are afraid of greenwashing essentially, of, of or of coming across as if they're greenwashing because they've accidentally said something that they didn't quite get right.

[00:18:54] And this. This delicate balance of like trying to aim for perfection, but like no one has perfection in this space. No one has a perfect measurement. No one has the perfect business that has zero impact to the planet. And, and, you know, I think there's sometimes an element of like, should we even go down that route at all?

[00:19:17] And and so like, I just think it's very refreshing what you sort of have helped, at least from what I've seen, you've helped us with of like helping us do more of the right things, helping us make action in the right places, having the biggest impact we can. And actually just starting to do something rather than spend all this time debating or worry.

[00:19:41] Yeah,

[00:19:41] Tim Maiden: yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, the other thing is we, we, we always say to clients, look, tell your story and tell the truth because it's too easy to fall into the trap of hanging on to the, to the labels out there that, that, that. A great soundbite, you know, we're, we're carbon neutral or we're net zero.

[00:20:04] We're going to be net zero. They, they sound like great things, you know, in some, in some respects they are great things, but unless they are founded on something then that they're meaningless and actually it's more important to just be honest about the situation that you're in as a business. What you are doing and the limits on what you what you can do And and it sometimes that honesty needs to be quite radical Yeah, so, you know, I ran a workshop at a conference recently where the headline was Why growing your carbon footprint might be good for the planet.

[00:20:53] That definitely would have got some attention. I haven't, I haven't yet seen. I mean, maybe green small business needs to be the first to do this. I haven't yet seen a business setting a target to grow their carbon footprint. But I want to see that. Okay. And I should explain what I mean.

[00:21:13] James Gill: I, yeah, I'm, I'm intrigued.

[00:21:14] I definitely want to hear more.

[00:21:17] Tim Maiden: Well, I tell you what, let's, I mean, let's think about EcoSend, right? There we are with EcoSend providing a low carbon email marketing platform. Now you are in competition with a whole host of other email marketing platforms.

[00:21:34] James Gill: I see. And

[00:21:36] Tim Maiden: they will be doing it in a higher carbon way than Ecosend in all, in, in, in all likelihood.

[00:21:44] So I want Ecosend to grow. I want the number of users on Ecosend to grow. Sure. Because that will mean that There's fewer users on the other higher carbon platforms. So we might have to accept and we might actually want to pursue the growth in EcoSEN's carbon footprint. Because the wider carbon impact will be positive.

[00:22:14] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:22:15] Tim Maiden: Because you'll be taking business from the higher carbon alternatives. It's, it's those sorts of realities. That I think we just need to be honest about.

[00:22:25] James Gill: Yeah.

[00:22:26] Tim Maiden: So, well, maybe, maybe Ecosend could be the first company to set a target to grow their carbon footprint.

[00:22:32] James Gill: Actually such, such a sort of, you know, it flips things in your head a little bit, doesn't it?

[00:22:38] Because. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and, and I, I guess in some ways, yeah, the smaller a business you are, if you're doing all the right things, but you're still tiny, then there's only so much impact you're going to be having. Whereas if you're a huge business, then, then yeah, like, yeah, I, I totally agree. Yeah, it's a really really good point.

[00:23:02] Tim Maiden: Yeah, if you're a carbon lean business Then it may be that we need to grow your footprint because you'll be Because that will have a positive Carbon impact in the world Yeah

[00:23:18] James Gill: so yeah in many ways like and this is I guess naturally fall into like metrics definitions again, but it's like you you have like a You know, I guess maybe we would look at it as like a carbon footprint per customer or something or a carbon footprint per email.

[00:23:33] We don't want that to go up. We want that to go down. But the overall carbon footprint, because there is going to be something somewhere, will inevitably go up because more customers. But then in the wider context of the world, Fewer people using the the higher carbon options. Yeah, I it totally it totally makes sense to him.

[00:23:56] It's such a Again, what a daring thing to suggest For a business that is helping people measure and improve their carbon footprint. It's it's yeah, it's it's It's very refreshing to hear.

[00:24:09] Tim Maiden: Yeah, you might need a comms agency to help you with the presentation It

[00:24:16] James Gill: definitely grabs your attention doesn't it?

[00:24:18] Yeah, I I I know we've we've talked about so many things I I am And I, I know we've had a few technical challenges on the show today, so I'm just, I'm just keen to make sure we cover everything you wanted to talk about, Tim. And I know I always like to talk to our guests about the future and not necessarily ask them to predict the future, but where do you see things changing and evolving over time?

[00:24:44] Tim Maiden: I mean, I think if we're talking about the sort of wider, you know, changes in the climate,

[00:24:54] I guess we have, we have to be, we have to be honest about that as well. Right. And it's really, really tough. You know, I think if we're engaging as I have to in the climate science in the climate projections, they are. very, very bleak. I think the latest UN assessment indicated that we were headed for a a level of warming of around two and a half to 2.

[00:25:28] 9 degrees by the end of the century on, on the basis that all of the commitments that governments around the world have made are actually delivered and You know, when we see what's happening with politics in the US at the moment, it's you know, whether those commitments will be delivered is, is, is highly questionable in some cases.

[00:25:55] Yeah. So it's not, it's not a good outlook and I, it's really hard, I find it really hard to engage with that on a regular basis. The messages are so difficult to digest and, and compute. But I think we have to, and I think we, the key for me is accepting that the world is going to change in very significant ways.

[00:26:28] You know, and we will be affected. We're largely insulated from the worst impacts of climate change at the moment. You know, there are millions of people around the world for whom it's already catastrophic. And it will become more and more so for us in, in the West. And I think it's important that we, that we begin to wrap our heads around that and begin to not, not accept it because that's the wrong word.

[00:27:03] We need to, we need to do everything we can to. You know, every fraction of a degree of warming is critical. Every fraction of a degree that we can avoid is critical. So we mustn't just accept it, but we need to accept the realities that change is coming and some of that change will be, will be hugely negative.

[00:27:25] So we need to think about our own resilience. We need to think about the resilience of our, of the communities around us, of our families. And, and really engage with, with the realities of, of what's coming. I, I also think it's important to, and this is, this is somewhat contradictory to, to, to, to the projections, but I think it's, I, I like to hang on to some hope that there's, there's also a degree of uncertainty in all of this, you know, the models are models at the end of the day.

[00:28:06] And I don't think what the models fully account for is the period of kind of technological change that we're going through. You know, I hear it referred to as the, Is the exponential age.

[00:28:22] Chris W: Yeah.

[00:28:22] Tim Maiden: You know, this, this age of exponential change in technology, particularly as a result of artificial intelligence.

[00:28:33] And I suppose the point is, we don't know what that will bring.

[00:28:39] Chris W: Yeah.

[00:28:39] Tim Maiden: So far, the effects of AI. Have been damaging. Yeah. It's fair to say , you know? Yeah. I think go, Google announced a couple of weeks ago that their carbon footprint has gone up by Mm. Was it four 48% or something since 2019, in spite of their carbon reduction targets.

[00:28:59] Yeah. Microsoft

[00:29:00] James Gill: two as well, I think. Yeah.

[00:29:02] Tim Maiden: Yeah. Largely driven by AI compute energy needs, so, so there'll be lots of, of impacts from AI that are. hugely damaging, I'm sure. But there's also a question in my mind is what's the potential of AI and other technological change in meeting some of the challenges that we face in, in responding to the, to the climate to the climate crisis.

[00:29:34] So yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of realities that we need to grapple with in terms of the change that's coming, but. There's some hope to hang on to as well, perhaps.

[00:29:45] James Gill: Yeah, I think, I think it's a very pragmatic way to summarize the situation and views on the future, Tim. I I think a healthy dose of down to earth reality there, but also a sprinkling of hope.

[00:30:00] And I do think that, you know, people like yourself are helping to make changes now that will yield results and will yield impact. I yeah, I think you're absolutely right to really reinforce why everyone needs to really do their bit and, Think about this and make the action they can as quickly as they can as soon as they can.

[00:30:26] I think overall I'd probably sum this episode up as like, we can all be taking more action. We don't need to wait, there's no need to wait for more measurement, more accuracy. Do the best you can and as quickly as you can and it's urgent it's it's

[00:30:41] Tim Maiden: absolutely urgent. Yeah. Yeah So amen to that

[00:30:46] James Gill: Thank you, Tim.

[00:30:47] It has been such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you again for dealing with the wonderful technical advances of our Podcasting platform and the hiccups that that has caused. I just want to make sure because I'm sure many people listening and watching You I wouldn't be surprised if you want to go check out more of Tim's work and learn more about green small business I I really encourage you to I I'm not paid to say this at all.

[00:31:12] I I have hugely valued working with Tim so far and look forward to doing many more things with you, Tim so if you want to go check out green small businesses Well, pretty obvious, greensmallbusiness. com, right Tim, that's where to go. Indeed, indeed.

[00:31:26] Tim Maiden: And new website about to be launched, so look out for that.

[00:31:29] James Gill: Exciting, very exciting, amazing. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for joining me today. It's a

[00:31:34] Tim Maiden: real pleasure, James, real pleasure working with you. Pleasure to chat this morning and yeah, I look forward to ongoing collaboration.

[00:31:42] James Gill: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for listening to the show today or watching.

[00:31:48] If you have enjoyed today's show, honestly, it would mean the world if you, if you do share it with others as, as you've heard today, the more people taking action. Today the better. So yeah, please do share this with anyone you think it might be relevant for and If you have enjoyed it, let us know in the comments or giving us a positive rating.

[00:32:07] It really really does So thank you and we'll catch you

[00:32:11] next time