6th Sep 2022
Our next client origin story comes from Caitlin Job, translator and copywriter. I love how Caitlin aligned skills and interest and took further qualifications to nurture a particular aspect of the work to set up a specialist and rounded, ethical business. It's really interesting to learn more about professional translation and what that entails too.
Hi, I’m Caitlin Job. I translate French online and print content into English. I also write blog posts, newsletters, website copy and more in English for sustainable and ethical businesses.
When people learn what I do, they often ask about translation (much more so than copywriting), so to start off, here are a few signposts to help you navigate the industry:
Now onto me and my business. My freelance journey started when I moved back to the UK from France, where I had been working in-house as a translator.
I fell into freelancing because there aren’t many in-house translation positions in the UK.
I mainly specialised in marketing and tourism as that was what I’d been doing in-house, and I love learning about new places and introducing English speakers to French culture.
I’ve always been passionate about nature and the environment. I remember lovingly carrying round a dogeared copy of a DK butterfly book, eager to spot a new species.
Moving to Bristol only made me more interested in the environment and sustainability – and it has given me a slightly warped view of what a normal number of vegetarian and vegan options is on a menu!
After freelancing for a while, I started feeling uncomfortable with some of my translation work as it targeted jet-setters, which didn’t align with my own lifestyle and beliefs.
When lockdown hit, travel and tourism translations dried up overnight. I decided to use the extra time to take a step back and evaluate my business.
Aligning my specialisms with my personal interests seemed like a no-brainer if I wanted to do my bit to make a difference.
I had also done some copywriting projects while working as a translator and enjoyed being able to create my own content rather than using other people’s words, so I took the College of Media & Publishing’s copywriting course and graduated with a distinction.
That makes it sound like I was incredibly productive during lockdown, but I binged my fair share of TV and baked countless cakes too. I just didn’t have much work or any kids.
Since then, my business has focused on helping purpose-led companies.
As a translator, I enable ethical French brands to market themselves in the UK. I also translate tourism texts for organisations championing a sustainable tourism ethos and content related to sustainable building, from smart cities to off-site construction.
As a copywriter, I write copy that clearly explains what makes a company and its products/services great, rather than the usual marketing focused on urgently buy, buy, buying.
I believe transparency is the key to earning customer trust. And it can help combat greenwashing (when companies make out that they’re more sustainable than they are).
I particularly love making complex ideas accessible. Often solutions to the climate crisis are complicated, and people need to be able to understand them if they’re going to become widespread.
I currently do more translation than copywriting, but I’d like to have a more even split in the future. I’m planning to donate a proportion of my profits to an environmental charity or tree planting campaign, but I still have some research to do to find the right one.
Like all businesses, mine is a work in progress. But as a firm believer in transparency, I share the steps I’m taking to reduce my impact as a business owner in a social responsibility charter on my website, including using Green Hosting!
Website: caitlinjob.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/caitlinjob
Twitter: twitter.com/CaitlinJob
17th Aug 2022
Whether you're starting up a new business or making changes to how you already work, there are certain services you will always need or find incredibly useful.
We've been around for a while, so we've found some great services along the way. Here's a round up, some are our clients, some are services we personally use and some just look really good. Let us know if there are any you would recommend.
Green Stationery Co
We have been using the Green Stationery Company since day one (that's nearly 18 years ago). With their impeccable customer service, they supply everything we could have possibly needed for our office. On top of that, they really care about having as little impact on the environment as possible. Check out their 'About' page to find out what they say.
greenstat.co.uk
Ethical Revolution
Sam, founder of Ethical Revolution, is one of our Green Hosting clients and this service is incredibly clever. As well as providing a wealth of knowledge about ethical products and services, Ethical Revolution has a directory of ethical companies and a bank of discount codes for those companies (Green Hosting is included of course). You can also search for books from ethical shops as an alternative to Amazon.
ethicalrevolution.co.uk
Libraries of Things - Share & Elmbridge Community Eco Hub
As we have our beloved public libraries in the towns and cities of the UK, I feel we should have as many libraries of things too. What an amazing way to tackle waste, by simply borrowing the things we only need to use occasionally rather than buying them. Often, items in the library have been donated by the public too and the prices are lower than traditional hire shops (and/or there's a membership fee to contribute to costs like maintenance, insurance etc). Green Hosting clients Share Frome and Elmbridge Eco Hub stock a range of items such as tools, cleaners and events equipment. Do you have a library of things in your town?
sharefrome.org elmbridgeecohub.org.uk
Ethical Consumer
We have referred to Ethical Consumer time and time again when looking to buy goods or services for both home and business. This massive resource provides a wealth of detailed information about companies and how they score when it comes to various ethical issues (such as environment, people and politics). There are often surprises in there too so always worth checking! Their membership is very reasonably priced in our opinion too.
ethicalconsumer.org
We founded our business with a bank account with The Co-operative Bank all those years ago. Their customer-led ethical policy really is inspirational (see our article about our own ethical policy) and we believe they genuinely care about the planet, people and community as they say. Some of our clients use other, newer ethical banking services such as Starling, Triodos and Unity Trust which look great too.
We shopped around a little for our business insurance in the past few years. We found a company we really liked and have stayed with them, not just because of their ethical credentials but because of their helpful, friendly and professional customer service. They are Evergreen Insurance Services, a broker that donates a percentage of their commission to one of their many conservation and animal support charity partners. Other options that we looked at were Naturesave and The Co-op business insurance.
Good accountants are worth their weight in gold, dealing with the complexities of tax returns, PAYE and everything else that allows you to get on with earning the money. Green & Moore is a vegan and environmentally friendly business. David, the founder explains on their website how they work in a green and ethical manner. Kathleen Moss specialises in accounting services for charities. Both are Green Hosting clients.
Finding and expressing your unique business voice, whether through good marketing support or copywriting services, can make all the difference. Here are some Green Hosting clients who provide those services:
The Ethical Copywriter - Rachel is a freelance copywriter for ethical and sustainable brands. She cares about helping the right businesses make money. Read The Ethical Copywriter origin story.
Cocoon Communications - Katie provides conscious marketing communications for eco friendly and sustainable brands. Read the Cocoon Communications origin story.
Melissa Hobson - Copywriting and PR for people protecting the ocean. As a certified scuba instructor Melissa has a specific interest in caring for marine life.
Caitlin Job - Copywriter & French to English translator specialising in ecotourism, ethical marketing and international development.
Mission Mango - Marketing, consulting and coaching for socially conscious and ethically engaged entrepreneurs
Communicating your brand through visual media enhances anything we can say in words, whether that's in the form of illustrations, iconography or video. These Green Hosting clients have you covered:
Thoughts Make Things - Our colleague of many years (and our dear friend), Lydia provides illustration, art direction and design in the most thoughtful way. Take a look at her portfolio to see packaging and merchandise design, print and digital work, icon creation and her own personal projects.
Kiakari - A photographer, artist, designer, writer and editor with twenty years' experience to a range of clients.
Rob Bartlett - On a mission to do good with design, via icons and pictograms and with equality, diversity and inclusion front of mind.
Fuzzfox - Ethical video productions helping businesses, charities and non-profits raise awareness of their brand and engage their audience.
Puffin digital - Graphic design, logos, brand creation, web design and digital marketing. Transforming ideas into beautiful, eye-catching designs!
360events - Providing specialist services relating to the technical and creative requirements of branding agencies, marketing companies and event organisers.
Then there are those specialists who support you as an entrepreneur to learn the personal and professional skills to develop your ethical business further. Here are a range of those experts, all Green Hosting clients:
#Ethical Hour - We have been members of the #EthicalHour community since it was first founded by the brilliant Sian. It is a network and a wealth of resources 'to unite the most vibrant, supportive and sustainable community of changemakers on the internet'.
Kenekt - Connecting climate action with people and business through a range of services including pro bono support for charities and community projects.
Thinking Outside - Nature based-coaching and development including retreats and networking walks (or 'netwalks') to facilitate thinking.
Ethical Sales - B2B sales partners for purpose-driven business. Look out for their free sales resources and best practice examples for ethical businesses.
Laura Bartlett - For those at the beginning of a new journey, an Executive Coach helping people find their purpose and achieve their ambitions.
Rebecca Nestor - Supporting those facing the climate crisis through workshops and climate cafes, coaching and organisational consultancy.
Welsh Mill Hub - A shared work space and community venue for Frome including office space, remakery space, venue hire and events.
Edventure - Edventure in Frome run courses, events and programmes in community entrepreneurship. A place to build skills, community and confidence to grow a kinder, fairer, greener world.
3rd Aug 2022
This time our client origin story comes from Michael, founder of Elmbridge Community Eco Hub. This story really does show the power of community in difficult times. We also love that Michael was inspired by a fellow Green Hosting client when he was brewing up the idea of the hub. Here's the full story in Michael's own words...
In 2019 whist recovering from a cycling accident, I started to formulate an idea of creating a community/environmental project in the town I have lived in for almost 20 years (Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey, UK). The trigger was “fired” whilst watching an episode of BBC’s CountryFile, where they highlighted the work being done by ShareFrome, in creating a Library of Things in the Somerset town. Basically it was a retail unit that offered everyday household items, gardening tools, musical instruments, toys and games and power tools for the community to borrow in return for a small fee/donation, saving these items from going to waste sitting in a garden shed, a cupboard under the stairs or in an attic gathering dust. The benefits include saving people money as they can borrow items for a short term and not have to part with a potential huge initial outlay. It also helps the environment as it reduces reliance on manufacturing lots of new items, shipping them across the world, not to mention the mining and drilling for the raw materials used to make them in the first place. I loved the idea and started to wonder if this was something we could benefit from in our area.
During my research into the Library of Things concept, I started to discover other projects that I thought could also benefit our community. For example, Community Fridge, plastic free refill, community run small item recycle collection points and book swap. The challenge then was determining if I had the willpower, determination, time and energy to try to bring these to Walton, whether the community wanted them, how I could perhaps make this happen all the while trying to balance family life with my wife and fellow Eco Hub Director Deb, and our 3 teenage children – Dillon, Harry and Megan. After a few months mulling things over and discussing it with family and friends, I decided to give it a go. I was approached by a couple of people who had time to help and we started formulating an organisation, creating a brand, and looking for potential venues that could host all of the initiatives under 1 roof – A physical Hub, for as little money as possible - as we had NONE!
By the time January 2020 came around, we had a business plan, a constitution, a bank account, were registered as a not for profit Community Interest Company and had viewed a potentially very suitable and affordable venue. Very exciting times. Of course then the global Covid pandemic hit the world and everyone’s lives were put on hold for many months.
Roll on to October 2021. Some people - who are now lifelong friends left the project due to work and family commitments and were succeeded by others. Indeed the team grew from 4 to 8 people, all coming from various backgrounds – medicine, market research, social work, occupational health, gardening, accounting, media and home making.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, advanced and prolonged discussions with the local council for taking on a lease on a local empty property sadly fell through at the very last minute. Thankfully the council really liked the idea of the Eco Hub and following a brainstorm session offered us a 3 year peppercorn lease on a former bowling green and associated club house (an approximately 200 year old former stable block to a local Manor House). The site had been abandoned approximately 8 years and was in terrible shape. The green – approximately ¼ acre in size, was wild, often accessed by local kids at the weekends and covered with broken glass, rubble and rubbish. Access to the building itself was inhibited as it was totally overgrown with Buddleia, so much so it took almost a month of clearing before we could actually get in! With no insulation, hot water or heating, it was surprising to see that it was at least watertight and free from damp.
The fantastic people of Walton-on-Thames rallied round and helped completely clear the site, clean and decorate the building, raise funds and awareness all with the aim of bringing the Elmbridge Community Eco Hub to life. However, 6 weeks after receiving the keys, the building was sadly broken into leaving windows broken, security lighting smashed, the heating, Wi-Fi and TV stolen, and the place generally trashed. Clearly this was devastating to everyone involved, but within hours, the community had yet again rallied round, helped to clean up and make repairs, raised funds to replace heating, and install a comprehensive security system.
6 months on and the Elmbridge Community Eco Hub is thriving, some would say it’s become an essential part of our community. We host the Library of Things, Community Fridge, a Community Garden, Small item recycling, plastic free refill, book, boardgame and jigsaw swap, a seed bank, run community litter picking events and we are about to initiate a skill share initiative.
We finally opened to the public on Valentine’s Day (February 14th) 2022 and have since had approx 3500 visitors, have redistributed almost 3 tonnes of surplus food, 500 books, are nearing our 100th loan in the Library of Things. We have created a really beautiful community garden comprising an allotment area, sensory garden and wildflower meadow with 2 ponds to encourage wildlife and biodiversity. To support all this we have 35 regular volunteers, 200+ “drop in volunteers” and 16 Duke of Edinburgh bronze, silver, gold young people volunteering. We also host regular visits from schools, colleges, beavers, cubs, scouts, brownie groups, special needs groups and other volunteer groups, host corporate days and generally encourage inclusivity and community cohesion. All this and were still only 5 months old! Based on this start the future is very promising, if perhaps hopefully a little less hectic and emotional!!
Find Elbridge Eco Hub online:
elmbridgeecohub.org.uk
Instagram: @elmbridge_eco_hub
Twitter: @Elmbridgeecohub
27th Jul 2022
This year the Cooperative Bank are celebrating their 150th anniversary and 30 years since they formed their original customer-led ethical policy. This policy meant that they would refuse banking services to businesses involved in certain social and environmental issues. Around 12 years later (in 2004) we founded our web design business, Make Hay Ethical E-media and a year later Green Hosting. We had already decided that we wanted to run our business responsibly and with care for people, animals and the planet and inspired by the Cooperative Bank decided to implement an ethical policy too.
We haven't been around as long as the Coop but we do have a few (18 to be precise) years under our belts. To this day our ethical policy is still one of the most important aspects of our business. In our ethical policy we highlight the type of work we love to support as well as the practices we will not engage with via our services. This is not about judgement but about focussing our efforts on work that has a positive impact.
We believe there are other valuable reasons for implementing an ethical policy. A publically published ethical policy holds you accountable to your words and as a business owner the buck stops at you to ensure those words are actually actions. We ask our clients to agree to our ethical policy before signing up to our services as we do not wish to earn money from exploitative practices. This means our customers can also feel confident that they are not paying their hard-earned money to a company that profits from irresponsible or unethical business.
The list of issues in our ethical policy demonstrates our priorities and guides our work. You might wonder how necessary this is for a small business such as ours but in the early days we were approched on seperate occassions to work for companies linked to the fossil fuel industry and horse racing. We of course declined immediately. These days we are more well known for our ethos and customer base and such enquiries are not as likely. However it doesn't make our ethical policy any less relevant and acts as a means of continually provoking thought for ourselves as we continually learn and hopefully for others.
Is there anything you feel we should add to or change in our ethical policy? Do you have an ethical policy and what does it mean for your business? We'd love to hear from you.
13th Jul 2022
Our latest Client Origin Story comes from Rebecca of Conscious Skincare. The great thing about this story is that this business was in the pipeline for Rebecca from a young age. Find out how it came into being and the success it is today. Over to you Rebecca...
9 ½ out of 10. This was the score from my biology homework when I was 13. The topic was ‘The Skin’ and the homework was to create a skincare routine for a teenager.
From an early age, I always wanted to run my own business. I always loved experimenting, especially if I could see a way I could improve things. The perfect opportunity came along when me and my husband moved to the west coast of Wales. Soon after we moved in, however, my husband was poisoned by a well known weed killer and became instantly sensitive to everything so I scrabbled through my notes and recipes and made up some products he could use safely. And so, Conscious Skincare was born!
I had already started ‘tinkering’ with skincare recipes with an ‘Ooh what if I did that?’ curiosity at every turn. Now, over 10 years later, we’re blown away sometimes by how much our customers love our products, our ethos and equally by their loyalty and support; we’re humbled by it in fact. It also affirms to us that we’re doing the right things, the right way. This was never about a ‘get rich’ scheme for us, or to turn Conscious Skincare into some multi national faceless corporation. It was, and still is about making the best natural skincare products we can with the best organic ingredients and being close enough to these precious ingredients and the process to know their providence and integrity, rather than our products being massed produced god knows how, god knows where then shipped half way around the world. And at what true cost?
Who knew we’d reach the point when we were sitting at our dining room table in 2012, hand labelling 1800 products for a boutique, Cotswold hotel contract we’d won, with boxes piled high all around us? We hand labelled all those products with a ‘Heath Robinson’ gadget my father-in-law crafted from wood so we could rest the bottle on a cradle and line up the label so it would apply neatly and straight to look their best in the beautiful hotel bathrooms.
And so here we are, in our 11th year, still maintaining our founding principles, not being swayed or lured onto the ‘dark side’. We will always be cruelty free, no palm oil, no hideous 26 letter, unpronounceable preservatives in our products which continue to be lovingly made by us and our fabulous team here on the west coast of Wales.
Rebecca & Quentin, Founders
Find out more at conscious-skincare.com
Twitter: @consciousface
Facebook: @Conscious-Skincare
Instagram: @conscious_skincare
Green Hosting works handsomely with:
Auto-installer now available on all accounts
