E112 - Christian Arno from Pawprint

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Welcome back to the Green Element Podcast, where we feature business leaders and innovators transforming their operations to be more environmentally and socially sustainable. I'm your host, Will Richardson, and I can't wait to meet our guest today and help you on your journey of sustainability. Christian, thank you so much for joining the Green Element Podcast. I'm so looking forward to talking to you about Paw Prints. and why Pawprint was set up. It's a fascinating business and you've done exceptionally well with the take-up, which is unsurprising because people and businesses are wanting to be more sustainable. Can you tell us a bit more about who you are and your business, please?

Sure. Yeah. Well, so thank you very much for having me on. So Pawprint's my second business. I built a translation business before, and I guess my dad had his sort of epiphany epiphany about the climate crisis and sat me down and said, you've got to do something. You've got young children. It's really going to affect them. And I started looking around for a service that could help me on a personal level understand what I could do to measure, understand, and reduce my carbon footprint. And I couldn't find anything. And so we built Pawprint initially for consumers, but now we're building a business product to allow businesses to engage their people on sustainability.

And so it's a platform that helps organizations become more green?

Yeah, yeah. And we're not going into the supply chains, manufacturing processes, investments, and so on. We're very much focused on people. So I guess we want mainstream consumers who care about doing their bit to do with climate change, to have a vehicle to make change personally, at work and beyond, and to understand the underlying science, the carbon dioxide equivalent numbers, and then to amplify their impact. That's the idea.

Brilliant and really pertinent at this present moment in time, really, with the fact that a lot of offices are closed and businesses are still looking to be more sustainable and their colleagues, staff in organizations are wanting to work and still want to work in a more sustainable business.

Yeah, I think it's been interesting during the whole sort of COVID crisis. Initially, questions were asked about how relevant we were because of people working from home and so on. But I think what's happened is the sustainability agenda has actually been advanced because people are starting to question the type of world we want to live in, the roles we want to play, and want 2021 to be a year when real change happens. So we're seeing a lot of interest and we just need to further develop the product and talk to more people about it.

Brilliant. Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it, what's happened? We were, I guess, kind of pretty normal in March when COVID happened, and then suddenly it started getting busier and busier and busier. And of course, I was freaking out at the beginning going, oh my word, I've got to pace people. And then suddenly it's like, oh, we're actually taking people on. But it's really— I don't know, I think it's just really refreshing to see that people are genuinely caring about sustainability now and the environment.

Yeah, I think that's right. And there's a real sense of community spirit that we've seen through the crisis. Feels like that could be channeled to sustainability.

as well.

So I think we were discussing slightly before we came on the podcast that for people doing similar jobs to us, it's a really exciting period. It's also an intense period trying to make sure that we move as fast as we can.

You mentioned that you ran a translation company beforehand. And so having run that company and set up that company, have you found that it's been really useful in setting up Pawprint and working on Pawprint?

Yeah, I think it has been useful because of the connections that I've made and also the things I learned with my previous business. Probably recruited at too junior a level initially. Brilliant, fantastic, enthusiastic people. But this time I've tried to recruit senior people who I think can go the distance and can build sizable teams. And we're really trying to go fast because of the urgency of the mission, but also because from a business point of view, businesses need it and it's a hot space. So But yeah, the experience with Lingoda certainly has made things a bit easier this time around.

Brilliant. Yeah, I can imagine learning from mistakes, of which I've made plenty of them. What would you say your business superpower is?

Oh, goodness me. I wouldn't say I had a business superpower, Will, but I like talking to people and understanding going to help them and going to float their boat. And so I think I've got my mom's enjoyment of speaking to people, and that helps. It's fun and it helps uncover opportunities as well.

And can you tell us a bit about how you engage staff, suppliers, or customers with your mission and purpose?

Yes, so with the Pawprint for Business proposition, the idea is that businesses subscribe effectively and they pay per eligible employee. It's £2 per eligible employee per month, and for that, their people have access to the tool to measure, understand, and reduce their pawprint, as we call it. And we're building it out so that the businesses can then engage them a bit more, whether that's customizing challenges to the business or building rewards, running competitions, looking for suggestions on how that business could be more eco, or even doing things like rate your business on a Donald to Greta scale and why. Because a lot of it, we started off being very focused through our work with Mike Berners-Lee on measurement and reduction. But increasingly we want to layer in the ability to really engage people. What is it that's going to make those people who have never really thought about their carbon footprint start to not just think about it, but actually enjoy the game of bringing it down and talking about it?

And that is so important. I mean, the communications side of things it is really important.

Yeah, I think that's right. There are many, many people in our research before we set up Pawprint proved this, who are deeply concerned about climate change and absolutely accept that people play a role in it and can make a difference, but just don't know where to start. So if we can make it easy for them, if we can make it not intimidating for them, then that's a good thing. And that's how we're using— we've got this polar bear icon, Beyond the Bear. And the first thing he says to people, in my head at least, is don't beat yourself up, because there's a lot of guilt associated with people's impact on the planet. And then he says it's about small steps and it's about what's right for you. So it should be a very soft, reassuring, and maybe even fun experience. That's the idea.

Yeah, well, that's brilliant. No, that is really good. I think, and that climate anxiety, and we've had a couple of coaches on the podcast talking about climate anxiety, and I don't think I'd quite realized how many people are starting to feel it. And I guess it's the media and everything around us that is pummeling us. And for me, I've been pummeled for coming up to 20 years on this, probably before, because that was just when I set up Green Element. So I think I'm almost dull to it, which is possibly good or bad, I don't know.

Yeah, no, it is scary, and I can see a very quick path to becoming quite low about it. But I guess what we would like with Pawprint is for that to feel like a positive vehicle bring people together to do something about it. And I think you and I are both part of a big movement of people who are doing various different things to the best of their ability that are positive. And we've got a big believer in focusing on the positive.

And it's so cool how many— I don't know how many different— I would not have thought Pawprint would exist about, say, even, I guess, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. And you kind of look at it and look at what you're doing and go, blimey, it's such a no-brainer. It's such a sensible approach to helping organizations and people become more sustainable. And you are one of many different, I don't know, technologies and businesses and organizations that are really trying to garner that enthusiasm and that reduction in environmental impact?

Yeah, there's an exciting space opening up. I think there are some people who are partnering the sort of carbon footprint measurement with offsetting. There are some who are working on helping people to buy better, and our focus is on behavioral change. And I guess the other sort of difference is that we're really focusing increasingly on businesses rather than trying to make money from consumers, which I think is a big ask. So that's where we feel we've found a space where we can grow a sizable business and have as much impact as possible, which is the real motivator here. Yeah.

No, it's brilliant. So what sort of projects are you working on at the moment?

Well, the one that's in the public domain and has been a lot of fun and is big is the one with BrewDog.

Ah.

Yes. So BrewDog are our first Pawprint Pioneer. We've set up— now that we've launched the consumer tool at pawprint.eco, we've set up what we're calling the Pawprint Pioneers Program. to allow businesses who want to engage their people in sustainability to work with us on shaping the business product on exactly what that might mean. So BrewDog are on board. We've got 3 or 4 other businesses going through legals, and we're looking for a few more to join by the end of— well, it should be the end of October. It may creep into November. And in terms of what we're actually doing, so the first thing was a relatively straightforward exercise. BrewDog wanted to double offset the paw prints, the carbon footprints of their people and their dogs. And I think they're doing that through the BrewDog Forest. And so our task was to measure the carbon footprints of all of their people and give them a number so that they could work out exactly how many trees that might need to be. So that's the sort of first application.

Brilliant. I mean, not a bad company to have pioneering your organization.

Yeah, no, they are a phenomenal company. They're very influential. They're willing to push the envelope. And James Watt is an inspirational leader. So it's fun to work with those guys.

Yeah.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And where do you see yourself going? Where do you see Paw Prints in the next few years?

Well, we really want to double down on helping businesses of all different sorts of profiles. The other businesses who are going to be pioneers are sort of bigger, more established, dare I say it, more corporate than BrewDog. And so we want to get a really good spread of businesses initially throughout the UK, different worker profiles and so on to engage so that we can find a platform that, using behavioral science, can engage with many, many people and actually be useful to many, many people. Then I think we want to move on and move internationally again to maximize the impact. And because a lot of the businesses we're talking to already are international. And then I think there are questions around how the platform might evolve from there, whether there are different ways in which we add value to different businesses around the data analysis side of what we might be able to do, other services. Who knows, Will? At the moment, we're very focused on this business offering where we're engaging people. That's it for now.

Brilliant. And if you could offer one piece of advice to our listeners which could help them with their purpose, what would that be?

With their purpose? Oh, yeah, let's think. So I actually struggled with this with my translation business, especially after it got complicated with bringing new people in and so on. I think there will be though, in every organization, a sort of founding purpose, whether that's around the values, family values in the organization or whatever. And so I think it's really useful to work with, and I've worked with a coach in the past to help distill down, tracing, taking you back through your childhood and doing all sorts of psychoanalysis. What is your personal purpose? And I believe that businesses, most businesses can trace it back to what their purpose is. So maybe it's to work with a coach, Will. I'm not sure. It's a good question.

I love the different answers that you get from that question. I remember when we were talking about what questions to ask and we kind of decided to ask certain questions to everyone. And I, if I'm being honest, was initially like, really? Isn't that a bit boring? But actually, yes, the question is the same, but the answers are always different.

I guess it's a great question. It's such a personal thing, what your purpose is. Yeah. And the route to finding it. But I think I guess my learning is that there's value in trying, definitely. You learn a lot about yourself. Yeah.

So have you carbon footprinted your organization and would you say that's been a benefit?

We have not actually. We're actually going through a B Corp application at the moment whereby we will formally do that. We need to do that. Obviously we've done all of our own personal paw prints. But at the moment, as a business, we are all working from home, as far as I know, all on renewable energy supplies powering our work. I should know that, shouldn't I? And doing our bit. But that's something we will do, and hopefully we can work with you on that.

That's brilliant you're going through the B Corp application.

Yeah.

I think that really will. I think that just, I know from experience that it kind of, and being a young company going through it, it really molds you in a particular direction because you get restricted and you have to make hard decisions. I remember about 2 years ago, we were not in a good space at all. And I was actually looking at people in the organization, and we do do one day a month to a charity of your choice, and that is expensive, especially if you're a bums-on-seat consultancy, which is blatantly what we, in the core business of Green Element, is. And we got through it without needing to do anything. But there were decisions that could have been made and it would have gone against the core structure of what we're trying to achieve. And I know B Corp had a lot to do with those decisions.

Great. No, yeah. And I think it's part of the theme that many businesses are sort of working through, which is that we have to move beyond big promises and we really have to be walking the walk and probably our businesses more than most will. So yeah, it's a healthy pressure, I think, as long as people aren't too judgmental with one another. That's one of the things that—

Do you think people are in this space? I find there's a huge amount of collaboration And I think if you're seen to be transparent and open, and you are, then people collaborate. I mean, we collaborate a lot with our competition. I love it, love it. And it makes life so much more exciting.

Yeah, no, I guess I wasn't meaning so much in the industry, just some of the comments that you see sometimes of some people on social media. I think that people should be recognized for the positive things that they're doing and the good efforts they're making rather than criticized if they can't do everything. And not everyone can live a 5-ton lifestyle type thing. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, that does make complete sense. What's the best way that we can connect with you and learn more?

So we are active on all the social channels, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so on. So @pawprinteco. Our website is www.pawprint.eco, and we've got a list there whereby we'd really encourage people to sign up and get involved in our community. We've got a community site actually at community.pawprint.eco. that we want to draw people into, whether they've got a business interest, they're user enthusiasts, or whether they're interested in investing. We've done crowdfunding in the past and we'll do that again, Will, because we really want this to feel like a community, a movement.

Your crowdfunding went really, really well, didn't it?

It did go well. It went better than I expected. So we've now got over 1,200 investors on board. And I think it comes back to one of the things we talked about at the start, which is that people want a business like this to succeed. They are voting with their investment money, and it's great. It puts more healthy pressure on us, but it's good. It's what we want.

Were you nervous going into something like crowdfunding? Because I'm sure some of our listeners would Possibly thinking about it.

Yeah, definitely. I think also because we ended up doing it just after lockdown and there was a question mark over whether it was morally acceptable for us to be going and asking people for money about climate change when people are suffering because of COVID I got one email actually from someone who lives not too of the other dads at my kids' school saying, I still want you to do it because I need something that gives me a bit of hope. And that sort of made me feel— Wow.

I just got a shiver down my spine.

Yeah. So we did it and definitely the response that we got proved that it was the right thing to do.

Full respect to you for doing it, full stop, and for doing it at that time. I've heard just, not horror stories, but how hard it is and how hard you have to work. Because I know I was looking at it at one point and everyone kept on going, Will, it's not you. Literally, it's a full-time job. You're not going to do anything else other than that and you will live and breathe it For months.

Yeah, it's true. It is hardcore. And you have lots of conversations with people with very different perspectives and so on. But I think it's part and parcel of building a community and a business at scale. And I'm really glad we did it. And as I say, I think we're going to do it again. Well, I know we're going to do it again, and I think we'll do it repeatedly because It's so good for getting people on board and getting feedback on what we're trying to do. Yeah, I bet.

Brilliant. Well, Christian, thank you so much for being on today. It's been really, really interesting and fascinating listening to Pawprint and what you're up to and what you're trying to achieve.

Pleasure, Will. And huge respect for what you're doing with Green Element and with Compare Your Footprint. Looking forward to working with you on multiple projects in future, I hope.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Thank you.

All right, cheers.

Today we've got Kristian from Pawprint on, and I mean, I've known Kristian now for a few years through the Edinburgh network, and I've really enjoyed talking to him. And the first time I met him, he was telling me about Pawprint and what he's doing and why he's doing it. Long live people like Christian, to be honest with you, because he has such a drive and such a mission to help organizations and people to become more environmental and more sustainable. I hope you enjoy this podcast because I always enjoy chatting to him and hope you enjoy it.

Thank you.