Episode 4: Liz Allan and Akhil Handa – How to thread sustainability into your business DNA.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, industries, companies, carbon, sustainability, supply chain, problem, important, industrialization, business, developed countries, world, terms, lagos, clients, progress, women, educate, suppose, education

SPEAKERS

Liz Allan, Akhil Handa

Liz Allan  00:19

Welcome to electric evolution with Liz Allan. This podcast is about the journey to a more sustainable future in order for us to be able to do our best to achieve Net Zero. I’ll be discussing a variety of topics with experts in their field in order to educate and increase our knowledge of green energy, electric vehicles and the electric vehicle infrastructure. So whether you’re an individual wants to make additions to business or corporate. This podcast is just for you.

Liz Allan  00:48

Okay, so today on Electric Evolution, I have Akhil Handa who is the CEO and founder of Earth51. So Akil, thank you very much for joining me, and it’s great to see you on here. And also you live in Reading. So we’re not that far away, are we really?

Akhil Handa  01:05

I know. Thank you for having me, Liz. It’s wonderful to be here. And looking forward to this podcast and to all the listeners out there. And hopefully, they will walk away with more than they came with.

Liz Allan  01:16

Absolutely. So what I’d like to start off with is to just kind of get you to give me a little bit of background to how you manage what you’re doing and where did the Where did the name of Earth 51 come from? And what what are you doing as a business?

Akhil Handa  01:32

Yeah, sure. So, my background has been very different from what we’re doing today. I spent about 25 years in technology prior to that I worked in steel manufacturing. I worked in news publications in media, so I’ve  done an assortment of roles, and finally better life and technology. And some point in that space. About four or five years back I realised that there’s tremendous opportunity for technology to do more around sustainability, especially around green computing and technology for good.

I would say 2016 2017 wasn’t a great time to talk about it in most parts of the world, except perhaps in the northern regions of Europe. So the Nordics and they care immensely about green tech and offsetting your carbon footprint in 2016 2017. And that made me move towards trying to understand how we could be a little bit better and also a bit more well-rounded.

As opposed to just talking about carbon can we also look at a bizarrely being in a tech industry, you find that very few women in tech. On average, about 25% of the industry is women 75% of men. And if you go down into specialisations, like cybersecurity, you’ve got about 5% Women in cybersecurity, which is an awful statistic. Our gender equity in cutting edge technologies and industries of today and for the future.

And that’s why I started to spend a lot more time around women in leadership and gender and girls in STEM, as well as carbon emissions and carbon offsetting. And then Earth 51 was born as a result of that. We wanted to try and help companies become better versions of themselves. And the 51 denotes 51 degrees latitude coordinates which go through Reading so we are very, we’re born in Reading, and that’s what the 51 in our name signifies, and having been born here, about 90% of our client base is all outside of the UK. So very interesting. We get asked that question a lot, but everyday we carry Reading in our hearts and in our journey to every pocket of the world. So yeah, that’s how Earth 51 was born. We’ve been around for three and a half years or so. And very blessed to work with some very good people who are trying to make a difference out there.

Liz Allan  04:04

Ok, so what is your aim as a company and who you who you’re trying to Who are you trying to help them What what are you specifically doing, you know, to support businesses?

Akhil Handa  04:15

We the honest answer is we don’t know what we’re doing. Because and the reason I say that is because we think we’re doing something and then we could ask to do something different. So we started in advisory sandwiched between a management consultancy and a not for profit, somewhere in the middle. There’s a lot of finger pointing at businesses saying you got to do more. The problem as a big part of a business ourselves is that people don’t know where to start. So they’re like, Yeah, you’re right where we stopped and I think that’s the challenge that businesses have. So we thought it was and we started to do that to a lot of our clients said, can you actually educate my teams on why this is important? It’s more of a cultural problem. It’s less of a, you know, an advisory issue right? Now. And that’s still a few steps away.

So from advisory, we added education to our piece, which is a huge part of what we do now. And then a lot of our clients turn around and said, Can you help tell a story better because you seem to know how industries want to do we have an idea in terms of what we are trying to do? Can you marry the two together so now we are, I say storytelling, but we create digital assets for a lot of large organisations that are able to try and tell their story but also showcase their their own business as an ethical and trusted supplier and across the supply chain.

So that’s really important to to call up. And the latest area that we’re getting involved with is a lot of companies are coming to us asking plant trees, can you offset my carbon? Can you help me with my scope one scope two emissions? We also get asked to come into webinars people asking us for market insights. So that’s why I say we don’t know who we are because we are evolving. We are a think tank. But I think we are all we know is that we have to evolve and change to try and take in all the demands. And the requests of the industry because industry is is very nascent. It’s very, it’s very new. And people are trying to figure this out. So as they figure it out, they ask questions and we try and figure it out with them. So we’re always in this in the state of flux literally,

Liz Allan  06:33

I suppose heading if we’re talking about kind of moving companies towards more and more sustainability. It’s like you say it’s quite it’s quite early on in people’s journeys isn’t and I suppose at the moment, companies aren’t always they don’t always know where they want to be or what they want to try and achieve. So are you that conduit for all of this then?

Akhil Handa  06:56

I think all of it is a dangerous word because we like to get involved where it makes sense for us. And for the company. More importantly, I keep telling our listeners and our clients, inject us where we can add value. There is a lot of companies out there that can add value better than us. Well. I think where we can come in is education. I think it’s the first step and it’s the first hurdle that you got to cross before so that you can start to get more of your team behind you. that’s tremendously important. And I’m also not a fan we are not of the fan base, that we have to be very prescriptive with sustainability. People are always telling you what to do.

Whereas organisations are made of very intelligent people who know their company better and all they need is a canvas to understand where they can go with it and how they connect the dots themselves. We don’t need to tell them which bin does the banana skin go in. That’s too prescriptive. They can figure this out when they understand the issues with food waste, or how many people go to bed hungry every night. How do we go ahead and measure the amount of E waste or toxic waste etc that goes into beds. When they figure that out? They will be able to design solutions which are far better than we can conceptualise.

So where we come in is where they need us. And it’s usually around education, advisory and also in creating digital assets and telling the story better to customers in which is perhaps the most under underutilised area of of a business process because no matter how much good company does if it doesn’t talk about it with its investors, customers, partners, employees, no one really knows what they’re doing. It’s very often we get told this thing. I mean, I’ve had companies where as chief financial officer of a company I’ve seen companies report saying this is what we’re doing in sustainability and turnaround and she said that this is it’s so I’m so proud to be working with this company because I didn’t know we were doing all of this. And that’s what I keep coming back to tell your story.

There’s no perfect answer out there so don’t be scared. Just show progress at every step. And I think we can help you with that. But again, inject us where we add value and that I think tremendously important because we have to be all be efficient and and reduce waste in all in in all sorts of ways.

Liz Allan  09:33

I think education is so important when it comes to any any of this, isn’t it and actually, it makes it You’re making it sound. It sounds like you’re a sounding board for these people because actually sometimes you say they don’t don’t recognise how good they are and they don’t recognise all these things that they’re doing. But I suppose you’re that sounding board really in a way to kind of, you know, they’re you’re, you’re kind of educating but you’re also giving them that ability to recognise their what their what they’re doing. Am I right?

Akhil Handa  10:05

Yeah. And I think you need a sounding board now. It’s, I think it’s in any relationship even with your kids and as parents sometimes or as a coach and an athlete, more as a doctor and a patient in any relationship not. I think free advice or too much advice is always dangerous and as always can be a problem. I almost consider some of our clients like like athletes, and they have the they have the capacity, the capability, the resources, the money, the funding. They have everything they need. They have the full package. They just don’t know which way to take it and where to start. And they need a catalyst like us to come in and just help them and be able to do that and I think catalyst is again a fluffy word. But so when you boil it down, I think education helps. So when you actually educate them and say this is what’s happening with the world. This is how you fit in. And this is how you can scale your sustainability transformation. They all go back and say aha, that that’s that’s exactly how we can do it. Thank you for helping us join the dots. Do you mind we come back to you now and then to try and understand how this can progress. I think that’s a more constructive, creative, collaborative way of working with them. Rather than coming in, you know, like large and no offence to large management consultants, but camping with a client for the next three years to drive change. Transformation is not the vision that we have it just we are built differently, but we like to come in and inject change and use us where we add value. I keep saying that.

Liz Allan  11:38

I’m very much a fan of value, adding value myself. I totally get where you’re coming from. So my background is continuous improvement. So people who don’t understand what continuous improvement is basically improving your business in small steps. So we call it continuous improvement because you’re you’re you’re looking at what you’re trying to achieve So yours is just yours is on the sustainability side. Whereas mine is kind of on the process side kind of look at your processes are they are they fit for purpose? Are you running around like a like a headless chicken not able to do your job because the processes aren’t fit for purpose and actually, you’re trying to do what you did when you first started. So yours is very, very much on the on the on the large scale mines quite, you know, sort of localised and looking at kind of the internal workings.

Akhil Handa  12:26

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think we say it slightly differently. We that people love to use the word transformation This is a transformational project. That transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of baby steps like you said incremental steps. So we are a big believer in progress. Just be better today than you were yesterday. Yeah, absolutely. You can improve it literally like losing weight when you go to the gym. You’re not going to be at 5% body fat, you know, overnight, you’re gonna get to that space and it’s about just sticking with it consistency and trying and being disciplined about it. So much the same analogy. I think with business just try and improve. Start be better tomorrow than you are today. Be better today than you were yesterday. Literally.

Liz Allan  13:14

I like that analogy. It’s very much like yeah, you know, if people say that transformation or continuous improvement is an overnight thing then it’s not it takes it takes time and it takes I always think that it takes a little bit of a different mindset as well, doesn’t it? Because actually from from thinking in an improvement side, it’s kind of getting people to think, right, okay. They normally think oh, this is a problem, actually. So this is problem and I’m sick of this but I haven’t got time to do anything about it. And I try and get them to think about right. Okay, well, okay. It’s a problem. But what’s the solution to that? And I suppose yours is very similar, isn’t it? You know, it is just it’s getting people to think differently and just kind of go it’s giving them my work. It’s giving them the tools to be able to think differently as well. And I suppose yours is the same, isn’t it?

Akhil Handa  14:09

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Liz Allan  14:11

So what kind of at the moment, which of the top industries do you think that still need to kind of start moving these changes forward regarding sustainability? Are there other kind of specific ones that you think well, you know, they need to, you know, I don’t mean specific companies and companies, I mean, you know, places that are companies that need to start organisations or sectors that need to start pushing forward a bit.

Akhil Handa  14:40

Yeah, I’m trying to think how to answer that, but the cliched answer is yes, utilities, energy, fashion. Retail, which is true, I think companies with diverse non diverse complex supply chains, sourcing, I mean, sitting here in the UK, we are sourcing Kiwis from seven and a half 1000 miles away in New Zealand, with a lot of food miles on the truck and these are trucks and on and on aeroplanes. complex supply chains are a problem.

And because so much can go wrong. I think that’s where so instead of looking at industries, I would maybe look at how extensive is your supply chain. When you look at it, you know, laterally the other piece I would say is also what’s in those industries. Real estate and construction industries use tremendous amount of cement. They need to look at this in a in a very serious way. If you look at some of the largest polluters and we’re just talking carbon right now. If you talk about the largest polluters, most of them come from oil and gas and construction, manufacturing, mining etc.

You can change a lot by doing very little in the larger scheme of things by making sure that these industries evolve. I also see a lot of this is something I’m not a fan of where a lot of oil and gas companies and none of them are clients of a lot of oil and gas companies get a terrible name for smoking up the air, predominantly. And but people tend to forget they’re the ones with the largest resources. So rather than make them outcasts or alienate them, it’s really important to get them to start to change.

Because when they start to change, they really move the needle rather than catching the next million small companies out there or people who are trying to make a difference by changing 80% of the business model. But yet a 10% change on companies like BP shell Exxon, etc. Aramco will drive a 60% change across the landscape. So I do feel alienating is is the wrong way to go about it. We can’t do that you have to bring in the resources of these giants that have been around for the last 200 years of industrialization, but use them to try and create that transient shift into a into a cleaner, greener future.

So I think us using calling on one particular industry would be a problem, I think, or two or three. I think everyone needs to evolve and change and definitely don’t alienate industries that have been well they’ve been right in the past for whenever you measure it in the past in the in the 60s, if you said BP and Shell you shouldn’t be producing oil and gas. Not many people would listen today.

It’s It’s your call. You can call that you can call that out very loud and clear. So I think it’s also timing. So give them time to change. They are evolving. Keep the pressure on but use them to drive you know transformational change effectively because they will move the needle big time on the overall emissions calculator. So that’s the way we look at it. We are open to working with any industry I think everyone needs help. I genuinely think sauce fashion I’m just trying to think as a consumer is a real problem today. Just I know that every second that passes, there is one garbage truck that heads to landfill. I think we can be better in terms of how we we buy as consumers.

So again, not picking on an industry but they can do so much in terms of how they are they can evolve and shift very quickly. And yeah, barring that I would say anyone with a complex supply chain if you move away from carbon for a second and even look at the fashion industry. They use so much of freshwater ecosystems. They if you look at some of the shoe companies there, you have child labourers where you have 12 year old kid stitching shoes in Bangladesh or some emerging or developing market. If you look at cocoa producers or chocolate manufacturers, sometimes they have marginalised women in cocoa plantations in Uganda or in West Africa, for instance.

So I think don’t marginalise people in your supply chains treat everybody? Well. People tend to pump that responsibility off to the third parties and fourth parties with parties but you need to audit them you need to check, are they getting minimum wage or they’re getting a wage that they can sustain that their families are getting an education. So things like that I think our unit needs to be a well rounded understanding of industries rather than carbon. And I think that’s my worry and is what I spoke about recently. Is this. Is this, what do I say? Is this kind of find the right word, if we were to focused on carbon, and that’s important, but if you don’t solve the other issues around it, you’re not going to be able to solve the carbon. You’re not going to be able to get to net zero. And I think that’s where the problem starts. We don’t have we’ve got a billion people who aren’t educated you got a billion people who won’t get food tonight a billion.

That statement of the US, Europe, Brazil, and parts of the Middle East thrown in. That’s a lot of people are going to bed every night hungry, no electricity, illiterate and have no pipe or no pipe water or no no access to drinking water. Yeah, real issues when you tell them oh, you shouldn’t use plastic. But sadly, plastic is only bottled that they can carry 20 miles to you have to bring home when it comes to drinking water from a clean freshwater pond somewhere. So I think we got to be careful how we measure it in terms of yardsticks people don’t have basic amenities. And you look at Maslow’s pyramid unless people have food, shelter, clothing, etc. They’re not going to be thinking about climate change. And 75% of the world lives there in developing markets.

They don’t live in the UK, which is a population of 60 million. So we got 6 billion people suffering from real world scenarios on the global south. But I think we have to be very conscientious on how we approach climate change and sustainability. It’s a well rounded problem and you need well rounded solutions. It can’t You can’t work in isolation and just focus on carbon that is very dangerous.

Liz Allan  21:29

You’re right, it just opened it up to me actually, it’s it’s more than they say it’s more than the sustainability piece isn’t it’s it’s actually an ethics and being ethical and recognition of what what else is involved. And like you say kind of in that in that supply chain who who is involved but I suppose it’s it’s it’s not just scratching the surface is it. It’s digging down a little bit and being and being considerate and concerned and measured in your approach in who who is who is in that supply chain to kind of make sure it’s it’s it’s right is it’s kind of work is working properly and it is ethical.

Akhil Handa  22:15

Yeah. And it’s not rocket science. When you want to try and build a business. And you look at bringing on 2000 People from a supplier in say Bangladesh that makes T shirts are India. You can visit the factories, you can check that they’re not sweatshops, you can make sure that it’s just not women on the on the factory floors, that there are also women managers and some men on the factory floors.

You can check how much they’re getting paid. It’s not rocket science make the effort, but when you build sustainable, ethical trusted supply chains, consumers will pay more for it. They will know like oh this just piece of cloth that I’m wearing has come from XYZ place where you save 60% of water you recycling a lot of air to use underprivileged people to try and give them jobs.

They want to know the story. And I think that’s important. So if the global north as the purchasing power and the global south are the factories of today and tomorrow, let’s start to do it better. And I find that’s why we just got to be more collaborative.

And again, coming back to carbon, having a tunnel vision. That’s the word I was trying to find. Having this tunnel vision of carbon carbon carbon is, is usually it’s a very privileged way to look at things when you’re sitting in the UK or invest in Europe on the US.

It’s a very unfortunate way to look at things if you landed in Sub Saharan Africa or in in, you know, in rural Tanzania, Uganda. You cannot even talk about carbon emissions. It’s a very different conversation out there. So how do we talk about just clean water sanitation, basic facilities, safety for women, safety for girls, make sure that the girls aren’t getting married at 13 and 14, so that you don’t have six kids by the time they’re 19.

There’s a problem. They stay in poverty as a result of it. There are issues out there that we got to solve because populations are growing in other parts of the world a lot faster. I don’t know if you know this statistic. But I think the largest city in the world, by the end of this century is going to be Lagos. And Lagos is going to have 100 billion people.

And they’re going to be three mega cities in Africa. Once Lagos once Dar Salam and I forget to talk, but the three mega cities with 100 billion people each, the population of the UK today is between 55 and 60 million people. So sorry. Yeah, yeah, so 100 billion people, not 100 million, Mega 100 million people each.

But that’s just goes to show you that nearly one and a half times the UK are going to be settled in Lagos alone or in Ares Slomlo and the population of Africa is going to exponentially grow in the coming years in the next few decades. How are we going to take care of that because you got food that you got to supply you’ve got energy that needs to be built in terms of infrastructure projects.

So when you have these 100 million cities across the world, maybe seven to eight of them by 20 105. For instance. How are you going to support that kind of infrastructure across the globe? And I think that’s where we’re not thinking far enough. And we still trying to think about carbon carbon carbon in the world’s going to be perfect. And again, coming to a carbon is the problem. But the way we go about tackling it is is wrong because we just take it head on instead of trying to figure out what else can we do and the last thing I’ll say to this is all the all the industrialised all the impacts of industrialization in the Global North are all being felt most of all in the Global South.

From climate change to floods to forest fires to all of it is being impacted in the Global South. And I think that has been extremely unfair. And we need to do more as developing nations to do to try and as developed countries to try and give back to developing nations and I know at COP 27 There was a fund that was created trying to create about $100 billion of revenue for countries that have been affected. It’s nowhere near enough money, but at least it’s a start in terms of the understanding that yes, the global north needs owes reparations to the global south for all the interest for 200 years of industrialization. So yeah, so sorry, that’s me going on a rant for it. But really important to give a well rounded, understanding. You don’t measure everyone with one yardstick. That’s the way I always like to call it up. It’s very different where we’re sitting today and we’re very privileged but there’s a whole world out there that’s that that doesn’t see through the same lens.

Liz Allan  26:57

I suppose if I if we look at it, we’re looking at the root cause of what’s happening, aren’t we? And in the other parts of the world because of our demand and systems and everything that’s going on. So yeah, you’re right. You’ve opened my eyes to a very different way of, of thinking and you know who I’m married to as well, don’t you? You know, obviously, the whole idea of climate change. I understand where climate change is coming from and what’s happening but actually the impact of us as individuals and countries in the West, if you’ve just opened it, you’ve just opened up a very different way of thinking for me.

Akhil Handa  27:44

I’ll give you an example of that, sorry to intrude, but E-waste which is all the electronics from our phones and computers etc. We, in the developed countries, we throw away 20 kilos per person. So all of us are going to throw a suitcase full of E waste every year.

Per capita us for developing countries, not Africa, but say India and China as well, is about 250 grammes. So that’s maybe a phone and a bit. So that’s how much they throw brands. We take a suitcase load, which we take on holiday, which is 20 kilos, that’s how much we throw every year. So and again, I would be quick to blame the West for all the developed countries for what’s happened I think industrialisation was important.

As a civilisation we have to grow. We have to progress. And I keep harping on about this. We can’t go backwards. I’m not a fan of flight shaming is we shouldn’t stop flying. We shouldn’t stop progressing, but at the same time we need to use biofuels we need to get better in terms of operating machinery for the future in a way that is better for the planet. We can’t stop doing it. So don’t stop flying. Stop moving. Stop working, live in forests. No one’s asking you to you know to go backwards. We have to go forwards as a civilisation. And they’re clever enough to figure out solutions for the future. So that’s what I’m trying to. Yeah, that’s right. Essentially what I’m trying to summarise.

Liz Allan  29:15

Honestly, I think that we’re like I say it’s given me a very, very different aspects on things. And hopefully it has for the viewers and the listeners as well. So, if I just finalise by saying if people want who are listening or watching, want to actually contact you, how do they how do they contact you? So obviously you’ve got a website. Can you just remind me of the web address?