In this episode we remind ourselves and our listeners why we make the Glad Tidings podcast. We share an update on what we learnt having run and completed season one of the Glad Club and we introduce our new, exciting, Glad Saver Card - the membership club that unlocks great savings from planet friendly brands while also doing your part to help save the planet.

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Transcript:

Ben Wynn (00:02)

Hi everyone, welcome to Glad Tidings with me, Ben Wynn.

James (00:06)

And me, James McQuarrie, this is the show in which Ben and I discuss the progress we and our amazing members of the Glad Climate Club have made towards cleaning up the mess we've made of our atmosphere.

Coming up in today's show, a summary of what we've learnt from season one, which feels like a while ago now, and a really exciting update on what we've been working on since then. But before we do that, Ben, do want to give us a reminder of why we're doing this?

Ben Wynn (00:31)

Yeah, well, as you say, it's a progress update, really. The way James and I have thought about this is having spent far too long in our careers doing what we call all hands, or sometimes gets called town halls, but really just, or we've always called highlights because we just quite like the idea of positive reinforcement. So the end of the week, you get the team together in a business and you tell them.

the good, the bad and the ugly of what's happening in that business. And we just think that that is an absolutely vital component in any part of a fast growing organization. set the vision, you set the direction of where you go in and you communicate transparently. But the realization we had right at the start was the team that matters is not internally, it's not James and I and the rest of the Glad team.

It's our community, it's you guys, it's our members. And we need to let you know what we're doing. We feel the only way to operate, well, in business, but particularly in a climate business like this, is to operate transparently. So unfortunately, what that means is you get a pretty raw, unedited, hopefully authentic narrative about...

the progress we've made about what we're up to. Our intention is to try to tell you the good, the bad, and hopefully not so much of the ugly. But yeah, we're trying to just do this in a way that helps you understand the journey we're on. So think of it as a journey update more than anything else.

James (01:56)

I like that. So the evolution of Glad just before we talk through what we're doing, I want to reinforce that we're still on the same mission. We're still here to accelerate the cleanup of greenhouse gas from our atmosphere. We still have the same goal. We want to remove one billion tons. And we are still a membership club for individuals and businesses. But now we have some added value on top of that. And we have that added value thanks to what we've launched quietly in the last couple of weeks or so maybe even longer now it's the climate saver card so a membership club that provides access to exclusive savings from brands using business as a force for good

Just as before, when people join Glad, the membership fee goes to directly, permanently removing greenhouse gas as fast as we can. But now, as well as getting to do that and to do that good in the world, you also get access to savings from some amazing brands. Let's talk about why Ben

Ben Wynn (02:53)

Well it comes from what we learnt from season one. So we're recording this towards the end of June 2025, which for us is coming to the end of our season two. And so what we realised is just having said, think we should communicate with you regularly and often is just this idea we haven't done that for a while. We haven't done that because we've been working on the Saver card. And what we've really been doing is working on

What have we learnt? What insights have we gained from just basically sitting down and speaking with as many people as we can, people, individuals of all backgrounds, all geographies, business leaders in big business, small business, et cetera. And we've sat down and really listened intently to the feedback they're giving us about what they would like to do, their attitudes to the climate, and I guess kind of what holds them back.

And whilst all of those diverse range of people provide the answer in a slightly different way, they're really all saying the same thing. And we distill that down into a sentiment of what's in it for me. And what we mean by that is people need a short term return, a short term piece of value. And it would be very easy to misunderstand that or mishear it as there are not enough people in the world that actually care, want to do something. We don't think it's that. We do think the pool of people that have the foresight, the disposable income and the willingness to contribute their hard-earned cash for something that will have value in the future and that that value will be spread across everybody on the planet, that pool is actually quite small. But the pool of people that want to do something about this want to do their bit, want to play their part is the majority. But what's missing for them is a short-term return, a what's in it for me. And so what we realised is they need an incentive. So we went back to the drawing board and said, well, how might we stick with our purpose, stick with our goal of cleaning up the atmosphere, but find a way to give these people an incentive, give them a motivation to actually act.

That has manifested itself into the saver card. And I think it's probably worthwhile explaining what that means, what is a saver card, how does it all come together. So as James said, it's a membership club. So you pay a fee every month. That fee goes directly to the climate pot. We pool the funds at the end of the three months or what we call a season. That goes to a portfolio of greenhouse gas removal technologies. So that piece... is as we've always been operating with Glad. But what you get access to now as a member is a range of different savings from a whole load of different brands. And the best way to explain that, think, well, perhaps through one of the brands that we've got signed up so far. So think of your mobile phone bill. I'm going to make the assumption that everyone listening to this has a mobile phone.

And is in some way paying for that on a monthly basis. Doesn't matter if you're on contract, if you're on a pay as you go, every month money's leaving your account to pay for your mobile use. Now imagine you could get 15 % off that bill. And it depends of course what plan you're on, what your monthly contract is, et cetera, but take 15 % off that in your mind. And now think about... all of the other outgoings on a monthly basis. Think about your insurances, think about your groceries, think about your streaming services, your broadband, think about the coffees you buy, all of these things that you're spending money on every single month and you're paying for them anyway. This is not additive, it's not consumerism, buying stuff you don't really need, it's stuff you need to live and what we think we can do

What we've already proven we can do is get brands to provide offers to a community of people that are trying to help do good in the world, trying to help clean up the atmosphere. So an example of that is a brand called Meaningful Planet. They are a mobile operator that is really leaning into this idea of positive climate impact. So what they do, if you sign up with Meaningful Planet, they put 10 % of their profits towards rewilding in the UK.

They're a UK-based mobile operator. So 10 % of their profit goes directly to restoring all sorts of different nature projects. However, if you sign up to them as a Glad member, you get 15 % off your bill. So you're getting a double saving and double impact. You get the impact from Glad, you get the impact from Meaningful Planet, you get the cheaper mobile bill, and you're getting to do a whole lot of good in the world.

But what matters, I think, is not that you get it cheaper and that they deploy some of the money they make to rewilding and restoring nature. It's that it's actually a really good product. sits, Meaningful Planet sits on the EE network, which means it's as good as basically all of the other mobile networks that are out there. It's just a little bit better.

So we're quite excited by that. And hopefully we'll get Nick from Meaningful Planet on the pod and he can tell us all about it and where they deploy the money. think that'd be a really interesting thing for future.

James (08:22)

Absolutely. And who else have we got?

Ben Wynn (08:26)

We've already got loads of brands lined up and live on the site, which we're really excited to be partnering with. And we've got a backlog of brands that we're going to be adding on a weekly basis. But I think just to bring this to life today, let's pick on a couple of examples. here's what I'm really excited by is Elvis & Kresse So an absolute sustainability champion.

This is a brand that makes handbags, belts, and other items out of reclaimed fire hoses and parachute, the silk from parachutes. So they're taking waste material, turning it into a premium product that kind of lasts forever. I mean, these fire hoses, if you're carrying that around as a bag, they're almost bomb proof, right? So they've taken a waste product and into a premium product, and they're just a multi award winning sustainability champion. Super, super excited to have them on board.

James (09:19)

Another brand that we've got on is local to me actually over here in the West Country, a brand called Counter Coffee who offer an online Coffee Bean, Coffee Grounds subscription. Very excited to have them on. They're giving our members a great saving on those subscriptions. And their unique approach to coffee is making sure that everybody has the ability to choose how much caffeine they have in their coffee.

As someone myself who has to have low caffeine coffee, I'm very grateful they exist. I am an existing customer there. Before we did the deal with them, just to make that clear, I'm not getting paid to say that in any way. yeah, so check them out as well on the website. Very, very interesting brand to be working with. And as Ben has said, we have more brands lining up and we will be adding them weekly as we continue to get them on board.

I think it's important to say that existing members are getting these savings so if you're listening to this you've already signed up your membership already gives you access to these things and you should be seeing emails coming from us over the last few weeks and in the next few weeks as we announce all these different partnerships with details of how to get access to these savings and all new members so anyone who's signing up from today will automatically get access to the existing savings and all future savings that we will be announcing over the next weeks and months as well. So I think that kind of wraps up the update really doesn't it Ben?

Ben Wynn (10:45)

It's funny because it's one of the shortest updates we've done for one of the biggest changes and we haven't done it for a while but that's the irony of it, so there you are.

James (10:50)

Before I wrap up, I realised we've not actually given an update on where we've got to with our totaliser. I'm just checking the totaliser right now and we're just coming towards the end of season two and to date we have, thanks to our amazing members, being able to or will be able to fund the removal of over 42,000 kilograms of greenhouse gas, which is amazing given that we're still very early in our journey. That number is getting bigger by the day. And so we're incredibly grateful to everybody who's become a member and is supporting us on this journey. And before we say goodbye, we have asks. I always have an ask at the end of the podcast. If you're interested in getting access to these savings that we're talking about please join us. The sooner you join, the sooner you get access to those savings every month. So please do join us. If you've already joined or you're thinking about joining but you know now that with this additional...

kind of perk to being a member, you know other people who would be interested in joining us too, please do share gladclimate.com and this podcast with people so they can understand it in more detail. And finally, please do follow and like the podcast. It really does help get the word out there and make more people aware of what we're doing.

Ben Wynn (12:12)

Until next time, Thank you, James. See you soon.

James (12:14)

Thanks for everyone for listening. See you soon. Bye bye.