The moment I found out I had been accepted to join the Masters course at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Sustainability Leadership for the 2016-18 cohort, I was in hospital, by my son’s bedside.
It had been a stressful few days. So the news was a welcome relief. In fact, it made me smile – a lot – and instantly shot a bolt of optimism into me.
My son, who has complex special needs and is prone to frequent bouts of pneumonia, is often in hospital. It’s always tense at first. Sometimes he’s out in a matter of days. Sometimes, though, it takes longer. The worst he endured was 96 days straight – all of it in intensive care.
The Cambridge news came about halfway through one of his shorter hospital stays. I felt excited as I closed my email, looked over to my son, and remember being struck by his T-shirt, which had that famous quote from Nasa’s Apollo 13 mission emblazoned across it: “Failure is not an option.” Not for my son. Nor for me. We’ll get of this medical mess, I thought, and go on to better, brighter, happier things.
Thankfully, my son was out within a week. He succeeded in getting well enough to go home once again.
I can still fail, of course! I’m a long way from the finishing line.
But over the first few months of the course, as I’ve read more, learnt more, and thought much more about sustainability than I ever have before, I’ve become less bothered about the pass/fail thing (I still want to pass though, obviously!), and I’m now much more interested in becoming able – and smart – enough to share with others some of what I’ve discovered.
It’s less about passing; more about passing things on.
My personal challenge is to share with my work colleagues some of the insights I’ve been fortunate to learn while at Cambridge.
We’re setting up a new renewable energy supplier for the British market, and are in the final countdown to launch (sorry, there’s no escaping Nasa…). We’re building more than just a regular energy supply company, though, we’re trying to create a sustainable company right from the off.
We want it to be a special place to work, a great company to do business with. We want consumers to enjoy being part of its journey. In what we’re doing, we’re trying to change others and things around us for the better.
So, is any of my challenge measurable? Can I quantify the impact? I’m not sure I can directly, no.
But I can tell you what happened when I got back from my first session at Cambridge last autumn. I sat down with my co-founders and we talked…
I should stress now that each of us was already ambitious to create a sustainable, for-good, for-purpose, for-profit company. Why? I think we’d all just got to that time in our lives when meaning had started to, well, mean more. Which is how we came to the idea of launching a renewable energy company with a twist in the first place.
As we talked, I shared that what I’d learnt so far was that there is so much more to learn. I felt such a novice.
I could point to one or two ideas we should try to explore. And then I think I confused everyone by trying to explain that there were several definitions of sustainability…
The good news, though, was at that time we were really only beginning to properly form the essence of our new company, defining its proposition, employing our first colleagues, creating what we wanted the business to be. So, the timing was good. It meant we had plenty of blanks to fill in. What a privilege that is. No need to change. Just define what we wanted. And then do it.
Since then, of course, I’ve learned a little more.
I point my colleagues to interesting websites, articles, books, or films I think will be of use. Together, we’ve looked at what other companies do. We’ve applied for accreditation from several sustainability-related programmes. We’ve aligned some of our activities to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – not least our product, and our ambition. We’d like a Britain powered by renewables – clean, affordable energy.
Our conversations in the office and out of it on Slack are quite diverse – there’s stuff about the day-to-day of the project, obviously – but there’s also plenty of comment, ideas and insight exchanged on all things sustainable. Today, Sunday, when people should know better, Slack was abuzz when one of my colleagues discovered Ecosia – ‘the search engine that plants trees’. https://www.ecosia.org Should we all be using that at work and home, came the question?
Best – and most humbling of all – have been the far too many times I’ve been pulled up by my colleagues for forgetting to consider sustainability enough. That’s got be a sign that the message is getting through to others, though, right? And that I’ve still got much to learn…
So, where have we got to? Here’s a brief list of some of the things we’ve done, are doing, or have decided to do as a company in our efforts to be more sustainable.
What do you think of it? What else should be doing?
People
- Create a fun and relaxed working environment. We’re based in Bristol’s Desklodge: http://desklodge.com
- No fixed hours (statutory requirements still have to apply).
- No annual reviews. Informal, open management, based on continuous learning principles.
- No minimum qualifications required, encouraging diversity.
- Shared leadership by project.
- Holiday – take as much as you like, with the prior blessing of your team, and no less than annual statutory minimum.
- Parental leave (not paternity nor maternity).
- Share option scheme for all staff (pending).
- Flexible-benefits, including sustainable offers, such as tax-free bikes, interest-free train ticket loans, and carbon offsetting.
- Expenses policy – it’s one line long – claim for what you think is reasonable.
Accreditations – granted or pending:
- Living Wage Employer.
- Disability Confident.
- UN Global Compact.
- Business in the Community.
- B Corp.
Planet
A for-purpose company, seeking sustainability, and the total adoption of renewable energy to power Britain’s homes and businesses.
Campaigning:
The business is a platform to celebrate, showcase, and highlight campaigns for sustainable change: initial campaigns are likely to be encouraging the UK to adopt tidal and wave generation technology; plastics; and city air quality. The campaigns have equal billing to the product in our web/app.
Product:
- 100% renewable power offered at a lower price than polluting fossil-generated electricity.
- 100% carbon offset natural gas, included in the price – cheaper than non-offset gas. (Long-term vision is to move to 100% electricity).
- Some biogas incorporated into gas product mix.
Service:
- Community membership model, encouraging members to support each other through an online community.
- All digital – no paper.
Profit
- A for-purpose, for-profit company, seeking a societal shift to 100% renewable energy.
- Founded by long-term friends and partners, no one of whom has majority control.
- Strategic industry investor also has a minority shareholding.
- Share option scheme for all staff (pending).
- Foundation (pending).
Sustainability Education 
Dear Azure Planet,
What an inspiring blog – I need to think of all the right words to describe my emotions (have been reading about emotional intelligence lately) – powerful, positive, inspiring, motivational, hard-hitting, focused, challenging, creating shared value is actually the only way to go – Michael Porter and Mark Kramer had it right all along.
I hope your son is doing better. There is nothing that keeps you on your knees like your children.
For me, life is all about values. Why are we doing what we are doing, what drives our thoughts, actions, decisions, and when you dissect all of it, it comes back to values. When I read the basis on which your company has been structured, it is very clear that you have well defined values, and more importantly you live and breathe by it. I don’t know what your espoused (or official) values are, but my guess would be innovation, respect, care for all (people and planet), creativity, integrity, curiosity, wisdom, continuous learning.
Looking at the way in which you have structured your company, it strongly reminds me of the self-managed model advocated by Frederic Laloux – Reinventing organizations – a Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Once you stop telling people what to do, how to act, what to think, and giving them the benefit of the doubt and creating an innovative and inviting space to operate, amazing things happen – as your company is evidence of. This way of doing business is also the only real sustainable and valuable way – and hopefully in future all businesses will be run in this fashion.
I look forward to engaging further and learning more from you.
Life is indeed exciting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I applaud your Big Idea, and your team’s efforts to realize 100% renewable power (although I question the inclusion of natural gas, as it is not renewable, is generally obtained in conjunction with other mining, and still pollutes).
My brief comment on your efforts regards your “people” bullets.
These are well-intended, and I suspect you have chosen them to create a more flexible, employee friendly workplace, which, in turn, fosters innovation. They may work for a very small group. However, I draw your attention to the ideas of:
• No annual reviews. Informal, open management, based on continuous learning principles.
• No minimum qualifications required, encouraging diversity.
My concern is that normally, people want feedback, want goals to be set, and appreciate an opportunity to achieve beyond the expected. This is done though metrics and feedback. A recently popular way of doing so is 360- appraisal systems. They are difficult to enculture in existing, large organizations. Since you are at the cusp of organizational development, this is the perfect time to implement such a strategy. Further, it does not mean that it needs to be lengthy, cumbersome or punitive. It does require supervisors to be identified, and a respectful atmosphere where the employee also gives feedback to supervisors (perhaps not directly, and sometimes anonymously to alleviate fears of retribution).
Perhaps you mean something different than “no minimum qualifications?” Perhaps you mean no specific educational requirements, or interdisciplinary? Surely, you must have some metric that defines who you will or won’t hire? Of course, diversity is wonderful, and makes for stronger organizations. Your company will not need to remove qualifications to provide diversity. You will find you have a larger pool of talent and skill sets available to you when you are inclusive.
So, while this is a noble effort, it is also a business. I encourage your company not to shy away from some of the more modern, yet established, thinking on organizational behavior. You can potentially avoid the traps of well-meaning but ineffectual management processes by doing so.
Good Luck!
LikeLike
I really enjoyed that one. Your son’s bravery is inspirational. But I must say that I might just buy a Superman t-shirt for you to wear too. I cannot imagine the toll that these events take on you. You must be superhuman to be a rock for your son and not collapse under the stress.
Maybe these experiences have given you the perspective and courage to take on this entrepreneurial challenge. Many people are, with good cause, afraid to start a new business. It can be scary. But compared to having your child in intensive care for 96 days??! Starting a business is like a walk in the park.
Is it possible that these experiences have also shaped how you organize your business? It would seem so. Many of the policies you’ve listed seem to enable a quality of life opportunity for employees that is not the norm.
You know that I like your business model and we’ve discussed some other aspects of it as well. I look forward to following its growth and success. As you said, “Failure is not an option.”
LikeLike