Hi, I'm Tony riddle. And this is the natural life stylist podcast. So way back in December. I had this crazy idea to run from Land's End to John o'groats in just 30 days, but I wasn't just going to run it. I was going to run it Barefoot to raise funds for environmental Charities and collaborate with world-leading experts to raise awareness and money for six organizations fighting the top sustainability issues of our time. I knew running Barefoot would raise many are socially extreme eyebrow and with that eyebrow-raising behavior, I would be able to provide a perfect platform to highlight the importance of connecting with our environment and those key sustainability issues of time. I had the pleasure of getting behind the mic with the man with the sustainability plan Michael Thornton, Michael Thornton is an engineer entrepreneur and the founder of carbon analytics after close to a decade working on sustainable water power. Projects around the world as a civil engineer Michael accepted a scholarship for an MBA in social entrepreneurship at Oxford University with a question in mind. How do we transform our global economy to understand and value the natural world? It depends on and how do we do it without relying on government? Well carbon analytics is company that automate carbon footprinting for businesses and Supply chains is the result of that question Michael and I continue the conversation away from the mics as we go for a 10-mile run to finish my 34 the dirt and I trust me when I say that this is the man the sustainability plan ever since this conversation. I've been spreading his carbon and six message to my brothers and sisters. So I really hope you enjoy the conversation. So I'm here with Michael Michael Thornton. This is great because Michaels found me through the ritual podcast. It is things the rich old podcast inspire. Like that then found out about the run and then was here in the UK. So it's all kind of just come together. It's incredible power of social media. So Michael CEO CEO of carbon analytics. This is this is amazing system here. And I think we can all benefit from listening to Mike or me. Personally. It's something that I you know, I have to justify sometimes like the Rich Roll podcast for It was like, okay. I'm going to go over there and I'm going to talk about sustainability. Yeah, I'm going to fly to LA right, you know just simple things like that or we got to get a train or you got it car and you know certain things we can be doing a certain things we can think about at least offsetting these days. Yeah. So let's get a bit of background on Michael. Who is Michael. Yeah. Good one. Well, yeah started off as an engineer really Skillet went to school on my whole family's in Dear humans. My dad was an engineer. Yeah, we got ya see. I came from a family of Engineers had always had two hats the engineering hat. So it was a civil engineer undergrad and then also got Environmental Policy degree. So kind of had those two worlds and then a few years ago added in a business hat went to business school at Oxford for Skol scholarship social entrepreneurship. And that's the carbon analytics is the Collision of those six familiar with UK now, huh now familiar with the UK, although haven't been out to this region. Which is not so much worse to and this is definitely my first yeah. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then the, you know, the really the idea of carbon analytics is that you know, there's there's one way of thinking about sustainability which is that we should all go back to living in caves and that's how you can avoid those flights and you can avoid any impact on the World As We McDonough said, you know striving for zero is not very exciting. It's not not a place that that most people would be excited to go. So, I think we have Look at what's the opposite of zero and that's a hundred percent sustainable world. Yeah, that's where we can travel and visit each other and have these great important interactions, you know and learn but do it in a way that's not going to threaten the entire planet and to do that. We have to change the change the system and how do we do that? So our idea is that the core kind of problem we have is that our economy economy. You can think of it as a machine you can think of it as a calculation engine that figures out. How do you allocate Resources if I want to go buy a sandwich what what needs to happen in the rest of the economy to make the bring that sandwich to me and someone will make some bread and someone will make some mayonnaise and whatever else and then someone will put it on a plate and bring it to you and all of that has all these impacts in the economy is very good at calculating what that should cost and it brings you a value and says, okay. Yeah four quid there's your sandwich. Oh Frack convenience, but for your convenience, yeah, but the problem is that that calculation engine, although it's very efficient. It doesn't understand the World that it's living in it has no knowledge of our environment no knowledge of our social system beyond what we push on it. So in economics you call that externalities. These are things that happen when you buy your sandwich that you don't intend to happen, but they're real consequences inconveniences of the convenience inconvenience and egg on Venus, really that and so because we don't have a system that can incorporate that it's just going to get trampled. It's kind of inevitable that we have This brilliant engine for Commerce and And convenience but no, but if it doesn't understand the world it's going to trample that world. And that's that's where we're at. And so our idea is that we need to build the next economy that understands the physical biological societal limits that the world has that are the realities and can change the calculations to incorporate those. Yeah. Also speaking less, you know kind of theoretically it's like if you buy a sandwich you're causing carbon emissions, there should be a price in that Watch for those carbon emissions. Yes. I someone said to me the other day. We were talking about sustainable fashion and you have a clothing brand and he quit think it was along the lines of belie Patagonia right just being here has an impact so it's like, how is it if I think they said, you know something along the lines of well, you know, we're trying to do this this and this and this for our business to be sustainable and they support the best thing you can do for a business to be sustainable is they're not have a business wrecked your I mean which is not because it can't survive that way though. Can it so yeah, I love this. Yeah, that's you know, that's like I say I run into a lot of environmentalists who are still they have the mindset that people are bad. You know that we've got too many people on the planet and that's bad and like what a what a system that we've set up where more people is bad somehow like, you know, something fundamentally wrong with that like should we all you know is the ultimate environmentalism for us all to go away? No, well, not right, you know. Start out my post it up, you know on social media because I put stuff about my family up there and people like that and you know, we were just I'll we're expecting a another baby and this woman jumped into my stories and was like, how dare you how selfish of you bringing another child into this world? There's already enough beings on the planet that about and I just thought oh my God, can you imagine if you know, so someone could have said that 16 years ago when Greta thumba was born right? Someone could have said that because what we're looking at that is the people within governments of today that of the certain maturity or level then they're not really in the process of understanding it. Yeah, and we almost need those younger generations to come through absolute. Which would of course increase the numbers on the planet. Yeah. We have to make it sustainable for the numbers that are there that are going to help shift the change of the future, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I think I think it also, you know, it's kind of like do you believe people are good for the universe and I think I think I do. Well the universal few things we all right. Thank the universe doesn't he's counting us out. Exactly. Yeah, hopefully that you know, we should we should do it we can and I think might be cribbing on Elon Musk who's probably cribbing in someone else little bit but to further the light of Consciousness, you know in the universe and do all we can to keep this this going and I think the way to do that is to have more people people are great. The problem is the way we the world we have right now the system we've set up to support all those people. Doesn't understand the world doesn't understand the climate doesn't understand soil doesn't understand toxicity. So well in simple terms doesn't understand how to support exact number of people has no idea and no and and it's a method, you know, if you think of it as a mathematical engine that those walls on the economy just don't exist. They're not there because when you you know, when you cause an externality that data is not even in your transaction. So when you're trying to optimize how much would this cost? There's no well, all we know is The template for us there's no there's no limits. So our idea is carbon analytics is to find a way to put those that data in every transaction so that when you make a financial transaction, you have some understanding of those limits of the world and then if enough people, you know, I think there's enough people that care about those limits that that starts to put a price on those transactions is the core idea. So in other words, you know if you can in every when you buy a sandwich If you can see how much carbon is in that sandwich, there's enough people that will say hey, we should have we should you know not kill our climate to get sandwiches that enough people will put a price on that. Yeah, that sends a signal down to the suppliers and says, hey we should get lower carbon plates and lower carbon mayonnaise versus higher carbon and that's how you create a system that can optimize around climate and all these limits that we have and that's that's possible. That's what you're saying. That's yes is what you're doing that spot. That's incredible, isn't it? Yeah, I so it took a while. Yeah, took us a couple of years of R&D in the UK started out of Oxford lucky enough to get a number of Grants from the EU and UK to develop the economic system. So that now we can we have an engine that plugs financial data in so hooks up to QuickBooks and 0 looks at each transaction of business makes and puts a carbon footprint on it. And then critically we also look at not only the initial good but the supply chain behind it. So so business don't have to be signed up for that. You can already analyzed it we or do they have to be so if they want to look at their own business they need to sign up. Okay, go ahead if we're but we if they're not signed up. We're still going to put a footprint on you. Yeah, so I just wanted to raise us love you. And we do the way we do that as we look at Have You released any data about your carbon? Probably not that's 99 percent of businesses. So if not, we look at what do we know about you as an industrial entity and where you likely to spend your money so really what we're doing is we're figuring out I'm going to spend a hundred pounds. Where does that hundred pounds ago? The economy who is now running to get your goods or services. And what is that going to do to the environment? And we're calculating all that back for every transaction. So if we know nothing about you we know you're a sandwich shop and here's how Shameless shops typically are going to impact the economy to infinity and that encourages the companies to then take responsibility, right? That's the idea is we can if we get the buyers the purchasers to start incorporating carbon into their decision-making then you have a pressure and a reason for lower carbon. He's to be preferred over higher carbon. So then you can you know, you can use the economic capitalist system, which is very efficient, but you can now optimized on not just price but Price Plus carbon apply that filter to and exactly yeah, and that's the core idea and then the you know, that that's that's the kind of the theory of change and then the next hard problem is how do we turn that into a business and what we realized is that carbon footprinting is kind of stuck in the stone age's it's very manual right now for companies. Typically a consultant will come in they'll measure. Usually whatever is easy to measure or whatever, you know, utility bill very precise. You've got you've got how much power company has used. You can you know, you can put a footprint on that quite easily. What's hard to put a footprint on is your IT services or your you know, your insurance company the full supply chain that actually supports what you do. So that's usually ignored is the way that they do it. So we've realized that we can upgrade that whole industry really with our system and automate it using the financial data. So because it's data you've already got we can process it with our technology automate it and make it a lot faster a lot cheaper for companies. So now we're starting to work with a lot of be corpse a lot of small and midsize fashion food type companies. Yeah. So this is like macro or write down to micro this stage, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really what's your footprint as a business across the world, you know, we like for example, we just worked at the company Rebel kitchen. That's what I was going to go next. Who's who's with you? Yeah, so he's on board. And so they're great one there like an alternative milk company here in the UK. They're doing quite well, and they wanted to get their carbon footprint. So we worked with them used our system and they not only got their companies footprint, but they're full Global impact of their supply chain. Wow. So the whole thing's tries to pull right back. Yeah. Yeah ought suits quote-unquote to Infinity which is like basically until those until that hundred pounds disappears in terms of impact on the economy. They got their footprint and then they offset the entire thing. So if you now go I some alternative milk from Rebel kitchen. It's it's truly offset and you can you know, basically the carbon is now priced into that system. It's like I said wasn't a future world. So what's the what's in the how do we offset it? What is what's involved with setting? Yeah. So I've settings a whole, you know, we're not off Setters. There's a whole other industry there and effectively what offset is do is they have projects around the world that cause carbon to be up store it in some way. So usually it's a reforestation project could be something like cookstoves where you're basically reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are burned for cooking and those are good projects in and of themselves, but the almost the more important thing from our perspective is that they they mean that a company has put a price on carbon they put a price on this externality and they've decided to operate in this world where the climate matters and yeah the offset is there, you know, here's the money to prove that that's what they're doing. And then that that creates a forcing function within that Free so that when they're making a purchasing decision, they should be buying from a lower carbon supplier because that means they're offset is lower. So they've they're now taking that that you know initiative of around what they want to do for the climate and they're pushing it into the supply chain because they're the buyers. That's the biggest power every company has is they're going to spend millions of pounds around the world. They're now going to get to say we want lower carbon a options for what we're buying Well, ma'am, which you know, that's how I think we can take the two percent of companies that really unfortunately care about this and push that and make it an economy-wide think more in the bubble jet or sorry more inside the bubble blow the Bubble Up. Yeah. Exactly lovely the Bubble Up get it get more people involved. Yeah. It's very nice. Yeah, but maybe maybe the long way of saying all that but just good just a bit music coming in the background there. You got that. No, okay. It's worried about that party in the fire. I thought we might be picking up on that then. Yeah, so Within the 2% you've got involves who else you got involved here in the UK how many of your yeah, so we me biting. So we're still we're still pretty young. So we launched the version one of our platform and two years ago. We had around a thousand companies sign up in some ways the mistake we made was that was free. So we got people kind of, you know coming in testing it out but not really committed. So we've just launched the second version or a platform which is paid we've got about a dozen companies through so still quite new as a business. We work with companies all over the world with Ines power companies here in the UK Itachi Capital UK British gas number of be corpse that we work with. Yeah food fashion tends to be pretty pretty popular ones, but you are seeing interest everywhere. We yes just starting work. I think I can talk about with Ellis kitchen. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's more fun ones on the way. I'm sure man. What was the spark? What was it? What was it? What was it that triggered it for you this original the idea the concept this is what I need to do now. So assuming you like behind this run, it's been right. Okay for me, it's been Parenthood really has been a big driver for me. That's really interesting. You say that yeah CTO joined us with exactly that he said, you know, I'm I'm have worked on games flight simulators and all that on my life and just had kids and we've got to do something about this. Yeah, because you just look at it and you think you know, imagine what they're going to be thinking in I think Hugo mentioned something in one of the pods we did from surface against her Rouge and he was saying about whale oil or something that we Been using you know, and then we move on so many years and we think we thinking what we doing all these Generations. I have no concept of that. Yeah, you know and for my kids is saying, you know, ten years time to look back and say wow what a mess you made it's going to be that we have 2 Min we have to be doing something right? Absolutely. And that's going back in that greater Sundberg conversation. It's just yeah, you know, you guys aren't listening. Yeah and like sometimes it takes people from the outside to come in and say You ever actually looked at this whole system differently. Yeah, this is insane guys. Yeah, like I think I think about automobiles that way like imagine if you tried today, if cars and Roads didn't exist to try to propose automobiles as a system for transport like it just imagine those conversations. Okay. So we're going to do is we're going to have people get in these two ton metal boxes and drive at a hundred miles an hour a hundred kilometers an hour down the road and that's how they're going to get from point A to B, and you be like well what's going to prevent them from? Hitting pedestrians and other people. Well, we're going to paint a line on the road. Yeah, that's going to be great. Oh, yeah, and it's going to burn flammable gas. Yeah. He's it's gonna have a huge impact Shane. Yeah. He tried to oppose it. But you know here we are. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to come in and say well that's dumb guys. What are you doing? Yeah, and then it then it just tight then it takes time. It takes a little bit of time for people to hear that you're done. What are you doing? You know? Yeah because that's that. Yeah. Just going by my run. Runs what I've been doing its yes, it's a flawed model man, you know, so going back to the spark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, so I spent a long time as an engineer working around the world did a lot of sustainable infrastructure projects water Power Systems, which is really great at one thing I realized is that we we had a really hard time pushing the clients the cities and companies that were working with towards Green Solutions. And I was as a young engineer almost, you know jumping into Excel and trying to create a model for Why this was going to be better for the climate and better for their finances long-term. I was like this is you know, really we should be further along in this system. So kind of had that in the back of my head always wanted to start a company and then when I went to Oxford just you know brought this question of how do we how do we shift this system in a meaningful way and what can I do as an you know, an aspiring entrepreneur to do something about that? And you know, I think there's a couple really big challenges in the world and they're you know, they're sustainable transport system will power sustainable food. There's a lot of people working on those the one I saw that really not enough people were thinking about is how do we how do we shift our how do we shift the incentives in the economy and without relying on government to do that? And so that was the Nexus is really hard challenge. We did a kind of a brainstorm few days at the business school with some other other brilliant people came out with this idea. And I said and we were like, I actually maybe there's some some legs on this list. Try to Hash it out further and it's been almost six years, but we've now got a business model and a technology that we think and work. And is there any conversation in that? I was discussing with Hugo the other day, you know, they they were one of the big voices in getting the charge on plastic bags. Let's say and changing legislation. So is there that conversation that's happening between say carbon analytics and the government is there that kind of not too much. Each yet. So we're you feel as it grows that it's going to have a louder voice and it's yeah for sure be more is available. Yeah, the conversation we're having right now is more at the more at the carbon footprint and offset space. Yeah, and it's around what should we be measuring for companies and we're really pushing the idea that you shouldn't just measure what is possible to measure, you know, or based on whatever receipt, you know, easy to measure things. You should always be measuring a hundred percent. What's the Impact of a business because right now we have you know, some ideas around your carbon neutral if you've offset just your offset office downtown, but you're going to ignore your factory over in China. Yeah, that's like no you have and the trends pool from that to that the transport and the Firearms. No, you haven't really done that. So so we'll traceability. Exactly. Yes, we're pushing right now. Is that okay if we're going to be doing that let's let's measure a hundred percent. Let's get to something that's comparable company to company to company and if you know, I think if we can do that that's going to create. A lot bigger market and pressure and then we yeah, I would love to speak at the government level and we've had I guess some really early conversations here in over in the US but you know, I think we've got some growing to do before will well, I think they have some growing to do. Yeah. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. I mean, it's it's in decent space. Was it Mike time? We tell me what makes I do it. Yeah, yeah be nice for them to open their ears wouldn't it? I feel I'm mad at multiple levels there. But again, I guess it's more voices come in the more they have to listen. It's becoming that that level isn't it? So what about because when we talk about sustainability that's a sustainable fashion and people that I've spoken to that have tried to make shifts within their companies and it's that it's the financial implications of that for them. Usually, you know, and then the other end of that scale was from the Zoomers perspective that oh my god. I've had to pay whatever for a t-shirt. Whereas a t-shirt from Fast fashion is this much and I like playing double for this somos what how what about the financial implications on for the company and then the for the consumer within the company, how does that yeah, it has that. Look it's a real thing and some things should be more expensive there. I'm totally with that. I'm really yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I think that you know, the I guess I take a slightly different view on Some of this than a lot of people in the space in that I think if if you've priced it properly and everything is included in the price, you know, the negative environmental externalities. There's nothing inherently wrong with say fast fashion versus long-term fashion ver you know versus this versus that it's just as long as it's priced properly. That should be okay. So I think what you know, yeah, I mean, it may be a roundabout way of getting at it. But I think what you need to do is if you can get the environmental externalities priced in what you'll end up finding is some things probably can be more efficient than they are and that just because something has a low-cost doesn't mean it's necessarily bad and you can By Saving environmental impact you can save money. In fact in a lot of ways. Yeah. I don't know if I'm quite quite. Oh no, it's like he says now you're making sense that okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know like flying as a really interesting example where you know, you might you might to do the environmentally preferable thing. You might take a drive from one place to another. Yeah, but actually if you if you work it out that the fuel cost you're going to spend more fuel than you would on the flight and actually it turns out that that Increase spending is an indication that you've actually probably emitted more carbon than a flight would have taken while driving. Yeah driving. Yeah, and that's certain routes in certain situations. And especially if you're alone in the car and all that, but the really the economic system is a very good calculation engine. It's a very good optimization engine and if we can put carbon and environmental impact, right alongside price, it should be able to optimize really well and probably we would find there's more abundance than we think in the world. Not less, so it doesn't need doesn't mean if we include environmental impact that we're going to need to all stop buying and enjoying the world. I think I think probably quite the opposite really enjoy it more. When can you see it? Can you see it is the it would lead to the individual having a handle on this as well I could so right now I'm going to fly then I have to drive then I can do this and I can look at what would be the carbon footprint of all of that and I could calculate it over time. Do you think that's possible? Yeah moving shifting in that. Yeah. I think it's definitely Possible. I mean we looked at it the only the only reason there's a couple of companies that do it in the space and they've done it even with credit cards, which is really interesting. I think the challenge has been the business model around it and our you know, our consumer is there enough spending willingness there amongst consumers to build a build the system and then build the offsets around it and so far that's hasn't panned out yet. But certainly could if we had enough interested people at something we could do with our technology especially interesting spice, isn't it? Because it all feels like it's so bizarre because it feels like it's all at this Acorn level fluh. No unicorn that. I like the a coin is weight of this amazing oak tree to grow from it. You know, it does feel that the whole Space feels like that. I think that suddenly people are listening and it's like there's been enough people speaking in the space, but suddenly it's opening up. I think I think that's right. And it's yeah, I mean, it's also challenging because you know as much as As much as we want to do as individuals to some degree, we don't hold the all the power directly. So what but the power that we do hold is the power to persuade these companies that were this is something we care about so we can't necessarily don't necessarily have enough products on the market where we can buy good flights or bad flights, but what we can do is say hey we want we need to change this system and that's what we really need to be Dan demanding a change in the system and being angry not at you know, Al Gore for taking a flight, but angry that flights emit. Carbon that damages the planet in the first place. It's yeah and it's I don't know. It's an interesting time. Yeah, and all of this is very new, you know, Carbon measurement rules are very haphazard and exist don't exist all over the place carbon legislations, very new and barely exists all over the place. So we have all these people trying to do something but we don't quite have the Direct Tools yet that are powerful enough. Okay. So how do businesses get involved? So if I mean really easy go to the CO2 Analytics.com Very very quick to link your finances, especially if you're on zero sign up link your finances. We charge a annual fee for companies meant to be 90% less than a consultant would charge and yeah, you know and if you can't afford that or just excited but we're doing like please do get in touch. We're always looking for Champions and people who can help push us to their suppliers or find other ways to push this this will help connect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah in some way or another. Yeah exactly the only wonderful Yeah, and you know, I really appreciate what you're doing on this run raising awareness. I mean, it's kind of like it's one big long chain from people all the way down to the to our supply chains. So we need are people at every stage of the chain pushing and pulling and pulling and pulling towards a better cleaner economy. Yeah, and it's not just businesses individuals isn't it within that, you know, so as an individual, how do I get involved? So if I'm not a business and I'm individual and I'm thinking right Curtis I can is there a member because a very becoming Being a member or is there something we can do to assist or yeah me get we don't have anything like that interesting idea. I think the biggest thing that we'd love you to do is and maybe we could put together an email to do this. But just ask your company's ask your favorite companies, you know, what's their carbon footprint? Where do they do there and climate what's their plan to be to live in a world that you know create a world that's compatible with 1.5 degrees and if they don't have one, you know come to us and we can help them do that. That's a good place to finish man. It's like it's good. That's pretty good. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. Great. Hope you enjoyed the conversation with Michael as much as I did. I personally came away from it with the internal conversation of wow. If you're in business and want to be the change be transparent and traceable in Michaels a great guy for you to connect with to find out more about Michaels carbon analytics then head to www.cfwls.com if you like the Possession and please show some love by spreading the message wide and far. If you're new to the podcast then please go back and listen to the previous episode and leave a comment and subscribe. If you haven't any way be inspired by my Barefoot sustainability running challenge, then please make a donation to one or more of the sustainability and environmental organizations that I am from fundraising for you'll find the just giving pages in the info box huge. Thanks to miss the James Joyce for all your work in. Helping get these conversations out. You are appreciated and remember pleats we can't all live in nature, but that doesn't mean we can't live naturally.
I had the pleasure of getting behind the mic with the man with the sustainability plan; Michael Thornton. Michael Thornton is an engineer, entreprenuer and the founder of Carbon Analytics. After close to a decade working on sustainable water, power and projects around the world as a civil engineer, Michael accepted a scholarship for an MBA in social entrepreneurship at Oxford University with a question in mind? How do we transform our global economy to understand and value the natural world it depends on? And how do we do it without relying on government? Carbon Analytics, his company that automates carbon footprinting for businesses and supply chains is the result of that question. Michael and I continue the conversation away from the mic’s as we go for a 10 mile run to finish my 30 for the day and ever since I have been spreading his carbon analytics message to my brothers and sisters. 