E095 - Adam Hall from Internet Fusion

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Adam, welcome to the Green Element Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. You come from Internet Fusion, could you tell us a bit about you and your business, please?

Yeah, of course. Internet Fusion is a group of online retailers that operate in majority outdoor sports. So we have Surf Dome, which is mountain sports and ocean sports, action sports. We have Dirt Bike Bits, which is a motocross website. We have a couple of outdoor sites, Webtogs and Blackleaf, and a couple of equestrian sites, so Derby House and Rideway. But essentially we are a specialist niche retailer, online retailer, and what we do is we bring them all into one central hub so they all benefit from economies of scale through joined up marketing, joined up warehousing, joined up operations, joined up finance, which makes each of those smaller niche websites much, much stronger as a collective, essentially. And me, my name's Adam Hall. I'm head of sustainability. And yeah, I look after all the elements of the business to make us as sustainable as possible. Being an outdoor website collective of websites. The natural world is massively important to our customers, it's massively important to us as a business. Many of our staff are engaged in the very sports we endorse, so it's crucially important that we are doing our utmost for the environment. So yeah, yeah, that's who we are.

Brilliant, thank you so much. And could you tell us a bit about Your purpose and who you work with.

Me personally?

No, the company, the company. And I guess what I'm trying to do is trying to understand— you're talking about sustainability, and I know from working with you how strong and embedded sustainability is within your organization. So what I'm trying to draw out of is where does that come from? What's your purpose? Why You've talked about customers. How do you know your customers are talking about it? Like, where does it come from?

Where's that drive come from? Well, I think you'll know it firsthand, and from kitesurfing, Will. It's our customer base. We are providing our customers with highly technical products, so they— and fashion products too, but then lifestyle products that go with it. But it is the products that people will go out and do the thing that they're passionate about. Right? So for you, it would be your kitesurfing kit. You know, it's— you're massively engaged in that. It's got an emotional connection to it. And then our customers are going out and enjoying these recreational sports in the great outdoors. And actually what they're finding is, as you probably do, you know, you step over a tide line of plastic, you know, or you're arriving in the mountains for your well-earned week in the snow or weekend or whatever, and you're finding the snow's rubbish because it's rained in the middle of winter because the climate's breaking down. You know, you're finding that you're taking your horse out on your, your favorite trail and it's just completely washed out, and, and actually the horse has damaged its foot because it can't make it up a track or a trail because it's totally washed out because there's too much rain. So, so we, we're very much engaged in, in the sports that we endorse So much so that we are participants ourselves and we're very well connected with our customer base and as are many of our brands. So that this whole theme of sustainability flows through that whole lifestyle and through our business. So it's fundamentally important for us. Having said that, we are a leader in particularly plastics and with your help we are becoming more so around climate change. So why do we care about it more? Well, I guess, why are we doing more than others? I guess it's come down to a variety of different individuals throughout this sustainability journey that we've been on since 2014. And it, I mean, it has to start with Justin Stone, who was the founder and the CEO of Surfdome, who we went for a beach clean one day and he— we literally just had a chat saying, what are we going to do about this? And, um, and, and it kind of stemmed from there. And there was a CTO at the time called Joe Sims, um, and he was hugely passionate. And they watched the film Trashed. I don't know if you remember the film Trashed by Jeremy Irons. Um, and they were, they, they were literally like, we've got to do something about this. Um, and, and in a long story short, we, we took really decisive action in 2015, and we eliminated 74% of the plastic from our own outbound packaging in one quarter. By the end of that year, the whole project was net positive. There's quite a long story, but through taking that decisive action, our customer base just hugely reacted to that. The industry reacted to that. The sustainability world reacted to that. And it was— we literally got the wind in our sails and it was— it just reaffirmed what we needed to do and it was just such a positive action that— and it was such a bold action that everything else afterwards has just been— it's much, much easier. We find that our customers hugely react to anything that we do around sustainability. We're finding some of our key brands are massively reacting and hugely supportive of what we do, and we're growing business with those brands, whereas perhaps they would question whether they should grow with us if we weren't doing that. So yeah, and I mean, the list goes on of the positivities around it. We attract and we maintain great stuff because they want to be involved with a business with purpose.

Okay.

I think essentially It's come from that, it's come from personal drive within key figureheads within the business. Yeah, and the ability to do it. We had an operations manager at the time called Raj, and he was like an 8-lane freeway, just let's go. Operations managers are generally brick walls, and that's continued. We've got Dudley Rogers, who's our operations director now, and Ben Rangecroft, who's our operations manager in the warehouse. And they just completely understand it. They've just, they've opened their eyes to it, and it all stems from that initial activation that we've really kind of opened up and we've appreciated what it's doing. But it's around the key element that we keep on bringing back from in a business context. It's around values-driven marketing. And that's something that Philip Kotler, a very prominent marketer, has been talking about a lot lately, and that's where businesses are diving very deep into the values of their customers. And actually, those businesses are being very successful because if a customer can feel that through dealing with a company they match their values, that they know they're in the right place. So yeah.

Okay, that's really interesting. I've got a couple of questions on the back of that. And quite early on you said that you, in that first quarter in 2015, you reduced your plastic by 75%. By the end of the year you were net positive. Can you just help me understand what net positive on plastic packaging means, please?

Yeah, absolutely. So sorry, net positive in a financial sense. So essentially we The biggest plastic baddie we had in our business was the polybag, the poly mailing bag. As any online business will know, these are super cheap, super efficient, they're waterproof, they protect your product, they're fantastic, they're great fit for purpose. They're awful for the environment, we all know that. You can't recycle them and they just cause havoc. So that equated for just over 9 tonnes of our plastic footprint, which was the vast majority. I haven't got the percentage of what that was worth, but it would be between 60 and 75%. Now, to revert to paper or cardboard, there was 110% uplift in price. That just doesn't wash when you go to a financial director. So we had to rethink that whole strategy. And what we did is we took a holistic approach to sustainability. And the first rule of sustainability is you reduce. If you reduce, you save money. So every other sustainability action that we took that saved us money, we ring-fenced that money and we reinvested it into that 110% more expensive cardboard box. So in that first year, we sent 2.5 million packages. If you can imagine that cost lift of 110% over those 2.5 million packages, That was horrific. So actually, with all the savings we made, the net cost of that project was only £900. By the end of the year, we were actually sorting our waste so well that we were selling our recycling, which actually tipped us into a net positive. Right, so yeah, but I just want to point out that actually what we're really proud of is it was 74 reduction in plastic at that stage, but in 2019 we reached 99.81% plastic-free for our unpacking. So we're really proud of that.

That's brilliant. I should put you in touch with— I know a company that have— a kitesurfing company that have tried to minimize their plastic and are struggling to send kites not in plastic. Because they're shipping them from, say, China, but they've actually got a couple of sites around the world and in the rain, and customers want a kite that hasn't been touched, and they have struggled not using plastic and working out how to send it. I think it's really important to understand how difficult the difficulties you've overcome, because it's all very well to say you can just swap from one thing to another, but you're battling with so many different geographical areas of the world and weather patterns whilst shipping things. And so I think that's pretty amazing, personally.

Yeah, absolutely. And actually, even those geographical locations, there's operational factors, there's social factors. Some of them were from an environmental point of view, there was very clear, don't do this, do this. And a classic one is going from plastic tape to paper tape. Paper tape is cheaper and stronger. Go figure why anyone's using plastic. So, but operationally, the tape we chose at the first point, first time, The operations team hated it, they hated using it, and we had to overcome that. We persevered, and actually they found it was quicker, and they actually began to— it was just managing change. So yeah, I mean, that's just one element, and actually looking at all of them and actually how stable is the supply chain, that's another point. You know, plastic is just endless. They just pump the stuff out. quickly as cheaply as you want with no problem with the supply chain. That can't be said for every single other material. So yeah, yeah, there's lots, lots of elements. Yeah. Yeah, but it's been a great journey. Yeah. So just to recap, 99.81% plastic-free from a 94.44% recycled content natural fiber as well. So common criticism, if you move away from plastic and you go to natural fibers, is there can be deforestation. We've squarely addressed that by using 94.44% recycled materials across our packaging chain.

That's brilliant. That's really, really good. That's really good. And I think the other thing I picked up on that's just worth a mention to anyone listening is you mentioned your operations director and your operations manager, and that just shows that the company has got buy-in across the board. Which I would hazard a guess makes your life as head of sustainability so much easier because you've got a cohesive approach to sustainability and everyone is trying to achieve the same goals. And we've all got different hats within a company, and to have everyone in different parts actually going, right, okay, In this department, we need to be doing this. It's probably incredibly useful.

Yeah, it is. And it is a really collaborative team approach, and it's really refreshing because in previous lives I've been in situations where you're just butting heads the whole time, and it's like, well, I've got this agenda, you've got this agenda. And it's actually, no, the way that we work is, you know, Dudley will call me up and he'll say, Adam, what's the sustainability consideration in this scenario? And that's fantastic, you know, and it's just that open conversation. And actually it's like Adam needs to be in this conversation or he needs to be in this meeting. And it's not necessarily my core role, but I'm there as a— as to give that voice for sustainability. And actually, you know, it's what I really respect with what Ben and— and there's a guy called Chris Martin in our warehouse who's another warehouse manager. is they know they've got KPIs. And I go to them and I ask them to have worse KPIs, but they do, you know, and it's known throughout the business, you know, they flag it, they say, look, it's Adam's fault. They flag it, but they know it's core to our business, you know. And actually what's really heartening is— well, I won't go into detail, but there's something I didn't have any influence over. And I was like, guys, why are we using cardboard trays here on the racking? And they're like, because we're a plastic-free company. I didn't have to say anything, you know, I didn't have to kind of go in. And yeah, so it's really heartening to be at that stage now where we've gone through the bulk and we've gone through that pain, and it's now, as I think we'll come on to a little bit later, It's about getting accreditation and certification for this and then really starting to turn the screws on the finer details.

Can you tell us a bit about how you've engaged your staff, suppliers, and customers with that mission and purpose?

Yeah, so I think with— I'm not particularly great at engaging our staff because I'm the kind of character that just gets my head down and gets on with it. But, you know, the operations team, we do do some talks in the warehouse to our operations team, and we produce a lot of videos which, you know, we try and engage them in those videos, and we, you know, we really sing the praises of what we've achieved. As far as staff goes, we do have things like a sustainability channel, which is very, very, very active. You know, we do do some internal talks and we also have sustainability champions. So they are positioned in each of the offices and they essentially help me gather data about those offices, the people on the ground, and then they, you know, they've got a bit of free rein to come up with anything that's specific to their location. So yeah, I guess around that, Essentially, you are preaching to the converted with our staff because they, you know, they're dealing with a brand. If they're a buyer, they're dealing with a brand who's sustainability conscious. You know, if they're in the marketing team, they know that their customers are sustainability conscious as well. So they're aware already. You know, most people are engaged in some of the sports we endorse. So it's quite easy on that context. You know, I do talk to our staff quite a lot through different conferences, which is great. But I think where we're really strong is engaging our supply chain, and that's where we are very aware that we need to use our sphere of influence. You know, it's all very well us having a highly sustainable warehouse, you know, with carbon reduction strategies and plastic reduction strategies, but we're just this one business, you know, in one part of a country in the world. You know, we need to spread that influence, and we do that through our supply chain, and we do that to our customers as well, so we go in both directions. But through influencing our supply chain, we see the biggest opportunity. So we have something called the delivery policy that actually has a whole section on the materials they can send us, so the packaging materials. And as far as we can tell, when we launched that back in 2018, It was the first of its kind, certainly in our industry at least, and anywhere else that we could find really. But it was a best practice guide, so we wanted it to be very collaborative, very practical, very pragmatic, and a useful tool for these businesses, not just a statement that if you send us plastic, we're going to fine you. It had to be a tool that actually we knew would make meaningful change. So it's a delivery policy for every single element that they send us. from the swing tags that you find in the back of your shirt through to how a pallet's delivered, you know, and everything in between. And it's a traffic light system, so the red zone will no longer accept it. Things like black plastic wrap for a pallet, because you can't really recycle it. Colored tape on those pallets, you know, we no longer accept plastic tape on boxes. little metal eyelets on your swing tag because you're blending materials and it's difficult to recycle. So the red zone is a no, the orange zone is minimum accepted, and then there's a green zone which we actually want to aim for. And it's a live document, so we update it and we put in new recommendations as we find them and as they go. So that went down really well, and we've used a very collaborative approach with delivering that in the fact that we invited all of our 800 brands into a warehouse day. And we asked the operations team to be very quiet as we put on a presentation for the day. And we delivered that delivery policy. And we explained in person why that was important to us. And as I explained it, I pushed up a bale of plastic and I pushed up a huge chunk of hangers. And I was like, look, we can't We can't keep on going like this, we need to start reducing these elements. And that went down really well, really, really well. It was overwhelmingly positive, and brands would often say to us that we knew we had to do something, we weren't entirely sure what to do, you've given us a guide, and you're one of our major customers, and you've given us the short, sharp boot to get this going. So that was really great. One of my favorite comments was one of our biggest brands said, if we change for you, we're gonna have to change for everyone. So that's on the plastic front, but we also, which I'm really excited, and I know that Green Element are very much involved in this too, is the POW Pledge. One of our charity partners, Protect Our Winters UK, go check them out. We've been one of their partners from the get-go. And I've worked very closely with them, so much so that I'm now a trustee of the charity as well, which is great. But it's— we've developed a Power Pledge, and this is around climate change, and it's an 8-pledge system which is again very practical, very pragmatic, and it's very lightweight. But it's almost like your entry point, your starting point, your guide to set your climate, your positive climate actions going forwards. So we're going to launch that in September, and that'll be launched to all our 800 brands where we're going to be strongly recommending they take that as well to really make some positive impact. So from that point of view, we're trying to influence our brands and the industry as much as we possibly can, you know, using our position and our sphere of influence to influence the brands. And we're also in the other way trying to influence our customers. And what we do is we have things like a sustainable gear listing, which is just a listing full of products that have sustainability attributes to try and encourage our customers to make more sustainable choices. So that encourages us to push brands to make more and do more. And then we have sustainable gear dropdown searches as well. So if you want to only search for an organic tee, you can do that. So it's just trying to influence both in both directions, you know, us being the conduit, if you like, between a brand and a retailer— sorry, a customer. So yeah, that's where we influence, and I think to answer your question, we're not—

I'm not so great at engaging with staff, but we are very strong at engaging with our I think by pure virtue of the fact that you've got engagement across your companies means that you probably are quite good at engaging your staff. But when it comes to running an ethical and sustainable business, what would you say has been the biggest struggle so far? And can you tell us a bit about how you've overcome it?

Yeah, you know what, I think it is communication. And I think that's, you know, as you probably can tell already, I tend to talk about lots of different angles, and I need to learn to condense and just stick to key messaging because there's a few things that we've learned over time that you have to almost go with a 1-2-3 approach because that's instantly communicatable.

It's digestible.

And I think that's always been our challenge is, you know, there's a lot of complexities and terminologies around sustainability that not everybody gets. And if you start rattling off percentages and figures and people can switch off, and if you start having complicated messaging. So that was always difficult, was communicating to our brands, you know, communicating to the operations teams on the ground, you know, even communicating with the marketing teams on what we've actually achieved. So I think that's always been a challenge for us, but particularly around communicating to our brands about what we want to achieve, because that communication can be very disjointed. You know, you can be dealing with a sales rep for a brand who, you know, they've got a different agenda entirely. So actually breaking through that communication of me to our buyer, to their sales rep, to their operations team, you know, that's a challenge. And actually, you know, that message can be distorted through each of those people. So that's always been a challenge for us. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Could you offer one piece of advice for our listeners that could help them with their purpose? And if so, what would that be?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've thought about this and I think it's, it's really simple. Um, it's, it's, it's just a pause, you know, for everything you do and even in your daily life. If you just pause and just give yourself a few seconds to actually think, okay, is this the most sustainable choice? Should I be looking at more sustainable options? And if you just give yourself that pause in every decision that you make, you'll give yourself time to consider and actually just, okay, I'm just gonna have a quick look and see what other sustainable alternatives there are. and consider them, you know, and actually implement them. And before you know it, you'll be making changes in everything you do. You know, it's when you go to a restaurant or go out to eat, or, you know, it's, do I really need to buy something that's wrapped in plastic? Probably not. Let's just go around the corner.

Yeah.

You know, and it's the same in a business context. You know, you're going to buy into a certain range, or you're going to buy into a product line, or you're going to invest as a financial institution in X, Y, or Z, just pause, you know, and then ask yourself, is that the right thing to do?

Hmm.

You know, and I think so, pause and just always do the right thing. Just always do the right thing and try and do the right thing. Everything else falls into place then. Everyone will see that you're doing the right thing. Everyone will want to be a part of you. Everyone will want to work for your business. Everyone will want to buy from your business. You know, everybody wants a piece of people that are doing the right thing. It's— yeah, so pause and do the right thing.

I like it. When it comes to reducing your environmental impact and carbon footprint of your business, what would you say your biggest challenge was, or frustration?

Yeah, I guess, um, I guess that's— it's been around collecting data, really. That's, that's as far as the carbon reporting goes, it's— that's always been the most difficult part for us, has been either going to one of our many landlords or trying to decipher old spreadsheets that weren't our own and actually trying to claw that data from different places. And that's, that's, that's been probably one of the biggest challenges. On the carbon side, you know, we're very fortunate actually that we've got a highly sustainable warehouse. It's, it's, um, it's just outside the top 1% most sustainable buildings in the country according to the BREEAM rating. And that actually comes with a system called Fabric, and that's a, that's a building management system which will tell me if a plug socket's been turned on in the building. And it tells me everything at a touch of a button. And that is phenomenal because I just download that data, off we go. We know exactly what's going on in that warehouse. But with other buildings, it's trying to go through a building manager and trying to claw that data out, and then sometimes it's completely different from month to month. So that's, that's a challenge. And I think, I think that's across the board with most people. So, you know, one thing that I think we all need to start working towards is standardization of that type of data because it's quite complex trying to pull it all apart. And I think from the plastic side, that's, that's kind of complex. in the sense that there's so many alternatives out there. I think the subject has matured considerably over the last 2 or 3 years. It's a very fast-moving sustainability subject, and some of the alternative materials, you know, there's pitfalls and there's sometimes worse, you know, that— I mean, the OXO additive bags, they're horrific for the environment, but they were dubbed as the solution. It's an additive that just breaks the bag into smaller and smaller pieces. So yeah, that was a challenge. And I think for me, it took me in 2015, probably about 6 months before I really started to form an educated opinion and decision on the materials we should be using. We're very confident in what we've chosen now. But what I'm finding consistently when we deal with all those 800 brands is I'm still having to have those same conversations that we went through in 2015. And I think that's one of the complexities. And actually what you find with both of those elements is they they bog you down from actually tackling the physical problem itself. You know, data gathering— I could spend that time in sourcing renewables or working out an energy efficiency plan and reducing our energy or flipping out contracts to renewable energy. You know, with sourcing all those different— or trying to figure out what those different plastic options are or alternatives are, actually, if we had that to hand, we could just do it, you know. And I think that's a challenge for the small to medium-sized businesses. You know, we are just short of £100 million turnover business, so we're not huge, we're not small, but there is very little guidance for our size and and below around plastics, around carbon reporting. You know, the big guys, they have the Ellen MacArthur Foundation for Plastics and the New Plastic Economy. You know, the mega corporates, you can sign up and have endless amounts of guidance from those guys who are fantastic at that. They really are. And if you, if you've got the money, you can have a lot of assistance around your carbon reporting and puts building management systems in place. But for the small to mediums, it is complex, it's difficult, and you do have to try and figure it out yourself.

Yeah.

Can you tell us a bit about how you approach environmental management and carbon footprinting within Internet Fusion?

Yeah, it's quite guerrilla. We are, at our heart, we are an action sports retailer, an outdoor retailer, you know, and our customers, they go out and they take action. And that is the lifeblood of what we do. And for us, up until this point, pretty much, or this year, we've been all about taking action. So we have avoided getting bogged down in a lot of reporting, and we've avoided getting bogged down in a lot of certification and awards, and we've just avoided that. And actually what we've done is just gone, right, okay, we need to sort this out. And the classic example is getting rid of 74% of plastic in 2015, you know, getting up to 99% 1% plastic-free now. We've just taken action. We've seen a problem and we've taken action. We've done our research because I know a lot of people will be sitting there going, oh, but you can't just have a knee-jerk reaction. No, we've looked into what we should do, but we've just gone ahead and done it. And it's the same with— we quadrupled our solar PV systems in 2019. It was all about taking action. Our recycling facilities in our warehouse, we hit 94.04% recycling rates in our warehouse. We're a zero-to-landfill organization. So we, we, all those elements, I've got it written down here. Last year we, we were run, even though a lot of buildings we don't run, all the buildings we do run are on 100% biogas and 100% renewable electricity. But across the whole group, we run on 90.09% renewable electricity. Um, 20% of our electricity came from the solar we put on. So we've just been about taking action, and it's, it's, it, it's big, bold action that is meaningful and it makes a difference. And now we're in that stage that we've got this, this, this fantastic platform. You know, as I said, our warehouse is about as sustainable as it can get. It's a phenomenal great big grey box. I love it. I get very excited about it. We've got this baseline and now we're in that phase where I think our approach is maturing and it's changing and we're beginning to monitor and actually start recording what we're doing and that's exactly what we doing with, with you, Will, at Green Element with your Compare Your Footprint platform for carbon reporting. You know, we now need to get this recorded, get this great work that we've done recorded, and start getting these certifications and start getting these accreditations for what we've done to make it more official. So in an aim that actually that will bolster our argument when we go to the brands and say, hey, look, You know, you know that we've done stuff, we've told you about it, but actually it's now verified. So join us and let's really start moving. And I think once we've gone through that stage, it's then about turning the screws and it's the finer details and it's all the hard-to-reach parts that we can really start making a difference. So yeah, I think our strategy has been what's the word, it's not by the rule book. It's literally just been, we need to do something. And I think that's kind of been really good for us because we've got wind in our sails, you know, we've got the support of our customers through it. And I think that's— if anybody asked me if they should do that and how their strategy should look, You've always got this balance of what's going to be popular so you get longevity in your project, and then what is the biggest impact on the environment, what's the biggest limiting impact on your environment. And for us, unfortunately, both of those came together. It was very popular what we did, and we've really limited our impact. And I think that's just driven us forward ever since. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's been— hasn't been by the rule book. It's not your traditional sustainability strategy, shall we say.

I've got one final question to ask you, and it's understanding whether you've got any advice or learning that you'd like to share with anyone listening to the podcast on your journey and becoming more sustainable.

Yeah, yeah, well, I think it is You know, we've touched on it before. I think there's that whole point of pausing and just do the right thing.

Hmm.

If you're in a position, the whole point of sustainability is to do the right thing. So if you aren't, if you're cheating yourself and trying to go for the cheaper option or going for a 10% reduction or you know, no one's going to thank you. You know, the CEO is just going to be like, well done, you've got 10%. Your customers are never going to be queuing up at the door because you've reduced by 10%. You know, it's— so, you know, the times now, we know, we're all aware of the damage we're doing to the planet. It's time for bold action. You know, there's no time for greenwash, just just don't do it, but just do the right thing. Just, you know, in every decision you make, you can look at it, but the financial implications, or, or this is going to really affect operations, or it's like, no, you're— you are, as a sustainability professional, you are the conscience of that business to do your job, you know. And even if that is tough, even if you have to look at someone and just go, it's just not right, we just, we just can't do that, you know, I get it, you know, and just keep on going because that's, that's what you're there to do. That's what you're— that's why you've been brought into the business to do that. So just deliver that no matter how hard that is and admit it to everybody else and say that this is what you've got me to do. So do the right thing. But I also think You've always got that trade-off with any strategy that I just said about, and that's achieving things that are popular, you know, that actually the business will react to, your customer base will react to. You know, sometimes it is wise to do that so you get longevity in your project.

There may—

And you trade that off about with the biggest impact you can have on the environment. As I said, fortunately both of those were the same for me, but that's, that's a bit of a perfect storm. It's not the case for every business.

Yeah.

But I just think, yeah, you've got to figure out what that looks like, because if you start working on the nitty-gritty that nobody really notices that you're doing it, your customers aren't reacting, the business isn't reacting, you're doing lots of hard work and you're doing some great stuff that nobody notices, then people will start questioning the project. So you always have to balance those kind of heavy-hitting popular efforts to give you longevity, perhaps then deal with the nitty-gritty later. Yeah, there's no silver bullet there, but it's about— I think it's always trying to find that balance. Yeah, because if you went straight in and— I don't know an example, but you said, look, we can no longer deal with a material source, and 75% of the business was based on that material source, you know, it's not going to be a popular decision. You know, you need to build up that upsurge of support internally and externally before you go for those painful questions a bit later on. So yeah, I think that's always a bit of advice. Just do the right thing.

Brilliant. What's the best way that we can connect with you and learn more?

Well, with me personally, you can drop me a line on LinkedIn. If you want to know who the business is, the best place to look for us is internetfusion.co.uk. And then you'll see all the different websites that we have. The best way that you can engage with what we do would be to support the activations that we do around sustainability. And I'd say that with any business, you know, if you see a business making a genuine effort, just support it, you know, because that's, that's, that's going to mean that that continues and they'll do another activation. activation, and they'll do more and more and more. So the classic example that we have in our equestrian business, we developed, or the equestrian team developed, the world's first— as far as we can tell, we couldn't find one anywhere else— the world's first PFC-free horse rug, which has gone brilliantly. And there was nothing on the market before. Who knew that the market would react to that? Nobody knew because nobody put out. So support those things, you know, and we're going to do phase 2, which is going to be made PFC-free and made out of recycled plastic bottles. So support that, you know, if you— and it's again, it's that pause situation, isn't it? I'm going to buy a horse rug. Pause. Is there a sustainable alternative? There is. I'm going to support that because that's where change comes from. And it's the same, we've got a really good initiative that's just— the trial's just come to an end and we're going to continue, but it's in partnership with Patagonia, and we have been removing the poly bags from their products before they go to their customers and making sure that they're recycled. And that means that our customers not only get the plastic-free packaging that we put it in, but the product, the brand's product that goes into that packaging, that plastic is removed also. So again, support that. You know, if you see these things in any business, just pause and think, yeah, that's— I need to support that with my hard-earned money, basically.

Yeah. Brilliant. Cheers, Adam. Thank you so much for today. Thank you for being on the podcast. Really, really useful and really, really interesting, and I hope everyone found it as interesting as I did. So thank you, thank you so much for that.

Brilliant, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it, and thanks so much for Green Element's support with our carbon reporting software, Compare Your Footprint, and also thanks so much to Green Element for supporting our charity partners Protect Our Winters and actually supporting the pledge which will come out in September as well. So it's It just goes to show that, you know, you're trying to work in your field to do good, but you are actually physically doing good as well by supporting charities and so on. So yeah, thank you so much too.

No worries. No, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. We've learned loads. Thank you. Thank you. Today we've got Adam Hall from Internet Fusion on the podcast. As a caveat, I've actually known Adam for a few years now and have got to know him through a variety of means as chairman of the British Club Sports Association and also through Green Element and our network. And we're actually working for them on their carbon reporting as well. But I think it just dawned on the two of us that actually they are doing so much good and They are such an amazing company. Why aren't we talking to them on our podcast? So here we are, but better late than never. But yeah, I hope you enjoy it. It was a brilliant podcast. Thank you.