In this episode, we introduce our new membership option for businesses, explaining how businesses that want to stand out by standing up for the planet can join our Climate Cleanup Club and do good and look good. We also explain how we think many sustainability experts are thinking about carbon removal in the wrong way.

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Transcript:

“Hello, and welcome to another Glad Tidings with me, James McQuarrie.

And me, Ben Wynn. The show in which James and I discuss the progress that we've made as a community towards cleaning up the mess that we've made of our atmosphere.

So, what's coming up in today's show, Ben?

Well, today we've got some feedback from our members, and we're continuing to speak with people. They're signing up and they're giving us feedback, which is wonderful. It's great to have that coming in.

So, we have that. We've got some changes we've been making, which we figured we should tell you all about. Changes to the way we're interacting with businesses and a couple of new concepts, which I'm going to explain.

Naturally, we've got our update on the totalizer for season one, and just to explain where we've got to with that. And we thought we'd spend a little bit of time talking about how we see the world of greenhouse gas removal and how it differs a little bit from a lot of sustainability professionals. We have a different perspective, and we thought we might dive in to that today.

Yeah, looking forward to that discussion. So feedback. The first thing you mentioned was that we have had some great feedback from our members.

So thank you, everybody, who's continued to share their thoughts with us on what we're doing. Brenna, I need to say a big thank you to our member Brenna, who had called out that it wasn't immediately obvious to her that we were a global membership. So Glad is a global product.

Anybody around the world can join in due course. Currently, we are using Go Cardless to set up membership payments, which means we're slightly restricted in which currencies we can use. So as a reminder, we can take British pounds, American dollars, Canadian dollars.

We've got Euros, we've got Australian dollars, and I believe the New Zealand dollars as well. Brenna, in Germany, wanted to pay in Euros, could pay in Euros, but it wasn't clear to her. So thank you Brenna for that feedback.

We have made it more clear now on the home page that you can pay in other currencies. And anybody who'd like to pay in a currency we don't currently support, do let us know. We have plans to introduce those additional currencies as and when we can.

So we can keep you posted when that happens if you're interested. Also, a big thank you to Lewis I spoke with last week. Great feedback. “Love the concept. I think it's a great idea.” So thank you for those positive words and encouragement, Lewis.

Next, I think we should talk, James, about the changes we've been making to how businesses can get involved in Glad. So we launched the membership program for individuals a little while back, and we've always had an offering for businesses. But I guess the way I would phrase it is we've tightened up the way we've packaged the offering for businesses, and we're always striving to make this easy, because just our fundamental belief is the easier it is, the more people will be engaged in it, the more people will sign up, the more people will become members.

And so we've been working on that simplification for businesses. So really, really simple. Just like an individual can sign up to Glad, become a member, pay a membership fee per season, so can a business.

And of course, a business is derived of more people than just individuals, the different sizes, they come in different shapes and sectors, etc. So there are different packages for different businesses. We've simplified that.

There are five based on your size of business. So if you're a micro business, a small business, medium business, a large business, or an even larger business, typically called an enterprise, we call it custom, there are different price points. And that is a fee that you pay as an organization on a seasonal basis, just like it works for individuals.

So in that sense, very, very simple. You join as a business, and the amount you're paying as a fee is the money that goes directly to remove greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Really, really simple.

And, of course, based on that membership fee, you get a score. We've introduced a thing that we've given a new name to, the Climate Cleanup Score. The Climate Cleanup Score is a measure of the impact that you're having as an organization or, I guess, as an individual.

But the key thing here is if you think about operating as a business, you can spend money to remove greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. That's something you could do without Glad. By coming into the folds of Glad, you can still do that.

You pay your membership fee, and that fee is used to clean up greenhouse gas. So that's great. But what that misses is the influence that you can have as a business.

What do we mean by influence? Well, we think the impact you have as an organization should be about more than just putting your hand in your pocket, because we think as a business, as a leader of a business, you have significant influence over your employees, over your customers, and you can use that to do good, and you can use it to look good. And so the way we talk about doing that is through what we call impact influence.

That's actually what your climate cleanup score is. So think of it first of all as an individual. So imagine James wasn't a member of Glad, God forbid, seen as he's a founder of Glad.

But imagine I convinced James to join, because I told him how amazing this was. James would join, he'd pay his membership fee. That would be 12 pounds for the season.

That equates to 40 kilograms. And so his impact score would be 40 kilograms. But because I'd influenced James, and he'd signed up via my profile, I would also get a boost to my score because of my influence.

My influence would have increased by 40 kilograms. So do that for a business where, let's say the CEO of the business can convince the team to sign up. For every member that signs up, that business has influenced that impact.

And so their influence impact score increases. We think that's important because what businesses are looking for, what they've told us they're looking for is to do the right thing. They need to look good.

They need that competitive advantage, that marketing lever. And so the Climate Cleanup Score is designed to help them do just that.

And it doesn't stop there, does it? We've also introduced this idea of Boosts. Do you want to introduce that?

So of course, that's not the only thing you can do. You can pay your membership fee.

Great. But what about the team that you've got? We've heard from so many different business leaders who tell us that they're under pressure from their employees who want to do something.

So there's a great example, a sustainable primed business. They're trying to do everything they can as an organization, but their team is saying, yeah, that's great, but what can we do? What can we do as individuals?

So we've introduced what we call the Team Boost. And the Team Boost is really, really simple. Let's imagine I am the leader of this organization, and I say, look, we've signed up as a business to Glad.

We've become a member. This is our profile. This is the impact we're having as a business.

But if you want to do something, if you as an individual feel like you want to contribute, become a member of the club, you want to have an impact and be part of the solution, sign yourselves up. Do so via this link, and we will match the amount of your membership fee. Let's imagine that you sign up one business, one employee.

They pay their 12 pounds for the season, and the business will match that. So the business is matching the impact. 40 kilograms, which is the amount of greenhouse gas removed from one member in one season.

So the business matches that 40 kilograms, puts in that extra amount, and it goes into a thing that we're calling theme boost. And that's not the only boost, hey, James?

No, we've also got sponsorship boost. So sponsorship boost allows you, as an organization, to increase your cleanup score by sponsoring some of Glad's activities. So you can appear on this very podcast, the Glad Tidings Podcast.

You can appear in the communication with our members on a seasonal basis, and your brand can appear front and center on the seasons page on our website. Detailing all the activities that have happened during a season, all of the contributions that have been made from various people, how much the totalizer has come up to so far while during a live season. And then you also stay on that season page post the season when the funds collected have been deployed, and where we give continuous updates on the projects that have been supported via the contributions from that season.

So it's a good opportunity to have your brand and your organization in front of our members over a long period of time. It's not just 12 weeks of per season. It's the continuous updates across activity from each season over time as well.

So we're quite excited by that. And we have one more as well, don't we, Ben?

Yeah, one more up our sleeve. We thought if we're going to introduce boosts, let's do three at once. This one's a really simple one.

We call it the top-up boost, and it really just allows an organization to, well, clues in the name, to top up. So the reason we have this is a number of businesses we've spoken to have said, not the right time for us to speak to customers, speak to employees, but we'd like to do more than the base membership fee. And for whatever reason, they have that budget available.

It's left at the end of their financial year, in there, a sustainability budget, whatever their reason. What we don't want to do is leave impacts on the table. And so a top-up boost allows a business to pay the membership fee for the season and top that up with whatever they choose for whatever reason.

And the reason businesses are telling us that that's really interesting is when they need to get that kind of injection of sustainable impact. Perhaps it might time with an investor update or some form of board reporting where they desperately need to improve their metrics. We're fine with that.

We don't really mind why. What we're interested in is cleaning up the mess. And so if we allow them to talk up, let's do that through a top-up boost.

Indeed. I'm very excited by that. And talking of cleaning up the mess, we promised you an update on the Season 1 Totalizer to date.

I can happily reveal that we are currently at time of recording at 14,380 kilograms of greenhouse gas that will be removed at the end of this season. So that's fantastic effort from all of our members to date. Just a reminder, we are coming up to the end of February at the moment.

This season will end at the end of March, so there is still time to join and take part in raising for our very first season of the Glad membership.

Yeah, great progress.

Very happy with those numbers.

The numbers look good, James.

Indeed. I'm going to hand over to you, Ben, to have a little bit of a discussion around how we think differently about removals versus offsets and how we think maybe a lot of sustainability experts are thinking about it in the wrong way.

Yeah, so this is something that's come up a lot from individuals we've been speaking with. So James and I have been out in market speaking with individuals, people going about their daily lives, people that are interested in climate change, to business leaders, marketeers, sustainability professionals, all sorts of different people. And something that comes up a lot from those that are involved in sustainability, when we explain what we're doing in Glad, they make the assumption that what we're doing is offsets, which we're absolutely not.

But it's interesting that that connection is made in their mind. And we just felt it's worth talking about why Glad isn't offsets, why there's a difference, but not for our own benefit, because we think there's a missing piece happening within climate, the world of climate action, which we're trying to address as Glad, but we're not naïve enough to think we can solve this on our own. The market needs to change in this way.

And so let me try and explain it. So let's start with the concept of net zero. Most people are familiar with the idea of net zero, trying to get to global net zero, a business trying to meet net zero targets.

So let's understand what they are. Well, the way that was set out by the ScienceBased Targets is an organization should remove... sorry, should reduce its emissions by 90% and is then allowed to offset the remaining 10%.

What does an offset mean then? Well, trying to simplify that, if you've emitted a certain amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, let's call it 100 units, then you can offset the fact you've emitted that by buying from somewhere else. And so the offset really is a mechanism, it's almost like an accounting mechanism for balancing your emissions.

But if you abstract what climate action is actually all about, trying to tackle climate change, we just simplify it down to two things. Stop putting stuff up into the atmosphere and take the stuff out that we've already put up there. And the problem that we see is that everyone, by which I mean everyone in the world of climate action, everyone in sustainability seems to be focused on the reduction part, which is one half of the equation.

The reduction is reduced emissions, energy transition, it's heat pumps, it's electrification of vehicles, it's net zero targets, all of those things, all not much needed. We desperately need more of it. But we have to recognize that it's on the left hand side of the equation.

It's on reduction and it's not on the removal, because removal to us means cleaning up the mess. Now you can use a removal, a removal of a ton of carbon dioxide as an offset. There's nothing wrong with that.

As long as you recognize that that is still about balancing your books on reductions, it's not actually doing anything to clean up the mess. And where we sit is just in that removal side. Where we're saying everything you do through Glad, all of the membership fees that get paid, all of the boosts that are used, all of that money goes to cleaning up the mess.

It is not, should not, and hopefully will not ever be used by businesses to do an offset, because that doesn't help remove the legacy emissions that are up in the atmosphere. And that's why Glad is positioned differently. It's why when we talk about what we're doing, we provide businesses with an impact influence score.

It's why we say to them, use this as a complement to anything else you're doing within your climate action. But the bigger piece we're trying to say is, focus on both, focus on your reductions, focus on all of that activity, use less energy. Educate your teams, your customers, do as much as you possibly can on that.

And at the same time, remove as much as you possibly can out of the atmosphere. Because it's only when you do both of those things that you're actually having a genuine impact.

Indeed. Indeed. And a way I've been thinking about this that might be useful is to think about the reduction activity.

You see, reduction in emissions, your offsetting of residual emissions is all about current and future emissions. And what we're talking about, the removal piece that Glad wants to help support in terms of cleaning up the mess that we've already made is all about legacy and historical emissions. That mess is already up there and we need to clean it up.

And that's what we're focused on. Your reduction activity and your offsetting activity is about the mess you've recently made or reducing how much mess you make in the future. And they are two different related, but different things.

I think the thing that comes to my mind from that is there's an argument that I hear a lot, which is, but how do I know how much is my responsibility? How do I know how much of my legacy emissions I should remove? Surely I need to calculate all of that first before I take any action?

And just to emphasize, really, we just think that's the wrong approach, because you could spend thousands and thousands trying to calculate that. You could tie yourself in knots. You could build entire teams and algorithms and bits of software and sort of almost go bankrupt trying to calculate that equation.

Or you could just start cleaning up the mess. And so Glad is all about just keep it simple, put in the amount of money that you can afford and start cleaning up that mess and encourage someone else to do the same thing. Because we believe it's a community problem.

We believe we've all contributed to it. Yes, some have contributed much more than others. But unless we all start to clean up the mess, let's just get that snowball started.

Let's start the cleanup. Let's not worry too much about the legacy attribution. Because time is running out.

We've got to get on with this. And so that's a problem we can fix perhaps another day. But let's just get started on the cleanup.

Let's just get started. Yes, let's let's end on that. So thank you, Ben.

Thank you all. Just before I wrap up, we have our end of episode Ask of You. So please, if you want to just get started and to help us on this mission to clean up that legacy mess that we've all collectively made over time, please do join us.

Sign up to become a member. You can do so at gladclimate.com. If you run a business or are interested in the business you work for joining us, you can go to gladclimate.com/business, where you can find out how to get one of the business memberships we've talked about and how to boost your impact influence score.

If you have joined us or can't join us just at the moment, the next best way to help us out is to tell a friend, tell that one person you know who would really like to play their part in cleaning up the legacy mess that we've just been talking about. Tell them about Glad. Tell them about the club.

Tell them about the memberships and tell them why they should join us and take part. And for those who haven't done so yet, please do follow and subscribe to this podcast. Wherever you might get it, YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, etc.

Follow along and subscribe. It really helps make sure that this gets found by as many people as possible. And with it, that.

Thank you, Ben. Thank you all for listening, all watching, and see you on the next one. Bye.