#98 Connecting Talent with Impact: Richard Evans on Sustainable Recruitment and B Corp Leadership

Kia ora shamai. Good day. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. Before I forget, I will give a big shout out to Colin, who I had a zoom call with him a couple of weeks ago and he's like, yeah, I've listened to loads of your podcast episodes, so thank you to the one person on the Internet who's listened to my episodes. Hopefully Richard will listen to his episode when he's finished with today. But yeah, g' day to Colin.

Hopefully Colin's still around after.

Hopefully Colin. Yeah, this could be the one. This could send him over the. He's like, I'm done with your shit podcast, mate.

So thank you as ever to regular listener Colin and any others as I'm in doing this every week now. Like I said, I listen to lots of really big podcasts by really big people who earn millions of dollars and they are not afraid to beg for likes and, you know, thumbs up and subscribes and follows on the different platforms. So if you could do that for me, that'd be greatly appreciated. And if you think it is even vaguely half decent content, maybe give me a 3 out of 5 review. I'll take that anyway.

Come on, it's better than three out of five.

All right, three and a half.

You're growing good.

Growing good exponentially, sometimes slowly, who knows? But yeah, with me today, I have got Richard Evans. G', day, Richard. How's it going?

Very well, thanks, Tim. It's great to be here.

I know. It feels. It feels.

I should get a T shirt made up with doll in on it or something. Who knows? So it feels. It's kind of funny because we first connected literally years ago when what we know when I first connected to the B Corp movement in 2013, 2014, and Steve Arda, B Corp number one in New Zealand, was like, there's some Kiwi Aussie bloke in Melbourne who might know some stuff. You might want to give him a call. And so I think we had a chat about 10 years ago and then nothing. And then in the last sort of, what, two months or month, we met each other at a conference. You came and sat on one of our panelists, one of our B Corp month Be Better virtual summits. And here we are on the podcast. So it's like you're like a London bus.

Yep. And. And I got an invite to the. To the Grow Good ski trip as well.

100. Yeah, the grow Good ski trip, which this episode might actually not even be released before that ski trip has happened. So, mate, we're making it for lost time.

Amazing. I think I might actually still have your original pitch deck when you were coming up with the concept of grow good. So like early conversation, you sent me through a PowerPoint when, hey, I've got this idea, you know, I love this B Corp thing. I think, you know, I think there's really something behind this. You were talking to, talking to Steve and he put us in touch and you were like, what do you think? How do you, how should it, how should I pitch this? And, and look at you today. So awesome to see the journey.

It's all your fault basically, is what you're saying.

Not at all. I don't, I don't think I any value. I probably said don't be, don't be crazy.

Yeah, yeah. More than likely if you, if you've actually generally got. Got that. I'd be intrigued to see what the inner workings.

Were actually about at that time.

Yeah.

So we've been rambling on already but for people who don't know who you are, just a quick intro who you are, what you do, and then we'll maybe get back into how we connected and what all that's been about.

Sure. So as you mentioned, I'm a. So I'm a Kiwi that lives in Melbourne now. So I've been in, been in Australia for about 20 years. Started off in forestry back at Canterbury Uni and into engineering and like a lot of Kiwis, traveled to the UK before settling in Melbourne 20 odd years ago. And so I run a company called Talent Nation now which is a executive search and recruitment company focused on impact. So every role that we work on has a positive environmental, social impact and split largely between corporate space. So a lot of listed entities, large private companies, we will recruit their heads of sustainability, environment. So the change makers within organizations and then about 30% of our work is purely not for profit social enterprise, B Corp. So organizations set up to generate impact and, and a lot of that we will do low Bono. So that's our give back model to try and push 10% of our revenue back into the community.

Nice.

Because.

Yeah, because your brother, I don't know, maybe we should send him a link to this episode. I mean I've probably walked past him in the supermarket because he lives like, I don't know, 500 meters away from where I live. So the fact we haven't randomly bumped into each other in where I live is also quite, quite amusing.

You probably have at the old vicarage, I'd imagine at some point in time.

I mean, I'm looking, you know, we've got a couple of sponsors lining up for the podcast, the Old Vic. I mean, that would be pretty niche.

Yeah.

You know the one pub in the small suburb of Holswell in Christchurch on the B Corp podcast.

Yeah.

But yeah, if you don't ask, maybe we could record.

There is a bit of family resemblance, so if you see someone that looks a bit like me, they. Particularly the side profile. It's a bit of a giveaway.

I'll keep a lookout.

Yeah.

So from sort of science, geology, soil to recruitment, Please explain.

It does make sense.

Just do we need a. Do we need a whiteboard and a flowchart?

Possibly. So, yeah, so undergrad in forestry.

And then. And then progressed into to a Masters of Engineering Management at Canterbury, which has been going for about 20 years. They're just tweaking the program now.

Moved to London, not a lot of call for foresters in London, and fell into recruitment. So ended up working for a recruitment company over there full of Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, recruiting engineers into the uk, mainly from those three countries. So there for five years. Met my now wife there and wanted to come back to this part of the world. So came to Melbourne to study again because clearly I hadn't spent enough time at university and starting a family. Thought it was time to grow up and get a proper job. So got into banking, which lasted about 12 months.

So from there back into recruitment, but actually outsourcing. So setting up internal recruitment functions for large entities here in Australia and large payroll solutions.

Before moving into a recruitment company set up around environment.

So.

So moved in as a partner. I was a minor partner in that firm. It was when the carbon tax was coming in in Australia, so that market was starting to emerge. And.

Yes, I grew up on a. On a small farm and always had a link to the environment, but I guess I'd lost that connection through my time. And it was almost by chance that I was back in the environment space. I was there for a number of years. The carbon tax got shelved, the GMC hit sustainability. Environment was kind of on the nose, but I was working with these incredible people who were passionate about what they did. They weren't financially driven, they were trying to make a difference in the companies they were working for. And so I just fell in love with the space.

Which created a little bit of tension in the company that I was in because I was really passionate about using the business to drive positive change. And when you're in.

A traditional company, which is Focused purely on revenue. There was a disconnect. So it's at that point that I decided to sell my share of the.

Company.

And try and find a better way to do business. Which was actually at that point that I discovered the VCorp movement through a program called the Centre for Sustainability Leadership. So six month gardening leave and a key part of that was this program which unfortunately is not around anymore. But some incredible people.

Within the Australian sustainability community have gone through that program. It's amazing that the alumni base, I think that program.

And that was where the notion of B Corp was raised by one of my classmates. And I thought that that's a really cool business model. It's not in Australia, but if it ever comes here, that aligns to how I think about business.

What was it called again?

It's called the center for Sustainability Leadership.

It was.

Run in Sydney, Melbourne. Cohort of about 25 people in each group. You'll find there's a lot of B Corps out there with people that have gone through the program. If you look at Edge Impact, I don't know if Edge has been on your, your program. They probably should.

So you look at the leadership team and there a number of them. So Laura Reid and Max Van Deen both went through CSL with me at the, at the B Corp retreat. Mikey Long, who Digital Storytellers. So he was doing the videography. He was a 2012 CSL alumni as well. So just a great group of people going through and.

Something where you, you know, you start finding tribes. You know, when you, when you're in mainstream business sometimes you can feel a bit isolated when you're in sustainability and go, well, am I the only one that thinks this way? That was a group where everyone thought that way. So it was almost like a self help group for people that were trying to do business differently.

Was there sort of any specific moment during your career or, you know, personal event that sort of led you to having, you know, because that was my journey. I had a, we had obviously the earthquakes here in Christchurch, which the Kiwi Tourist Board are really good at not telling you about. You know, they're really good at going, I don't go to Australia. There's loads of bitey killy sharpie teethy things that will just decimate you. They keep really quiet.

They really are really, really quiet.

Yeah, but I mean genuinely, I mean, fair enough. But they could also talk about the fact that this country is known as the Shaky Isles. I forgot about that. Yeah.

So yeah, for me, the earthquakes here and then Birth a child a couple of years after that, that was like the, the beginning of the process of the journey of the great unraveling. It's like the, the woolen jumper that you pull the thread and it's like, oh, hang on a minute.

Was there any moment like that for you or was it just being worn down by being a recruitment consultant for so many years?

Yeah, I guess so. I mean recruitment, it's something that, so I am passionate about recruitment and people like there is a connection to people and when, and I speak for the whole team here, when you find someone that they find the role that they love and they're, you know, you know, there's a really good fit. It's a great feeling. I mean kids are a great leveler, you know, in terms of making you think about the, the world that you're leaving for others and what things are going to be like for them.

But I think it's also a process that it's most.

I quite often use the, the matrix analogy and my. Well fortunately it's retro now, so my kids know what I'm talking about. But the red pill and the blue pill, you. Yeah. And once you take the red pill you can't go back. Yeah, yeah. I.

My.

COO who is a. So we're employee owned business but shareholder in the business.

His first week I took him to the Purpose.

This was six years ago and he had come out of large business. He worked for Carlton United Breweries.

And he just found that his role was constantly making people redundant, finding efficiencies, beating his tango. And he said it's just soul destroying.

After a while, but took him to the Purpose Conference. And I'd been in the space for seven, eight years by this time, so I'm well used to it and love these conferences and you see people that are really passionate about making an impact. But for him it was his first exposure to it. You know, he'd been in business and he's a Kiwi, you know, grew up in Otago, loves the environment, two daughters, so wanted to make an impact but just hadn't been exposed to what was going on. And he's sitting there going, oh my God, we're destroying the planet and the environment and like modern slavery in Australia and just all of these things. And everyone's upbeat. It was just, you could see this kind of mind exposure explosion for them and it's like, yeah, there's bad stuff happening.

But there are people that are, that are keen to do something about it and they're not just Doing it to line their own pockets. And so, yeah, it's really uplifting when you, when you meet people like that and see the incredible things that they're doing.

Yeah, I think I've referenced it a couple of times. There's a couple of British comedians. I should remember their names. I've referenced it a couple of times. One of them actually went to my old school, but they've got this, that famous sketch of the two Nazi soldiers talking to each other. And one of them goes, hang on a minute, are we the baddies? And the other one's like, you might be right. Yeah. Because like, we do have like a skull and crossbones on our head. And yeah, we do kill quite a few people. And I think that's something that I, you know, just sort of think about is there, there is a lot of bad stuff happening. Could be you that's doing it, it could be your business, it could actually be your industry that is complicit just by virtue of how your industry is done. You know, it's just. Is based. And I think most people are a bit like the two, like, oh, oh, oh, it is me. Oh, yeah. And there is that. There is that awkward moment of are. But I think if you can propel yourself then into something like the B Corp movement where you go, oh, okay, it's. It's good to recognize it. But now let's go and work on a solution. Let's find, let's be positive about it and let's try and fix stuff and get to the bottom of it and change it.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the thing. And the thing I love about B Corp is, and I, I'm passionate about the intersection of business and sustainability. Like, that's, that's my thing because I.

Business is going to drive this change. Market forces will drive the change that we need to see. And we see that from the investment community. Just the acceleration over the last couple of years is because investors are involved. And I think.

Used to be that sustainability, okay, how much does it cost? So it's a cost and we kind of need to do that. And we need to look at our recycling rates because it's, it's the thing that we need to do.

And the problem with that is that at some point it'll get switched off. And that's always been my argument. You know, if there's a, if there's a cost around this, it'll get switched off at some point in time because someone will go, we can't do that. Anymore. And so we're seeing this shift to value creation.

And there's a guy called Rob Grant that I was on a panel with years ago. He used to be the CEO of Hydro Tasmania. He's working with Pollination Group now. And that was something that he said. He said we move from.

Payback to value creation because. And it was largely around efficiency. He said just because we've covered the cost doesn't mean that it stops generating value for us. So and I think the B corp space is about that. You know, it's about creating better businesses that are financially sustainable. Because if you're not financially sustainable then you're not a sustainable business and at some point you'll cease to exist and all that good work you've done will stop.

Yeah. Have you connected with Paul Frasca from Sustainable Salons that they're not, they're not a B corp. I always thought they were a B corp because they're such a B corp business, but they're not. But they collect a lot of the waste from the hairdressing industry. So the foils bottles.

Creating circular economies and what have you.

And I don't know if you can know there's not a lot of call for salons.

Yeah, I know this, I know the feeling.

Yeah.

But yeah, he, he described himself as an above ground miner and he, he said, you know, he'd be at these events and he'd be, you know, meeting people maybe from the extractive industries and you know, he'd say look, I, I do what you do but I' Value from the waste that's above ground that you're, that people don't see. But I've seen it and I've seen that the value exchange there and I think that is the sort of push to it, to a new economic system is. Yeah. Instead of extractive or okay, we've actually got to pay the cost of the dam. You know, any damage we might be doing. It's, it's not actually make an intentional business about fixing damage or reducing harm or whatever. And yeah, it's just, I think, you know, we're such in the bubble of that. I don't know.

I was watching a few videos recently and I forgot this description but it's a sort of fairly well worn trope from the uk. The man on the Clapham Omnibus, you know that, that was like the 60s and 70s ad agency description of what does the man on the Clapham Omnibus think about this? You know, just the bloke going to work the tradie, the you know, whatever.

You know, what do they think about this and how do we get them to think about it? And I, I do wonder how connected most people on the street are because we do live in a bit of a bit. I mean I live in very much in a B corp bubble, but I think you're seeing that trend.

Yeah, we, we are. I, I think, I think the connection to the, the person on the street is still not there. I think.

Definitely growing, but you just need to walk past a rubbish bin and see what has been right. You know, you have a recycling bin and a waste bin next to each other and the amount of recycling in the waste bin and waste in the recycling bin and you know, that's something that's right next to each other and it's, you know, there's an apathy around it and, and there is self interest around as well. You know, what, what's important to me and, and that.

This needs to be of value to people. People need to see value in sustainability and.

Making a difference and particularly at a point in time where people are struggling. You know, economic conditions are not fantastic across either country. Interest rates are at all time highs. So people are thinking about how do I put food on the table, how do I, how do I pay the mortgage? And so if these things are an additional cost, an additional headache, something else to think about.

It'Ll slip. So, so that integration is critical and that's where I see B Corp. You know, it is the integration into, into business, into.

I look at the, the.

Clothing stores and you know, and the expectation from the consumer is that if I'm buying a T shirt that yes, it is ethically sourced but I'm not necessarily going to pay more for it. I just expect that you're going to do that as part of what you do.

But there's not yet. You can't really expect a premium on that at this point in time. Not for the mainstream.

Yeah.

For the grow good family. Absolutely. I'm sure that T shirt is ethically.

Sourced and Yep, good old Etiko shout out to Nick Fair Trade and B Corp certified T shirt. So brilliant. I don't think you can get better than that. If you can, let Nick know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Excellent. Yeah.

It is interesting that, that sort of disconnect but then increasingly, you know, you feel there is that increasing desire people, I think people kind of unders. You've got to think in this day and age we're more connected to understanding our impact on, well, almost, you know, has it gone full circle as I mentioned before, I'm just in the middle of committing to actually getting my first book out. Who knows, maybe by the end of this weekend if I pull my finger out. I've said that now. But you know, one of the things I, I like to reflect on Sunday.

See how you go.

Yeah, the thing, you know, one thing.

You have started it, haven't you?

I have started it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I've collated it.

I know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So collated. I've got three books I want to write. One on B Corp, one on individual purpose, one on organizational purpose. And I had a zoom call with someone last week and she said, you know, just put, put the three together in one book to begin with.

Yeah, shout out to Jane from Sacred Changemakers who I'm doing a podcast with in a couple of weeks. She's like, just pull the three bits that you've got together into one book and then do the three letter. I was like, that's a really good idea.

But yeah, I've got, I've got a lot of respect for you writing a book. My, my wife is a copywriter and oh well also writing a book and my brother in law is in, he's in the film industry, he's a director, but he also does a lot of script writing.

Yeah.

And just the commitment that they have to sitting there and writing. So just as a discipline that they show.

Yeah, there's, there's a million. One of the things you could or should be doing.

Absolutely.

But yeah, last night I just got in, got into the zone and sat down at about 7:30 and went from 7:30 to 11:30. I've got most of the content I've got in either workshop that I run or you know, like the content's pretty much all there. It's just pulling it together and then putting it in the right order for a book is really what I'm up to. And then just adding a little bit of content or just fact checking and yeah, updating some, some content.

But if you ever see a book from me, I can guarantee it was not me that wrote.

Was the one.

You can call me out on that. Very low chance of there being a book with my name on it.

I'll never say never.

But yeah, something wrong and I'm the subject of it.

Yes.

Yeah.

The Life and Crimes of Richard Evans.

But yeah, one of the things I'd sort of think back to is, you know, back in the day, I mean obviously the fine Welsh stock that we are, Jones and Evans, which you know Brief history lesson for you is came from. So, but in. In Welsh, the naming would be so Richard App. Evan. So back in the day, Richard's father would have been called Evan. So Richard son of Evan. And then when the. The English came and took over Wales, they couldn't cope with that. And they said, well, we'll drop the app. We'll put an S on the end. So Tim Jones would be Tim App. John. Tim son of John. Too. Too long. We'll just put an S on the end. But you look at other naming, you know, so names like Cooper, Fletcher, Shoemaker, you know, we were named after the contribution we made to our society. So historically, we've actually had a high level of purpose and connection to what we do and how we do it. Obviously, if you're. If you're a shoemaker and you're dumping all the. All the leather waste of your shoes in the middle of the village and, I don't know, burning it, okay, back in medieval times, they probably did. But, you know, if you were doing it in such a manner that was annoying the rest of the community and causing, you know, harm, it's not long before the village come with their pitchforks and go, richard, look, we're big fans of your shoes, but could you maybe just stop being a bit of a dick about how you're making them? And I think that's. Yes, with globalization, we've had massive opportunities, scalability, what have you, but we've lost that. The recognition that you are a business nestled inside of other things and connected to other people and you have an effect on them. And I think, yeah, that's dissonance of, you know, well, I'm not. I'm not harming anyone. Have you actually looked and thought about it? Like, do you know that for sure?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's amazing. When the Modern Slavery act came into place in Australia here, the number of conversations I had with people where they were struggling to get buying from their company because they go, well, no, there's no modern slavery here. What are you talking about? We're in Australia. We don't have anything in our supply chain. And it's like, well, no, once they started digging into it, almost the shock. And I mean, we have a requirement for our suppliers to sign a letter.

Confirming that there is. People are paid minimum wage in Australia or living wage elsewhere. And we had a cleaning company come to, quote, for work and they couldn't sign the letter because they said, we. We can't guarantee because we use subcontractors. We can't guarantee that. That the subcontractors are being paid a minimum wage. And it was just.

Recounting that story to our team here, like, just stunned that that happens. And there's an amazing group called the Cleaning Accountability, Cleaning Accountability Framework that are. That are doing great stuff over here, but just really hit home in middle of Melbourne. The office is in a really nice area, so one of the more affluent areas in Melbourne. I don't live here. It's just where the office is. And.

They can't confirm that someone is being paid minimum wage. And it's criminal.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So who are these people? Who are they employing? Yeah, like, what conditions do they. Yeah, you start scratching that surface. I mean, it's sad and depressing. One of our. One of the. I think it was a franchise, a current or former Green Party MP here has basically just been found out for some labor violations. You sort of go really? Like, really, you know. Yeah. So you just don't know what's. What's going on. And all of it seemingly is just driven by the desire for a nickel or a dollar more. And it's like, really, you know, it's.

Like, never underestimate human greed.

Yeah, that's.

Unfortunately, that. That's what society is. You know, it's like people, they. They want a bigger tv. They see their neighbor with a. With a new car. And so we're. We're fueled by these desires and wants. You know, you. You look at social media, I've got three teenage kids and just the messaging that they're fed and.

Interesting. Kind of seeing them go through this journey when they're younger. And, and my oldest one, who's lived a bit more now, so he's at the back end of his teens and he's like, when he was young, he just wanted to be rich. He wanted to be famous. He wanted it. And he's like, I. I don't want any of that. Like, you know, I'd love a small house. You know, I want to go out. And, you know, he just wants to do design and he's like, working out that all of these things are these unattainable dreams that are not real. And so. But that's what society has been all this time. It's always Gordon Gecko. Greed is good, you know, and it's just. And I think that's probably been one of the shifts as well, because if you think of the baby boomers and previous generation, like their whole life they've been. Been fueled by. We need to. We need to create a better existence for our children, and that is by creating wealth and giving them the things that we never had. And so it's always been growth and more. And all of a sudden we're going, well, look what you've done. You know, all of that stuff, you know, you were doing it for us, but you're destroying the planet and, and that's bad. So it's like, no wonder it's been a really hard shift for a lot of people because it's, it's a slap in the face for them.

Yeah, massively. I've just been, yeah, going through bits of some workshops and stuff and keynotes I've got. And, you know, this is the big thing. A lot, A lot of people don't even. It's. It's like the, the fish in water. There's a. Is a really cool British documentary maker called Adam Curtis, and he's got a handful of documentaries all on YouTube for free. One of them is called Hyper Normalization, which is the idea that, you know, some stuff is just so endemically normal that you don't even question that it. It's a thing, you know, and so, you know, and in that you could look at the banking sector and go, well, the, you know, the, the word mortgage means death pledge, you know, so that on your death, what happens to the debt that you own on the property? Who does it go to? So the idea that you should not have enough money to. To just buy a house outright, it's just endemic. Like, you don't consider that there's a world without a mortgage. Well, that works pretty well for people who sell mortgages. Does it work so well for the people who have mortgages? I'd suggest ultimately not. And then, I mean, you get into the whole idea of fractional reserve banking. And I remember when the, the lady from the mortgage company came, you know, when we just finished building this house, and she literally had an iPad with how many years do you want to borrow some money for? And then she just randomly put a percentage of interest next to it. It's like, so you literally just randomly generated some numbers on an iPad to tell me how much money I have to pay you, which is money that you're bringing into existence on your iPad right now. So you literally could put 1% on that and you'd be doing all right and I'd be doing way better. So I don't know. But, you know, you sort of have that conversation with, again, the man on the Clapham omnibus, and you're like, whoa, what madness he talking about, you know, just go get a mortgage. That's just what you do. But yeah, in one of his other documentaries, the Century of the Self, he digs into like the consumer capitalist society that we live in was, was basically a function of the sort of 40s and 50s with this guy Edward Bernays who was the cousin of, sorry, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and so the whole beginnings of psychoanalysis, you know, all of that kind of stuff. He, he basically, he wrote a book, I think it was in the late 20s or early 30s called propaganda, which is the basis of all modern marketing. And he, he understood that humans are driven by fear or desire. And, and if you know that you can market to the fear and desire of every human and get them to do the thing that they maybe don't want to do by playing on their fear or design. If you look at every piece of modern marketing, like look pretty much any decent advertising campaign or billboard, I mean if just, just look at cosmetics, basically it's you're ugly and you smell unless you have our product and people won't like you if you ugly and smell, therefore you need to look beautiful and smell gorgeous and then everyone will love you.

Yeah.

And we don't have ability to see through that. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean some of us don't need that because we're so good looking and smell great.

Yeah.

All the time.

So we have the banks here awards in Australia. So it's a sustainability program that's been running for 35 years. It's the longest running sustainability awards program globally. And the UN Global Compact ran a forum just before it could afford faster forum and the CEO of l' Oreal.

Was interviewed as part of that part of that forum. And someone asked the question, I'm not going to get it exactly right. And I was thinking, I'm glad I'm not on the stage having to answer this because they, Laurie done a lot of work around.

Equality. So they've got 50% or more than 50% gender split in terms of leadership roles and CEO roles. Although the CEO for APAC was a male. And he called that out and he said, you know, there is that gender balance here. And someone asked the question that okay, well you've talked a lot about empowering women and equality. So how do you counter that with a product that is preying on the weaknesses of people to make them feel more beautiful? And, and I thought.

Yeah, it's that get, get the bag of popcorn meme or gif, isn't it?

Watch this one.

Yeah, yeah.

And have a good reply.

They, they, they did.

I think, I think it was so it was, it was b. Moved it from the, you know, the 80s 90s where you had to be perfect and it's like, well it's trying to make products for, for every person, you know and it's not talking about inner beauty rather than Syria and if it makes you feel better and rather than you have to look like this. But you know, you also look at it in terms of you're in an industry that it does prey on that and so can you be.

The company that is, that is a role model for the industry.

We have this conversation around recruitment. Recruiters don't necessarily have the best reputation out there in the market in terms.

Of behaviors have a bad repeatable lies. I don't believe it.

Yeah, yeah. People are a commodity and.

And so we, I guess we look at what we do and we don't spend a lot of time in the recruitment community but with the associations we will.

Go on panels where we're talking about our climate active certification. So carbon neutrality to try and encourage people to.

Do more.

Won this.

Award here last year which is the excellence in social purpose. Which is, which is nice but that's the first time we've kind of dipped into the, the recruitment sector.

But I think there is a, there is a place for, for people to go, okay, well you can actually have a business which is profitable, successful but actually cares about the impact that they're having and minimizes your footprint and supports local community and women owned businesses.

And.

Yeah, I think, I think we're seeing a lot more of that activity now and seeing other organizations lean into that in sectors where traditionally it's probably not been the norm.

And I think, I mean yeah, I don't know whether you saw that B Lab Insights report late last year that just showed the financial performance of B Corps. They, they outperform business as usual. So this misnomer that doing good, there's a cost, cost attached to it like it's never been less true, I think. Well the caveat to that would be obviously if, if you are a real legacy company that has got, you're using free prison labor, you're pouring toxic waste into the local river, but you're getting around it somehow. Yeah. Like clearly there's going to be some people coming from a bit more of a standing start than others. But in general the evidence is clear that business that's doing better outperforms. So it's not a cost like you Say it comes back to that value creation.

Rather than seeing it as mitigation or.

Being seen to do something.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, with B Corp as well, it is about. So if I think of it as better business, it does enable you to look at your governance, look at your environmental impact, look at how you work with your employees, your community.

And I think sometimes.

There can be a misunderstanding in terms of people looking at vehicle going, okay, well it's more, you know, you've got to be really earthy or you've got to be effectively a not for profit to do that. It's like, well, no, that, that's not the case. And I've seen some people talk about it and it almost feels elitist. And, and I thought that that's not, that's not what this is about. This, this shouldn't be that. This, this should be a tool that you can use any, any business. And you know, you might be a business that has some questionable activity in your supply chain, you can still use the impact assessment. Sure, you won't become a B corp, but it should help you actually look at how you become a better business and cover off those risks. Because if you are doing those things at some point.

There will be a price to pay for it.

Yeah, totally. I mean just the reputational risk that you're increasingly risk off is a thing. Yeah, likely.

Yeah. And, and that's the thing with a lot of these, these initiatives where they, they do cost now and we, we look at, you know, the energy transition and there's a cost associated with that.

It's trying to move away from that short term thinking because there will be a cost whether it's now or whether it's in 10 years. If it's in 10 years, it's going to cost a lot more. But we're very good at kicking things down the road.

And focusing on this quarter's results. And you know, because we can't have a, we can't have a loss even though it's an investment.

Yeah. That is the one thing that humans are super, super good at on a personal level and a corporate level, organizational level is like, yeah, you know, the ME tomorrow is not quite as important as the ME right now who really wants to, to eat the cookie. But the ME tomorrow who's going to have to go on a run is going to be sitting there going, why did me yesterday eat the cookie? And we'll do it again.

I think that's a Simpsons quote, isn't it, from Homer going, that could be that Sound. Yeah, that sounds like a problem for future me.

So true.

Yeah.

So going back to the, the early B Corp days, like what was it like and what was it like, man? But you were like one of the first.

So you sort of connected with it through this leadership group. But you know, what was it? Was it even a movement then? Or was it just a group of like.

So the leadership group. I just heard about it. So there was no. So it was. Someone had read about it in the US and raised it and thought that that sounds really cool. You know, it was like.

But there was no talk of it being in Australia. It was.

You know, the, the. There was only a handful in the US and it was just starting to, to build some traction there. When I first came into contact with it, it was. I met Danny Almagore from Small Giants. So Small Giants bought it to Australia and New Zealand and Danny was talking at a, at a conference about the new economy and mentioned B Corpse and I think he might have mentioned it or. But anyway, I was chatting to him in the, in the line at the, at the break to get coffee and he asked me what I did and I told him about the company and, and what we were doing and how we were trying to split our time and he's like, you have to be a B corp. I was like, yeah, but they're, you know, it's not here. You know, I've read about it goes, no, no, no, we're bringing it over. Bringing it over. You've got it, you've got to be in. So it was, it was almost a no brainer, like, well that's how we operate. So clearly we should be a B Corp.

We didn't get there on the first assessment because, you know, there we were fell short in terms of points.

But there was no such thing as local sourcing policies. And you know, a lot of the, the policies that were required, having to write them from scratch. And I think we saw that over, over a number of years where I bump into people at a conference and they, they thought that we did what you do, Tim. You know, they thought we were B Corp consultants because they had policies with our company name on it because we shared them with, with be there to go, right. If people need a local sourcing policy, this is what we've written. They can use that as a template and build from there. So it was very small. So there were 42 founding B Corps when it launched. I think we're the sixth. We were like the 12th or 13th. But there's a Couple that have consolidated or no longer B Corps now. But.

Yeah, it was definitely a very small community at that point in time. No one had really heard of it.

But great people.

I went to, went to Portland to a Champions retreat over there in 2015. That was where I met Steve Arda from Eagle Consumables.

And there was 22 of us that went across to Portland and really kind of took over the conference there. So Steve was the only kiwi and he certainly made his presence felt in his all black jersey at the, at the, the main dinner.

Yeah, Steve making it, making a display. I don't believe this.

Yeah, and he moved it. Who moved there afterwards. So he, you know, he made a real impact over there and very open. He goes, we, we're working in a dirty world. You know, we're making consumables and rubber gloves and things. And, and yeah, I think he, he kind of launched his US business off the back of that trip because people like, yeah, this is, this is important what you're doing.

So it was, it was certainly a lot more intimate back then.

And then coming from the, the latest retreat a couple of months ago here in Melbourne, it, it's growing. You know, it's bigger businesses. It's. It used to be very much small, medium enterprises back in the early days. There's a whole range of businesses now. So it's great to see that momentum building. The B Lab team do an amazing job considering the size of the team and, and I guess the expectation from the B Corp community. So, yeah, I think they do an incredible job with the, with the sector and, and supporting it. So, yeah, we're about to go through our fifth certification, so we're just in the process now. I think we've got to get our documentation in the next three or four months.

So that'll be a great exercise to kind of go through and, and see where we've come over the last three years.

Have you, have you noticed like a. Other than just the growth of the movement, you know, and more and more people understanding what it is, even, or even having heard of it, do you feel there's been any, any other sort of fundamental shift in like the vibe or the direction or do you think it's been still pretty, you know, core to where, where it was founded?

I think, I think it's still fairly core. Like, I don't think the intent has changed that much. It's probably just the awareness of it. I mean, it. But it's also matured as well. You know, I think the rigor around the certification process. You know, that they were a startup when we got involved. And I think it is constantly evolving.

You know, they're having to answer different questions now. You know, I think so Nestle or Nespresso are a B corp and that raised a lot of concerns. And, and so, you know, having to, to navigate. Navigate that. And I think.

Again, that shows that the, the space is maturing. Because.

If you're going to go, well, no, you're, you're in coffee pods and I'm from Melbourne, so I don't do pod coffee. It's got to be, you know, you got to know the tree that the bean came from.

But don't get me started on you coffee snobs. It's like I just want a cup of tea that isn't like the color of my walls and yeah, yeah, tepid.

It's all right. Oh, if the coffee's not good, I'll have a tea. So I'd rather have a tea than a, than a bad coffee.

Trying to get, trying to get a cook of tato, mate. I tell you, it's impossible. Almost give it up.

One that you can stand your spoon.

Up and I want to stand by spoon up in it. That's what we're looking for. I literally say that to people and they look at me and go, yeah, I'll just throw. Wave a tea bag at it.

Yeah.

Anyway, rant over.

Life's life's so tough, right?

It is, I tell you. Yeah.

But it's. I, I think they're a great example because if we go, oh well, no, you're. You do potsy. You can't come in. So we'll. Hang on. There's a big problem like the waste stream from pods and, and I haven't seen the stats now. I think it, it feels like it has waned a lot. Like the, the craze of coffee pods kind of took off and it was ridiculous the, the wastage from it. But you got to address these things so though they're the ones that we want in there because people are going to drink coffee out of pods because it's convenient.

Yeah.

So I'd rather someone who's responsibly dealing with the waste from it than someone that doesn't care.

I think the N word, as I call it, was a really interesting case in point. So I reached out to the New Zealand CEO because they were getting mixed results in the social media space post announcement. And I know talking to Andrew Davies, CEO, another Welshman in the world of b Corp. Clearly, Davies, Evans and Jones. We should start a band or something. The Be Court band would be, I don't know, I don't play any instruments. I can sing. Ish. After a couple of beers.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're on your own.

But yeah, I reached out to him and said, you know, how's it going? You know, possibly, I don't know, was this the reaction you were expecting or hoping for? And I ended up having a catch up with him when he was in Christchurch and just, you know, talk through some stuff and he said, you know, being a Swiss based company, he said, you know, and this, this is where for me that everything around business for good is not black and white, it is nuanced. You know, he was basically saying that the pot has a perfect amount of coffee for the coffee it's making and it uses a perfect amount of water. So he said compared to a barista made coffee or a coffee that you might make at home in a, in a, in a less, you know, precise machine, there will be more water waste and more coffee waste. So when you factor that in, he goes, actually it's, it's not that bad. He said, yes, obviously the, the, the challenge is the pods, but the pods are actually recyclable. He said, the challenge is obviously getting the consumer to get the pods to the place that it's recyclable. So, and then I go, well, I look at the coffee that my wife drinks and she has it in one of those silver foil packages which is not recyclable. So you go, okay, yeah, this is, but I think, yeah, I think, I don't know, listen to a lot of podcasts from the states and the polarization of left versus right that seems to be happening in the States. And, but I think humans, we want things to be simple and easy. We want it to be black and white. This is good, that is bad. But it's, it's not the case. It's way more complex than that. You know, and I wrote, I wrote a blog on the back of this Nespresso thing. It's like, well, some people calling for Nespresso not to even exist. Okay, so what, we just get rid of the thousand or however many thousand employees that they've got overnight, that their lives are worthless in the pursuit of your perception that their way of making coffee is not as good. I mean, we're also working with a couple of coffee companies at the minute. And one of them, I said to them, nespresso, what he thoughts? And he said, yeah, look they're getting a pasting on all this child labor stuff. He said the inconvenient truth is every coffee company got child labor in their supply chain. And I go, okay. And it's. But, you know, this, again, this is the nuance of it. He said, a lot of it is there'll be a small, you know, family farm somewhere. And when it comes to harvest time, they have to get the kids involved to pick the. The cacao beans because if they don't, they can't afford to hire people. And if they don't do it, they lose their crop. And you go, well, is that any different from maybe the local dairy or even a local farmer here in New Zealand or Australia who's school holidays right now? I can guarantee you there is a kid working on a farm right now. Yeah, well, is that child labor or is that helping the family? It's.

You know, my parents are over from New Zealand at the moment. We should have that conversation with my dad.

Yeah, I'd like some compensation. Yeah. But you know what I mean, it's like, you can put a lens on it. And clearly, I'm not disputing that there is awful abuses and child labor and slave labor going on, but it. You can't just carte blanche go. That is, you know, any child working anywhere is to be considered child labor.

Yeah.

I mean. Yeah. And I think that's the problem we get to. Is this binary nature. And I think in general, that's what I quite like about B Corp is they welcome and say, look, there is nuance. You know, this is. There's some stuff that's clearly. No, that's not cool. There's some stuff that's clearly. Yep, that's better. But there is always a bunch of stuff in the middle where they go, look, actually, there's nuance here. We need to. We need to have a. And I think that's. Yeah. The future. You know, you can't just be. Yes, no on everything.

Yeah. I hope my kids don't listen to this, because they want.

Yeah, yeah, Rod, hold back. Yeah, sorry. My child is not even vaguely interested in what I do. She's like, yeah, whatever, just stop boring me.

One day.

Yeah. Elements on social media and. Fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the other battle. Yeah. We're really pushing hard for not to have any social media. We're winning it so far. But the pressure comes on from all the other families who don't consider social media to be such a risk.

Oh, it's tough. Well, that's A. That's a whole.

That's a whole other podcast. Yeah.

Other podcast. Yeah, yeah. It's the constant strength of a, of a parent these days. And yeah, you see Mr. Musk putting the first implant.

Yeah.

And then that's just. Yeah, yeah. People in the, in the specs or the glasses industry saying that I reckon Apple will be the number one provider of eyewear in a couple of years.

Based on that stupid VR thing.

Well, it'll be a smaller glass that. Yeah, well, that will automatically adjust and you'll probably have this on your lens, which means that It'll be there 100 of the time. So there's scary stuff coming.

I do, I do wonder.

Again, showing my possibly, well, not age but history degree. You know, the Luddites, back in the day, in the, whenever it was Industrial Revolution, people were going around breaking machines because it's like, no, this machine's going to take my job.

I do wonder whether we will see, you know, will people just go, actually, I think this is going too far. I mean, maybe in the modern age you just not want to buy it, I suppose, but you know, the risk in certain industries of technology or, or stuff being implemented. I mean, I suppose we've seen this to a degree with the, with the writer strike, with the AI stuff in the States. Yeah, it's interesting just whether there will be a pushback. You know, Elon's clearly an interesting fellow, but just because you want to have that happen.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. The problem is with the apps. The people that are designing them are far smarter than I am and, and they got a team of them to, to keep people engaged. It's that attention economy.

Yeah, 100%.

So getting back to B Corp and your B Corp specifically. So where and sort of how do you see you're making an impact? Did you have like a, have you unlocked impact business models throughout the, the journey.

Putting you on the spot here?

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting the.

So from the B Corp side of things. So this is probably the first year that we've gone through and gone. Right. Okay. We need to actually look at what we're doing and how we're doing it and.

Get in front of our certification because it's as a small business under time pressure, there weren't big consultants like yourself a few years ago. So, you know, you try and find time to pull it together and kind of scramble last minute to get, get things in. So.

We do unlock an impact because I think we unlock the governance one, but we're starting to go through the process now, so we'll understand a lot more around that. I think in terms of our business.

We'Ve got a few more things in place or quite a bit more in place over the last three years since the last certification. So it'll be interesting to see if other models are unlocked.

I guess if we look at our customer base, the majority is corporate. So.

Although 30% is supporting underserved communities, I don't think it's enough to unlock the model. And that was something that we struggled with early on because we were doing a lot of pro bono work and.

Because we weren't charging for it, it didn't count.

In terms of our business model.

Yeah, that customer. That is always a tension. So the impact business models are where you can demonstrate you're going out of your way to create more positive social or environmental impacts. And for service companies, yeah, it's, it's often you. The risk is you fall between the two stalls. So if you're doing paid work for a charity or a. Possibly like a local government entity or another B corp, then you can claim that as points under the customer impact business model. But if you're doing pro bono work for a charity, then that's captured under the community impact as the model currently stands. And yeah, sometimes we sort of find people have either, yeah, they've, they've just, they've done it wrong on both counts and so they don't end up getting any recognition for the good work that they're doing on, on either side of it. Or they don't do enough pro bono to meet the, the bottom threshold to unlock it.

It's like, yeah, I've just made a note of that. Thanks, Tim.

Free consulting.

Oh yeah, brilliant.

You buy me a beer next time you're in Christchurch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And I guess for, but for us, we've never done it to the points like we, yeah, we're passionate about being part of the community. And so that's the, that's the main thing is just that were involved and I think there's a lot more we can do in terms of looking at a business and going, right, okay, well we're doing these things. We probably need to tweak that slightly or.

If the wording was slightly different, then we'd probably get points for it. But you know, is that authentic then?

Are we trying to grab points rather than. Is this actually something that's really important to us?

And that is always a. The consideration is like, yeah, don't just chase the points like if it's meaningful to you and, and it makes sense, then sure. But yeah, certainly.

Absolutely. Well, and it's got to be meaningful to the, to the team as well. Yeah. If things, things are being put in place and it's.

You know, that's to get points.

Question the, the integrity.

Yep.

So yeah, so that would be, but it'd be interesting because as I say there's, there's a number of things we looked at. So environment was always a challenge for us because yes, we would, we would always buy renewable energy and, but we never measured our footprint. So I was like, well, we know that it's zero but we're going to go through all of that process to work out what it looks like. And whereas now because we're certified carbon neutral, that's been done. So I'm sure we will.

Tick more boxes on, on that side, which we wouldn't have previously. Yeah.

And that's, I mean that's often a good approach that we would advise, you know, what either the first time through, you know, look at, look at where you're not scoring points and think about, well, is that something that we do care about? Okay, well now we know that that's something we need to be thinking about. Well, let's, let's put a program in place and let's put some budget to it and let's give someone the authority to go and think about that. And the same really for, you know, for the research journey. It's like, yep, we, we haven't really moved on. That, that's, that is now top of my mind or there's now a push, pull pressure that would suggest we do need to get on top of that. Well, at least then you've got a framework to go, well, what does global gold standard performance look like in this?

Yeah.

And away you go.

Yeah. And it's really straightforward. Like it's a, the platform's great. You know, in terms of this is what you do. Here's where the gaps are and I guess the helps and help and tips and tricks and so yeah, it's come, come a long way over the years.

Yeah. So I guess you're sort of at the pointy end in the recruitment world. You know, one of the stats that we see from I guess, you know, various places would be that increasingly people are looking for more purpose in their role. They're wanting to go and work for more purpose driven entities. Is that what you see?

Yeah, absolutely. Like we, as you say, we're at the pointy end of purpose and recruitment.

One of our challenges at the moment is just the level of interest from people looking to transition either into a purpose driven role or a purpose driven organisation that might have had 20 years as an accountant and they want to move into sustainability. So we could fill our diaries all day, every day having conversations with people, giving them career advice around how they make that transition wouldn't be a great business model for us and we'd be out of business pretty quickly. But just the volume of interest. Yeah, I probably get half a dozen requests for coffee or a teams meeting or a catch up a day.

Which makes it hard as well because you, you want to give people the time but just physically can't. So this is where things like this podcast are great and we're starting to think about that in terms of well, how do we answer everyone's questions who had. And they're usually the same questions.

But we're very much a relationship driven business so we, we don't want to commoditize it. You know, we value the connections that we build. But yeah, certainly the, the interest from people in this space, the interest from organizations as well. We got mandatory disclosures obviously in New Zealand, but coming up in Australia as well. So the next layer of businesses are starting to think about this now as well.

Been interviewed by a couple of the accounting finance publications and when did this climate stuff become important? It's like. Well, people have been looking at it for a while but so we're just seeing this groundswell at the moment.

Do you know Wendy from Kin People Kin Recruitment?

Yes, I think I spoke to Ken when they were going through the certification process.

Yeah, because I know, yeah, we know. Wendy just reflects similar. You know, they, they get more and better applicants for B Corp or purpose driven roles than, than non. But I suppose you're, you're. I think that they're kind of. Most of their client base is purpose driven or sort of B Corp. But yeah, it's just, it's just good to, you know. Yes, there's data from consulting firms or have you. But in some ways it's actually, I think better to hear it from the horse's mouth who's on the front line going, yeah, no I am. I'm actually seeing this because yeah, I just think it just adds more data points to the evidence that doing good is. I think it's a Tony Robbins quote. You know, no one ever felt bad about doing good. Yeah, no, just do more good.

Yeah, well we're seeing that. So we're growing at the moment. We're Recruiting for our team and just the caliber of people coming through that are they fantastic recruiters but they want more purpose. You know, they're like.

And I guess, you know, you raised around the, our impact. Like our impact is linked to the people that we put into these ROLES.

Here in Australia, 38 of the ASX 100, the 100 biggest companies, we've had a hand in putting in their sustainability and net zero and human rights teams. So.

That'S where we create impact. And the things that we do with one girl and the remuneration reports and the pro bono work, that's great.

And certainly for us that.

Fills our cup in terms of.

Our contribution back into society. But really the biggest impact we have is by being good at recruitment.

Yeah, stick genetic. Do it. Yeah, do it well and make him. But making impact while you're doing it because yeah, you could be recruiting for tobacco companies.

Yeah.

Or other.

Yeah, yeah, we could. We won't, but we could. You could, yeah, yeah. And you know, it's interesting some of those, those decisions as well because we have those conversations where people go, oh yeah, I could never work for a fossil fuel company. And then they get in the car and they drive home, you know, so there's, so we're, we're pretty, pretty open that we, we do work with bad guys.

To a certain extent. You know, if it was someone looking to develop a new coal mine. No. You know, or if it was a, a mining engineer or if it was.

Someone looking at rehabilitating the landscape or you know, so fixing some of those issues. Absolutely, that's what we do. Or if it's someone trying to make the organization better, then we will work with them unless it's tokenistic. And we have had that in the past with one company we worked with and they made all these promises around what this person would be doing after a couple of years. The person said that they're not doing any of it, you know, I'm out. And they asked us to replace the role and we said no, going to do it. They said, oh, we're elevating the role and it's a bigger role and more impact. And we said no once a bit in twice shy. You know, we're not going to put someone in there because you didn't follow through on that commitment last time.

And it's sad that there is. I mean, I was talking to someone yesterday, a client of ours, and they are absolutely in their dream role. The company has a huge social purpose. It's documented and I, I think they're going to be a very, very high scoring B corp. But they'd been working.

Was that one of my team?

What's that?

No. Was it one of my team?

No, sorry, sorry, it wasn't. But I'm sure it'd be just the same. But I first met them when they were working for a different company in the same sector who were making similar claims. But they basically said, yeah, look, the, it's night and day, you know, whereas before it was just tokenistic and they didn't last long in the role because. And I think, you know, if you have got high turnover in your company, you might want to have a look at what you're doing and how you're doing it. Because I've only ever left companies when there was a huge mismatch between what I thought they were about and what we were really about. And, and. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, I just think. Have a look at yourself.

My. The last business that I was in, it was, was a really successful company performing really well.

But I just. Yeah, there was a disconnect.

So what.

Yep, yep. You gotta, you gotta enjoy what you do. And, and that's one thing we look at here. Like we, we don't want to have a good month or a bad month based on a number. So there are a number of factors that go into, into how we assess how we're going. Yes. Revenue and profitability is important because we have to keep the lights on. And I want people to be paid well for the work that they're doing. They're exceptional, the team here, so they should be rewarded for that and they shouldn't be punished because they're working in a space that delivers good.

Yep, totally.

Well.

And I think increasingly the difference is that you can sort of do good and do good. You know, it makes sense. And it makes sense. Yeah. So.

Yeah, yeah. And if you're passionate about what you do, you're going to be better at it.

100%.

Yeah.

What a crazy idea. And if there's some purpose behind it. Oh, crazy idea. Yeah. My catch on. So what's, what's the future look like then? So you've been in the B Corp movement for pretty much, what, a decade or more? What do you think the next decade looks like?

That's a good question.

Not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Everyone always asks about the.

Yeah, sorry, I'm getting the, getting the.

Hand signal, getting the eyes up.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, people always ask, what, what's our exit strategy? What do we, you know, been in this phase, the company's been going 10 years and.

For us it'll be continuation of the employees or the team having greater and greater ownership of the organization. I don't think we've been approached by a number of companies. The alignment of values is just not there and it's not something that we're going to look at. So we love the space that we play in.

We're not overly ambitious. We're a successful small company and, and we're planning to, to continue on that journey.

We started to do quite a bit more work in New Zealand, which is, which is great because there's obviously a strong emotional connection for myself and, and the team here. So we'll continue to, to reach into New Zealand, but there's a lot more work to do here. You know, we feel like we're just at the start, you know, it's almost like we're at this inflection point where people care about this. We're getting a lot more involved with educational institutions as well to help structure courses and around what's going to be important. So I think there's scope to do a lot more. But we will stick to our knitting in terms of. We're good at recruitment.

In terms of structuring roles and teams, that helps us. If we get that right, then, then we get the, the person right. We'll continue to do that as part of what we do, but for us, we'll continue to grow here and, and in New Zealand.

Nice. And so to finish up real quickly then, before you get thrown out of your own office. Favorite B Corp. Any anyone come to mind?

It's so hard to pick a favorite B Corp, you know, and yeah, I really struggle with that. Like we, so we've.

We try and work with B Corps. So, you know, our accountant, rvk is a B Corp. They're amazing.

Marketing company, good sense and.

In Auckland, they're, they're fantastic. So.

Our lawyers are marked lawyers. So we're. Yeah, I think there's just so many good B corps out there and I think they're genuine and their intent around what they do.

I think Talent Nation's probably my favorite one. But there's a few other good ones out there. So. Yeah, I really couldn't, I really couldn't. That's very, you know, I think.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's getting harder to choose because there's now so many, whereas before it was like there's only six to choose from.

Yeah, pretty easy.

I'll go for them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's so much like you, you look at, you see the announcement. It's great that they're doing that and.

And you read more about what they do and.

Yeah, a lot of it.

A lot of what you see on the surface just is not what sits in behind it, you know, so Pavlo and Rusty Coffee company, they, they sent us some beans to trial and.

You know, you start to dig into some of the other stuff that they're doing around, around the husky cups and the, you know.

Like.

Rescuing child soldiers from Myanmar and like, it's just, yeah, I don't know that.

You just scratch the surface on some of these organizations. Okay. Yeah, they're just really passionate people. Good people, good to be around and, and yeah, you just get energy from them.

Yeah, no, it's so cool. All right, mate. Well you, you need to be, you need to be on your way. Thank you so much. So if people in Aussie or New Zealand are looking for a more purpose driven job in the sort of the, the purpose driven sector, where can they come and find Talent Nation?

So we're, we're easy to find on the website talentnation.com got offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.

And yeah, you can jump online anytime, so www.talentnation.com or give you a call and you can flip on my details.

If someone needs to get home. No worries.

As long as I give the podcast a thumbs up.

Yeah, 104 stars at least. Yeah, no man. Appreciate your time. It's been good to sort of actually reconnect this last couple of months and yeah, when you're, when you're next round the corner, we'll go to the vic for, for a cheeky beverage.

Sounds good. All right, mate, you have a great day.

Bye.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp, how to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.