25th May 2022
Next up in our Client Origin Stories series is Green Squirrel, created and run by Becca and Hannah. This story really is testament to how much a small yet mighty team can achieve and how the best way to run a business isn't always the traditional way but what works for you and those who benefit from what you do. Over to you Hannah...
Green Squirrel started life as Green City Events when in 2011 Becca, returning to Cardiff after a year of travelling, became frustrated with the lack of opportunities for city dwellers, particularly those on lower incomes, to pick up the skills for planet-friendly living. In 2012 Hannah got involved and together they began testing and trialling different ways of bringing green skills to the city, from bike repair and food growing workshops to pedal powered cinema, supper clubs, and swap shops. In 2015 we formalised our community focus by becoming a CIC and in 2018 we became Green Squirrel!
There has been a lot of learning along the way. Neither of us are ecologists or climate scientists so we work hard to make sure that the information we’re sharing and the skills we’re teaching are evidence based and genuinely impactful. We’ve had to learn every aspect of running a small business because - as a two person core team - we do everything, from marketing and project management to fundraising and HR. As a social enterprise sometimes traditional business advice, designed to maximise profit, doesn’t work for us, so we’ve sometimes had to find our own path.
Now in 2022 our work is across three main strands. First is our local work as we offer a wide range of workshops and activities across the Cardiff and Valleys area. You might find us popping up at local festivals or playschemes to run creative nature or climate activities or training a local business in climate communication.
Next we have Railway Gardens, our community resilience hub in Splott, Cardiff. Due to open in June 2022, this former derelict playground has been transformed into a multipurpose space for growing, learning, play and connection. It will feature small business spaces for social and ethical enterprises, a community room and kitchen, a mini allotment, an outdoor classroom and climate and nature friendly planting. Creating this space has been a six year labour of love, extremely challenging at times but enormously rewarding, and working so closely with local residents in that area is a privilege.
Finally, since 2021 we have taken our service UK wide with The Something Club, our online climate action community. This project arose in part from our own need for a friendly and genuinely non-judgemental space to share the highs and lows of being part of the climate and nature movement, and a way to pick up the skills we need to make a change. The Something Club offered a monthly programme of online workshops and events. We bring in amazing speakers and teach all kinds of skills, from food growing and clothes mending to campaigning and communication. A key idea behind The Something Club is that no one one person can do everything to fix the climate crisis, but everyone can do something, and with a little support we can each find our ‘something’ and make a big impact.
We - Becca and Hannah - have been working closely together since 2012, but in 2020, right in the middle of lockdown, we began a new adventure together as we decided to move to a smallholding for our two families to share! In early 2021 we moved to Bryn Ysgafn, a two acre site, where we share an old farmhouse and quite a lot of poultry! Since arriving here we’ve been working to make the land as productive as possible, with a veg garden and orchard, a food forest, bee hives, and plenty of wild space left for nature. This spring we began hosting hands-on workshops here too, such as fruit tree grafting and composting.
Living and working together is a new experience, but it’s working well! From breakfast planning meetings to foraging for wild crafting materials right here on site, we find lots of ways of making it work. We’ve also got something of a ‘no work at weekends’ rule where we take care to switch off entirely and enjoy working in our garden or messing about with geese and chickens!
We’re looking forward to what the next few years hold for Green Squirrel. We now have a wonderful Community Coordinator supporting our work in Splott and a great ‘Green Team’ of freelancers, and we’re keen to grow our team further in the next year or so. We’re always keen to explore new collaborations and partnerships too, so do get in touch if you’re interested in discussing working together!
Find Green Squirrel online:
Website: greensquirrel.co.uk
Instagram: @bemoresquirrel
Facebook: @BeMoreSquirrel
Twitter: @BeMoreSquirrel
27th Oct 2021
Next up in our Client Origin Stories is Corinne Thomas, Founder and MD of Ethical Sales. To me this story really demonstrates the realities of creating and running a new business and how success comes when there is both a real need for and love of what you do. Over to Corinne...
My Founder Story so far….
It felt like a big achievement to sign off Ethical Sales’s first annual accounts with my accountant this week and I have enjoyed taking some time out to reflect on where it all started….
Around two years ago, pre-covid, I was licking my wounds from a failed business venture. I spent a decent chunk of an inheritance launching and funding an online start up, an ecommerce platform of British beauty brands called ‘Rare Beauty’. Despite my best efforts, it did not go to plan and I was wondering what an earth to do next.
I cut my teeth in telesales at just 15 years old so I had a decent career in sales behind me. Having also launched a CSR consultancy in the past I decided to harness these core skills and explore the world of sales and marketing consulting. I won a few clients who liked what I did at Rare Beauty and also, out of curiosity, ran a survey all about sales for ethical businesses.
The results were startling and demonstrated the daily struggle that many ethical businesses face when trying to keep the wheels turning operationally and grow their customer base with sales activities.
The survey takers provided honest and open responses when asked about growing their sales, such as:
“Fear of rejection. Worry about not reaching targets set.”
“When it works – elation! When it doesn’t – fear, disappointment, resilience.”
“Enthusiastic about the possibilities and opportunities. Lack of sales knowledge however makes me feel totally unequipped and daunted.”
Armed with this knowledge I decided to set out on an ethical sales mission. I wanted to harness my skills and experience, to take the sting out of sales for purpose-driven businesses so that they could focus on changing the world, one customer at a time.
Then….covid struck. I was all set to launch the business and the world stopped turning (or felt like it had). The consulting clients I did have and some sales agency work that was paying the bills all but dried up.
It would have been easy at this stage to throw in the towel and give up. After all, I’d done it once before! But this time, it felt different. I also had some encouraging conversations with trusted people who reassured me, and I quote: ‘this one is going to work Corinne, you need to register Ethical Sales as a proper business, and make a plan for future growth’. So I did.
Fast forward to now, post-covid and I am celebrating onboarding our 21st new client by adding to our little grove of trees. We plant trees in honour of our clients with Trees for Life, a rewilding charity in the Scottish Highlands.
My team has grown, and I have an amazing group of talented sales consultants who work with me to deliver strategic and targeted sales campaigns. We love representing our varied clients - from a zero emissions logistics firm to a sustainable fashion online startup and helping them to secure the right b2b sales partners. All our clients have one key thing in common, they are ethical businesses on a mission to change the world. And they need help with their b2b sales!
I’m really proud of our website, built on a shoestring initially, but it now has a whole range of free sales resources to help demystify sales for the ethical business community, from guides to prospecting on LinkedIn to how to make a confident sales call.
And finally, over the Summer, whilst I re-located my young family 550 miles away to live by the sea in the Scottish Highlands, I also launched a sister company with a longstanding business associate.
Ethical Pioneers is a strategic retail and sales growth service for ethical pioneering brands with sustainable values. We launched this month with some fantastic ethical brands and exciting plans for future growth.
If there is one thing I have learnt in the past two years, it is to recognise when business is going well, and trust in my instincts to allow it to flourish!
I am really excited to see what the future holds and honoured to be serving ethical businesses, from early stage startups to established market leaders by being their trusted b2b sales partner.
And I still love talking on the phone!
6th Oct 2021
Next up in our Client Origin Stories is the first charity of the series. We have been working with Haller for many years and it is so interesting to see how they are still developing and working with people in Kenya from these beginnings in the 1970s. Here's Zoe to tell the story. Over to you Zoe...
The Haller Foundation is a UK charity and Kenyan NGO which unleashes the power of people and nature to create thriving ecosystems and communities. We strive to ensure what we do is both sustainable and environmentally sound… and that includes our website which has been hosted by Green Hosting since it’s launch.
We take our name from Dr. Rene Haller - an award-winning Swiss environmentalist and UNEP Global 500 Laureate. Over the past 50 years Dr. Haller has been driven by a growing passion for resourcefulness; experimenting with nature to restore life to degraded landscapes.
It was in the 1970s that Dr. Haller developed an approach which has been the source of our inspiration. The Bamburi Cement Company in Mombasa wanted to repair the damage to the landscapes caused by quarrying and allowed him to access it’s acres of disused limestone quarries. It was a wasteland: abandoned and forgotten. But Dr. Haller believed he could bring life there again.
Through experimentation, science and years of careful observations of the ways in which plants and animals interact, he was able to transform the moonscaped surfaces of the quarried landscape into an abundant and diverse forest ecosystem. Within 20 years he had created a sanctuary for endangered species, and a resource for local communities. He was able to nourish the land through the introduction of “pioneer” plants, red-legged millipedes and nitrogen-fixing microorganisms.
Due to Dr. Haller’s regenerative work on the harsh landscape, the former limestone quarry became known as The Haller Park. Covering 7km2, it is now a flourishing hub of biodiversity, home to over 2 and a half million indigenous trees, wildlife, birds and insects - all of which play a key role in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. But Haller’s vision wasn’t just for ecology, it was also for the local economy to grow, convinced that both could work in harmony. The Haller Park became financially and environmentally sustainable through the creation of 46 natural business streams from fish farming to agroforestry. This in turn, provided livelihoods, supported its regeneration and improved biodiversity.
The park is now recognised by the Eden Project as one of the ten most effective environmental restoration projects in the world. It stands as a beautiful nature reserve, but serves as an enduring reminder of the importance of safeguarding biodiversity for the success and sustainability of our ecosystems.
Dr. Haller’s restoration projects didn’t stop with The Haller Park. Throughout his lifetime, he took the lessons that he had learned and adapted his methodology to continue rehabilitating other degraded landscapes in the Mombasa region. The Nguuni Nature Sanctuary was formerly a Jurassic shale quarry and today it is a one square kilometer ecological haven - a combination of savannah grasslands, wetlands, acacia and palm trees, making it a perfect sanctuary for African wildlife. The sanctuary is bordered with urban settlements and yet provides the green lungs of Mombasa demonstrating how people and nature can co-exist in harmony. Both tourists and local residents frequently visit Nguuni for the opportunity to see an exotic array of birds and wildlife in their natural habitats.
It was Dr. Haller’s model for sustainable living and the balance between ecology and economy that captured the attention of Julia Hailes and Louise Piper who had visited him in Kenya previously. Founding Trustee, Louise Piper said, “We were inspired by what we saw and wanted a vehicle to scale the impact of the methods he used. We wanted to raise awareness of the potential to repair damaged environments and to work with the local communities to help them benefit”. They believed that Dr. Haller’s work could become a blueprint for restoring badly eroded soils across the region. Together they co-founded The Haller Foundation in 2004 which aims to build on the lessons learned in the rehabilitation of degraded landscapes, and use his ecological approach to help the millions of smallholder farmers living on depleted soils.
Over the last 17 years Haller has worked with over 50 communities to enable them to restore their soils, green their landscapes and to make a viable livelihood from farming.
30th Sep 2021
Next up in our Client Origin Stories is Love Heartwood. I don't want to give too much away but I always think it's wonderful how a love of nature from an early age so often informs what you do as an adult. With no further delay, over to you Liz...
Hi, my name’s Liz Pearson and I founded my woodturning business, Love Heartwood, in the Autumn of 2017. Love Heartwood creates wooden toys, gifts and homeware that are handmade in harmony with nature. However, I didn’t just decide to start a business one day, it’s just grown naturally over the years from my love for nature and craft.
Turning’s my second career. In my early 30’s I left a successful 10-year teaching career to study product design at Central St. Martin’s in London. It was amazing being at one of the top creative art & design colleges in the country, and it was there that I discovered and fell in love with wood turning.
When I graduated in 2008, I vowed to get my own lathe. Life of course, got in the way meaning that didn’t happen until the summer of 2013. When I finally took delivery of my own lathe the day before my wedding my husband-to-be joked, we’d be setting it up on our honeymoon. He wasn’t laughing for long though as that’s pretty much what happened.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a beautiful part of Scotland called Fife, where I spent a lot of my childhood playing imaginative games in the woods. I learned the names of the trees and always felt safe and happy there. That experience left me with a deep emotional connection to nature and ‘the woods’. My love of wood as a material led me to dabble in different types of woodwork over the years never thinking I’d make it my living.
It’s increasingly being recognised by scientists that wood has measurable health benefits. Studies have shown it improves blood pressure, heart rate and stress levels. Improvements to a person’s emotional state and level of self-expression have also been recorded. With the spread of urbanisation our lives are increasingly disconnected from nature. So I feel it’s my mission to create objects to reconnect people to nature.
Complementing my love of natural materials is my deep dislike of synthetic materials and the current systems of mass-manufacture with their wasteful mind set. We are now surrounded by plastic items that may indeed be affordable but in consequence hold very little real value for us.
That’s why Love Heartwood has an ethos of sustainability that runs through every area of the business. Using locally sourced, natural, and sustainable materials is an obvious choice. But I also use plant-based, vegan friendly paints and finishes, minimal, biodegradable packaging, and recycled office materials. My commitment to sustainability also guides the kind of products I make and the suppliers I use. It even prompted me to set up a repair service for wooden toys. To make a positive environmental impact Love Heartwood works with the TreeSisters charity to plant a tree for every product sold. Switching the website’s hosting to Green Hosting was just the next step in reducing the businesses carbon footprint.
Love Heartwood has grown from my passion for making beautifully crafted, characterful products that are made from and celebrate the natural world that surrounds us. Going forward I hope to share them with the now expanding audience of conscious consumers.
Follow my sustainable craft journey online:
Website: loveheartwood.co.uk
Instagram: @love_heartwood
Pinterest: @lizloveheartwood
Facebook: @loveheartwood
8th Sep 2021
Our next Client Origin Story comes from Rachel, The Ethical Copywriter. I love to hear about entrepreneurs breaking out to do things their own way and then finding even more ways they can make a positive difference through their skills. Over to you Rachel...
Hi, I’m Rachel Baker, a.k.a. The Ethical Copywriter.
I run a copywriting business where I write blog posts, website copy, newsletters etc. for ethical and sustainable businesses. I also have a background in search engine optimisation (SEO) and help out clients with SEO content strategy and technical SEO.
After working in-house as a copywriter and content manager for a number of years, in early 2021 I decided to set up by myself, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I’ve always liked the idea of working for myself. Having a creative job, I like to be able to work in focussed periods, uninterrupted, then take breaks to recharge when I need to. Being chained to a desk 9-5 every day just didn’t work for me.
But more importantly, I wanted to work with companies I was really excited about, whose principles matched my own.
I’m really passionate about climate and social justice, and I think that these issues are often seen as separate to the world of business. In reality, like everything else in the world, they’re completely interlinked. Businesses have a huge impact on our planet and societies – sadly, often a negative one – and I wanted to work with companies who are dedicated to having a positive impact and changing things for the better.
I started out with my business because I wanted to help ethical and sustainable companies.
But after a while, I also started to realise the value of ethical copywriting.
Copywriting is usually described as writing to sell or persuade. As a result, it can sometimes err into manipulation. Many marketing departments will play on people’s emotions, using fear and creating a false sense of urgency in order to make people buy.
That’s not something I do.
For me, good copywriting is about giving people a true sense of your brand. My clients all have amazing missions, products and services – I help put them into words so that customers can see how great they are. No manipulation needed!
Something else I take very seriously in my job as a copywriter is combatting greenwashing.
Greenwashing is when companies say or imply that they are more sustainable than they really are.
Sometimes, this is by mistake, and comes from simply being too vague about what they are doing to be more sustainable.
I help companies to communicate what they’re doing, clearly and transparently. This helps to foster trust with customers and clients, as they don’t feel like they’re being misled.
I also take steps in my own business to be as sustainable as possible. One of these is by using Green Hosting for my website and email! I also power my home (which doubles as my office) with green energy from Octopus Energy.
I’m looking into ways I can be carbon negative as well, for example by donating to a tree-planting or rewilding scheme with each invoice. I haven’t done this yet as I want to do my research and make sure I choose a responsible, reputable scheme.
Going forward, I’d like to offer courses and resources to help smaller ethical businesses, who might not have the budget to hire a copywriter, to write their own ethical copy. I’d also love to offer work opportunities to people who might struggle to get into the world of work. Watch this space!
Find The Ethical Copywriter online:
Website: https://theethicalcopywriter.com/
Twitter: @ethicopywriter
Instagram @ethicopywriter
LinkedIn: Rachel Baker
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