How can… herbal medicine support victims of state violence? With Nicole Rose, Solidarity Apothecary

by Laura Hartley | Jan 12, 2023 | PodcastEpisodes

Nicole Rose (she/her) is an anarchist organiser and herbalist from the Solidarity Apothecary. She served a 3.5 year prison sentence at aged 21, and ever since has focused on supporting people experiencing state violence. She is the author of The Prisoner’s Herbal Guide and Overcoming Burnout. You can find all her work at www.solidarityapothecary.org

Learn more about Laura Hartley, workshops and courses:
Website: www.laurahartley.com
Instagram: @laura.h.hartley
Facebook: @laurahartley-publiclove
LinkedIn: @laura-hartley-

Learn more about Nicole Rose & Solidarity Apothecary:
Website: https://solidarityapothecary.org/
Instagram: @solidarity.apothecary

Check out this episode!

TRANSCRIPT: Please note this was auto-generated and has not been edited, and may contain errors or omissions.  

[00:00:39] I am so excited for today’s guest, Nicole Rose, who is an anarchist organiser and herbalist from Solidarity Apothecary. Some of you may know her. She served a three and a half year prison sentence, age 21, and ever since is focused on supporting people, experiencing state violence. She’s the author of the prisoners herbal guide and overcoming burnout.

[00:01:00] And before we dive in, you can check out all of her work at www.solidarityapothecary.org. She does amazing work. So please go check it out. Uh, and welcome to the public love project, Nicole.

[00:01:12] I am really excited to have you here for this conversation today because I love everything that solidarity apothecary is up to, and there’s so much I wanna talk to you about. But I really, I wanna start with this idea of herbal medicine and stress and burnout today because, you know, going back in time, grew up around herbal medicine.

[00:01:33] You know, my mother was a big advocate for it. It was a very natural thing to have in my household. But I’m curious what your first experience was. How did you first come into contact with herbal medicine and what also led you or inspired you to see it as resistance? You know, really as a different paradigm?

[00:01:50] Nicole Rose: Yeah, so I guess I had like a maybe unconventional journey into herbal medicine. I’d done some work with like autistic adults, kind of like low paid kind of care work in England while I was on bail for this kind of animal liberation campaign that I got sent to prison for. So I did like a three and a half year sentence when I was 21.

[00:02:15] And yeah, like I’d. , you know, like read some bits and bobs before I went to prison and I’d been like gardening with some of the guys that I worked with, but it was still like, you know, absolute like unknown territory. Like I didn’t have this kind of romantic grandmother figure, like pass me down this amazing tradition, like orally or anything like that.

[00:02:38] Like very kind of like colonized like approach of, you know, you know, more like corporate logos than you do plants. But when I was in prison, I had the experience of working in the prison gardens and working with like an older woman from Scotland who knew loads about plants, like various other older women and some women from like traveler backgrounds.

[00:03:02] And they kind of taught me like little bits and bobs and it was, yeah, it was that kind of. Little, you know, little things about herbs that really like, kind of sparked my interest. And I started, I got some funding and I did a distance learning course and in herbalism. And then, yeah, after that I was just like completely hooked.

[00:03:22] And when I got out of prison, I just, yeah, had this like huge. You know, it’s been over a decade now, like long learning journey of all about herbal medicine and different plant traditions and ecology and botany and yeah, and I’ve never looked back and it’s, yeah, it’s like the best part of my life for sure.

[00:03:43] Laura Hartley: What was it that you loved about it? You know, I, I love the way you said that, you know, you did the distance course and then you’re like, oh my God, I was hooked. Like what about it really spoke to you at that time?

[00:03:53] Nicole Rose: I think for me, Being in a very, like a very, very traumatic environment, like being locked in a room for like sometimes 23 hours a day, obviously less if I was unlocked to work.

[00:04:06] And yeah, seeing huge amounts of like, violence towards women and other people in prison and, you know, just like, sorry, content warning, like self-harm and suicide attempts and like, it just felt like, This big horror story and plants just felt like. like an antidote. Like they were alive and vibrant and they were like somehow resisting the prison because they were still growing.

[00:04:32] Even if the prison like staff tried to put weed killer on them, they’d still come back. And it was that like connection to something beyond, like beyond concrete that really kept me alive and it kept me connected to the land and it kept me connected to like a life outside of prison and to kind of learn about something that’s.

[00:04:53] You know, like focused on healing and it’s not just like fighting and fighting and resisting and resisting and injustice, and injustice and organizing and this like busy world. It’s like stillness and patience and tenderness and like plants having, you know, like offerings of medicine just because of who they are and how they’ve evolved and that they have offerings for us that are like, you know, beyond.

[00:05:20] you know, beyond medicine for humans, like it’s a super anthropocentric kind of human focused approach. Like plants also provide each other with medicines and other animals, and soil life with medicines. So, Yeah, for me it was just like feeling connected to something that was like alive and strong and that ultimately like was way more powerful than the prison system, than capitalism, than any kind of like human design society, like built on oppression.

[00:05:48] Like it really feels like plants to like ancestors and you know, kind of older than time and we’ve got a lot to learn from them. And yeah, that’s, sorry, , maybe that’s a bit esoteric. Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s kind of no why they inspired me for sure.

[00:06:05] Laura Hartley: I, I’m with you there. You know, I think I, you know, I’m a, I, I truly believe and, and know that plants offer medicine and offer so much to the world and.

[00:06:15] I, I think, you know, one of the things that you’re talking about there is it is this kind of reconnection to the natural world, which like so many of us have lost, you know, in everyday society through capitalism, through the, the structures that we live in and the paradigms that we live in. We kind of see ourselves as separate.

[00:06:31] And I think sometimes plants and plant medicine and herbal medicine can be that entry point for realizing that the world is, is living. [00:06:40] Right?

[00:06:41] Nicole Rose: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred.

[00:06:44] Laura Hartley: Yeah, I saw this, this quote by Dave Meers on your website, which was herbalist should go with the flow, embrace being on the wrong side of capitalism and the law, and put our energies towards establishing decentralized autonomous grassroots health networks that empower community self-reliance, provide care to those most in need, and reduce the need for people to access conventional.

[00:07:06] and you know, o you know, obviously you know it, conventional medicine has many benefits and I wanna establish that, you know, there. But I, I love this quote for, for many reasons, but herbal medicine is not always seen as being anti-capitalist, right? It’s not seen as radical system change. You know, a lot of the time it’s kind of seen as something a little bit fluffy or.

[00:07:30] You know, not really scientific and, you know, the, it’s kind of, there’s a, there’s a bit of an, an airy fairy edge to it sometimes in people’s perceptions. So what I’m curious about is this link, because I think, you know, you do this really well with solidarity aary. Like what is the link between herbal medicine and these incredible benefits that it offer?

[00:07:50] And, you know, being on the wrong side of capitalism, you know, increasing community self-reliance looking at community care, what is this link between them?

[00:08:01] Nicole Rose: Yeah, good question. I think, I mean, I kind of think like a lot of things aren’t like inherently political and that. It’s a kind of like, it’s a verb, like it’s a doing thing.

[00:08:12] Like I do think, you know, like plants obviously like inherently resist, like being suppressed or you know, like you’ll see them like. You know, reclaim land and stuff like this where there’s been developments you know, like ecological succession. But I do think they do . I do think for me, like it is like a, it’s like very intentional to kind of connect with plants in this way and to work with them with this kind of like worldview.

[00:08:42] And I guess for me, like I was like an anarchist and an anti-capitalist like much before I was a herbalist, so that, , you know, that was my worldview, like looking at power in society and how society’s structured and different forms of oppression and different forms of like struggling collaboration and you know, like.

[00:09:00] I wanted to politicize herbal medicine like I was, you know, I kind of grew up with a single mom who had very severe mental health issues, and that dramatically shaped me in my life, and I know that if she could have afforded to access, A herbalist or someone, you know, an alternative medicine practitioner that wasn’t just working within like a kind of biomedical framework, but could look at her holistically.

[00:09:26] So they could see, you know, her like poverty and her economic circumstances, but they could also maybe see her like hormonal imbalances or traumatic stress held in her body, which is, you know, affecting her mental health. So for me, it’s kind of like I’m really passionate about herbal medicine being accessible.

[00:09:45] and recognizing like who is excluded from it. And you know, that is like the majority of people when it’s like a kind of privatized like health service. And yeah, like I think. Capitalism in terms of like the kind of medical industrial complex, it’s like, yeah, no, like you said, like I also wanna say that I’m, you know, like biomedical medicine is like incredibly lifesaving.

[00:10:06] You know, I was in Cali this week, took someone to hospital for antibiotics. Like, I’m not like Anti pharmaceuticals per se. Like I’m obviously, you know, I like using herbal medicines cuz of their you know, they’re more ecological and we’ve like coevolved with plants and they have less side effects. But yeah, like plant medicines, you know, they can’t be standardized.

[00:10:28] Like they try really hard, like supplement companies try really hard to force a plant to become a pill, but really like, , you know, it’s still gonna have an unpredictable effect. It won’t work on one person cuz of their constitution. Maybe they don’t have the right gut bacteria, you know, emo, it might not emotionally connect with someone else.

[00:10:47] So it’s like there is this kind of like mix of like science and like traditional medicine. And I wouldn’t say magic, but like spirit somehow, you know, that is kind of like, Influencing, like how we are shaped by, by medicine or by plant medicines. And yeah, I think. , I think like seeing how we can capitalize on plants the same way that we could like standardize pharmaceuticals is, is kind of why like plant medicine offers this kind of like anti-capitalist toolkit.

[00:11:20] I also think things like building like health autonomy is really important. Like, you know, we have like a medical system where you only seek help once you’re kind of at an extreme end of the spectrum, like you have a heart attack and therefore you need to call an ambulance. Whereas like herbalism is focused on preventative medicine, on nutrition, on you know, like building, you know, reducing inflammation in the body or whatever.

[00:11:45] But, you know, heart attacks are also caused by people, you know, being traumatized and living in a culture where they’re constantly in fight or flight or pumping out stress hormones. So it’s like, The herbal medicine is amazing, but it’s also not ano alone, not enough on its own. So that’s why I like to integrate it with kind of.

[00:12:05] Different worldviews around how broader society shapes health particularly in like a capitalist system. Sorry, that was a real ramble.

[00:12:14] Laura Hartley: Not at all. I, I think that was a really powerful answer actually. You know, and, and we try so hard to, to control the natural world, you know, to kind of put it into a pill, to put it into a nice box to say, well, you know, you should do exactly this in every single circumstance, and then we can control it and tweak it and modify it.

[00:12:33] it’s a very, you know, it, it is that same framework that has led to the rise of capitalism. It’s the same framework of patriarchy, of supremacy culture, of one of like domination and one of control. And you, you mentioned something really interesting there at the end, you know, which was around, we’re kind of living in this fight or flight.

[00:12:53] Response. And I’m really passionate about this because, you know, obviously I have my own experiences with burnout. I, you know, do a lot of work in coaching and running courses on burnout, and I know that you’ve also written a book on it. So what role do, do herbs have? You know, what can they offer us with burnout?

[00:13:13] You know, do they offer us anything? What’s your experience here?

[00:13:16] Nicole Rose: Good question. So again, I think it’s, [00:13:20] I think it’s like mixed and nuanced. So yeah, for me, when I had a very serious kind of chronic illness and was in and out of hospital and healthcare appointments and everything else, like I did seek some support from herbalist and that didn’t necessarily help me recover.

[00:13:40] But I also. Sought support from other herbalists and you know, they were like more on point of what, identifying what was going on for me. So they did really support me. But I think it’s less about, okay, I’m sick, I’m gonna see a herbalist. And it’s more about. I’m gonna start learning about my body. I’m gonna start learning about what is stressing me out or what is traumatizing me.

[00:14:04] I’m gonna look at life experiences that have shaped my physiology. I’m gonna make connections between, you know, trauma and inflammation or, you know, there’s like such a massive field of research now, like we’re just at the tip of it. understanding how traumatic stress like shapes our bodies. And I think for people who are burnt out, like, and I’m just talking from like a kind of context of people who are maybe.

[00:14:30] Involved in like some sort of organizing or movement work. But you know, like it’s really stressful. Like it’s really hard like fighting power structures and working in dysfunctional groups and experiencing state repression and feeling like you’re failing and the world is burning. So it’s like organizers are like often really in this like frontline context and that has a lot of risks to our emotional health, to our physical health.

[00:14:58] And I think herbalism can kind of. Support with those. So like in terms of like, you know, practical things, like if someone is, for example, like living on a protest site, then having like immune tonics, having syrups that are like, you know, highly nutritious or great for their mucus membranes, like for cough and colds and things like, that’s gonna really help them.

[00:15:20] Kind of like survive that situation and not get sick, not develop like a worse chronic illness. Or someone who’s, you know, like in my context, like I’ve been doing prisoner support for like 18 years. That’s like pretty much like a weekly prison visit. At least like loads of, you know, horrible traumatic shit that I’ve witnessed or experienced to do with the prison system.

[00:15:43] And plants, like they really like support my nervous system. You know, they help, they help. And plants really support my nervous system. You know, they help me sleep. They help me move into this like parasympathetic nervous system state where I’m actually able to rest and digest my food and my muscles are able to be repaired.

[00:16:03] Like there’s all these functions that we need in this different nervous system state and plants can be tools to help us get there, especially. You know, like we need other beings to kind of like, there’s like trauma language, but to kind of co-regulate, like to calm down, to feel safe. And if you’re in a world where humans don’t feel very safe to you, then plants are incredible as a resource because.

[00:16:29] You know, they’re not gonna betray you or abuse you like humans will, like, they offer like a different kind of relationship. And I think for me it’s like I really don’t want people to just think, oh, I can take some tinctures or take some tablets and I’m gonna not burn out. Like for me it’s like, no, I’m building like a lifelong relationship with plants.

[00:16:49] Helped me feel less alone. That helped me calm down, that like, you know, give me support for my immune system, for my digestion that helped me do this work, like for the long haul, which is, you know, what we need from organizers. So, yeah, I think can, medicines can offer a lot.

[00:17:07] Laura Hartley: I appreciate that because I, I, you know, I think that’s, you know, a similar frame to, you know, sometimes they say, you know, we use meditation, mindfulness in a similar experience.

[00:17:16] Like, you know, that’s fine. I can just like meditate for 20 minutes a day and that means that, you know, I’ll be less stressed so I can keep doing exactly what I’m doing. and keep doing the things that are causing this level of stress in my life, as opposed to seeing it as a practice that can deepen our relationship to self, that can help redirect us to what is true for us to where we’re called to a life that maybe is a little bit different.

[00:17:40] And you know, there, there are these incredible modalities out there, herbs and plants being one of them. You know, meditation being another, but it’s so easy for how we use them to be co-op. To just kind of just keep us just pushing, just keep going in the same direction, you know, as opposed to a redirect.

[00:17:59] And Oh, definitely. One of the things, maybe this plays in a little bit as well, to collective care, which, you know, I know is kind of what you’re doing, but I wanna talk first about what Collective Care actually is, because, you know, we, you see everywhere now, right? Like self-care is like the epitome of what we’re supposed to offer ourselves.

[00:18:20] and, and self-care, you know, originated ad activist movements. There is a space for it. There is a need for it. Absolutely. And I think sometimes we struggle to imagine what collective care actually is. What are your thoughts on this and what is collective care to you?

[00:18:36] Nicole Rose: Whew. Yeah. Big question. I think. , I think it changes like in terms of context, like, so with the pandemic we saw this big rise, like kind of spontaneous rise of mutual aid groups.

[00:18:49] So collective care looked like, you know, getting masks to people, like bringing food to people who were shielding. It looked like staying at home or you know, or whatever. Like, I think that was like a good example of. The needs are like much bigger than the individual and that actually we need each other to get through this time.

[00:19:08] Whether it’s like an online support group or you know, a friendship group on WhatsApp or whatever. Like, I think it’s about like leaning into the kind of collectiveness and accepting that we need each other and that people need us and we also need people. And I think for organizer types, it’s, it’s like an interesting paradigm.

[00:19:31] In some ways we’re hugely collective, like collectively orientated. You know, we’re doing campaigns and organizing in groups and we believe in like social movements and power from below and all this stuff, but in other ways, like we’re often like real like individualistic organizers, you know, without much.

[00:19:50] Support who are taking it all on our shoulders, like as individuals. And, you know, often have like bad patterns of like self neglect and, you know Yeah. [00:20:00] Self-harm almost through organizing. Like, and that’s what I write about in overcoming burnout, like, , the reason I talk about this stuff is cuz like, I need this medicine.

[00:20:08] You know, like it’s a constant, it’s a constant struggle to, you know, like my best friend just died recently. Like he killed himself in prison. And it was just one of the worst like summers of my life and. Yeah, even me who like writes all these books about this shit, like, it was difficult to ask for support, you know?

[00:20:29] And I needed someone with me like at all times and I’m super independent as a person and I was just like, yeah, I don’t feel safe on my own. And so, you know, my friends and my partners had a bit of a rotor of like, okay, who’s gonna be with Nicole? Cuz she can’t. , she can’t do this right now alone. And I think there is like beauty in that vulnerability, if that makes sense.

[00:20:50] So yeah, it does make sense, those structures like, and you know, it’s like nice if we can like formalize them, but I also think loads of this stuff is like super informal. Like other friends I’ve had who’ve died, you know, we’ve had little rotors of who’s gonna stay with the person at what time or, you know, like rotors of who’s visiting friends in hospital.

[00:21:11] Like I think. Yeah, I don’t think like amicus invaded like community care, like I think it’s always been there in indigenous communities and different cultures, and I think it is this kind of like capitalist, white supremacy culture that, you know, pushes us to just care about ourselves as individuals and not about everyone else.

[00:21:31] Yeah, it,

[00:21:32] Laura Hartley: it’s that sense of solidarity I think is actually really what you’re describing there. And you’re right, it, we live in a hyper individualistic society that really says, you know, it’s about your success. You can do it alone. You don’t eat anybody else, and you should be strong enough to survive on your own.

[00:21:48] And all of these really toxic ideas, because we exist in community, we thrive in community. and, and that sense of solidarity that you’re describing beautifully there I, I think actually ties in really

[00:22:01] Nicole Rose: well

[00:22:02] Laura Hartley: with obviously solidarity, aary and what you guys do now. Would you, I’d love to hear a little bit about what you guys do the support that you’re offering, who you are working with and some of the projects that are coming up for you.

[00:22:19] Nicole Rose: Sure. So unfortunately it’s, it’s just too many things at once which I know many people will identify with in terms of projects. But yeah, the kind of main focus for me as a herbalist is supporting people experiencing state violence. So there’s different like layers to that. one of them is distributing a book called The Prisoner’s Herbal, which is like a book that I wrote based on my experiences of like experimenting with plants inside.

[00:22:46] It’s like 10 very detailed plant profiles and then like a big section on how to use things like salt and pepper and stuff medicinally that someone might have access to in prison and. Distribute it to like thousands of prisoners worldwide for free. And we do that by people buying the book on the outside.

[00:23:04] And yeah, and we also support prisoners to learn about plants through like the distance learning program. So that’s like one big aspect. And then another major project of mine is I go to C in Northern France with a project called the Mobile Herbal Clinic Call, which used to be called Herbalist Up Borders.

[00:23:25] We’ve just changed our name recently. So yeah, Callay is like this kind of border hotspot. Hotspot, like a. Place between France and England, like on the French side, and loads of refugees and asylum seekers try and cross the channel in boats and, and also in Lori’s it’s extremely dangerous, huge amounts of racism, like horrific living conditions.

[00:23:50] And yeah, we have like a mobile clinic. Where we serve kind of like 500 plus people a week with wound care and chest infections and coughs and colds and digestive issues. And yeah, any kind of acute medical issue you could think of, we respond to it. We drive people to hospital. We do a lot of ad advocacy.

[00:24:12] And the medicines are made by like a grassroots network of medicine makers in the uk. And then, yeah, finally there’s This Ukraine Herbal Solidarity Project, which is something that we started in in March. So yeah, we put a kind of call out for support and different people got involved and it’s mostly me and a Ukrainian herbalist working together quite closely.

[00:24:36] Lana. And she has been working at a kind of evacuation site in Poland where refugees are like crossing through the different borders and then they kind of converge at this like gas station and get a cup of tea and have a rest and the kids can like choose a teddy and it’s like super heartbreaking. But she worked there pretty much all summer.

[00:24:57] Distributing medicines to people. And these are medicines from Ukraine’s, like super vibrant herbal medicine traditions things like valerian and skullcap and elderberry syrup and things for covid. And we also distribute medicine in Ukraine, so I kind of make things and send it to Poland and Lana packages up and gets it to people at the front or different places in Poland sorry, in Ukraine.

[00:25:20] Yeah. And there’s, you know, there’s like a whole bunch of other things, but those are like the main, the main like, you know, big things that I focus on. I say we, but like, Solidarity is, is basically me, but I do like collaborate with like shitloads of people, like through these different projects.

[00:25:39] So yeah, it’s definitely a collective effort.

[00:25:43] Laura Hartley: And how can people support this? I mean, I know you mentioned with the the ERs Haas. Prisoner her book that people can buy it on the outside. Can people volunteer at, with any of these spaces in Cale or in Poland, can they support you directly? How can people get involved in supporting this work?

[00:26:01] Nicole Rose: Yeah, definitely. There’s like all sorts of opportunities. I think fundraising is like the biggest need. Everyone’s like, how can we support you? And I’m like, please help with fundraising. And then they just like never apply. And I’m like, Ugh, . But yeah, like money is just like, just the. Of my life of not having enough financial resources to make it all happen.

[00:26:22] So yeah, fundraising is massive and getting the books to people in prison, connecting with prisoner book projects. I have sent like a few parcels now and again over to Australia. I trying to remember what they’re called. Maybe Is it like Inside Out Network? I’m not sure, but yeah, like, I think. . [00:26:40] Yeah, I know I’ve had a few emails from people that have wanted to translate not translate to distribute the book in Australia, but it’s kind of not ever moved forward.

[00:26:49] So if anyone was interested in that, that would be amazing. Yeah. And then there’s all sorts of like medicine making opportunities in England to kind of contribute to all these different project. Yeah. Oh yeah. And I also have a podcast called the Frontline Herbalism podcast, which I recently started.

[00:27:05] So if folks wanna hear about these different things that’s online. And I also have like, kind of online courses which is like a way to sustain my livelihood cuz I also need to survive capitalism like everyone else. So if you wanna purchase a course and learn some medicine making skills that can support you and your community, definitely check out the website.

[00:27:26] Laura Hartley: Yeah. Okay. 100%. I think people, you know, if, if this work resonates, go learn about solidarity at Arthur Kerry. You can follow Nicole and her work online. I’ll have links to everything in the show notes below. I think this is a really powerful and unique response to the world and to oppression, to violence, to changing the, the paradigms that we live.

[00:27:50] Of really looking at what is grassroots support, what is collective care? What does it mean to look to plants as medicine and as support and as beings in their own right. So we really wanna say thank you for all that you do, and thank you for coming on the show and a big support for everything that you’re offering.

[00:28:09] If anybody has enjoyed listening to. Please give the show a rating, a review. Let me know what you think below. You can reach out to me on my website at laurahartley.com you can learn more about our courses that are on offer or follow me on Instagram, @laura.h.hartley. Please check out Nicole as well, and we’ll see you in a future episode.

[00:28:30] Nicole Rose: Thanks so much for the invitation. Thank

[00:28:35] Laura Hartley: you.

How can we… fuse art and nonprofit service? With Justin Levy

by Laura Hartley | Jan 12, 2023 | PodcastEpisodes

Today we’re speaking with Justin Levy, the Executive Director of Conscious Alliance, a US nonprofit bringing healthy food into underserved communities and fusing music with opportunities to make a positive impact. Through their Art That Feeds food drives at concerts and festivals they deliver over 2 million meals a year.

Work with Laura Hartley:
Web: www.laurahartley.com
Instagram: @laura.h.hartley
FB: @laurahartley-publiclove
LinkedIn: @laura-hartley-

Check out this episode!

TRANSCRIPT: Please note transcript was automatically generated and has not been edited. It may contain errors or omissions. 

[00:00:00] Justin Levy: What I’ve learned in my life is a couple things. Be willing to dream the dream and then get out of your own way in the sense of no action is too small. So you wanna do something, dream big, but don’t get overwhelmed with the top of the mountain. Just start.

[00:00:25]

[00:00:25] Laura Hartley: I’m Laura Hartley and welcome to the Public Love Project. This podcast is all about re-imagining and remaking the world, creating the conditions for social healing and collective thriving. Each week, we dive into topics around resilience, social change, birthing, and more just, and regenerative world and how we can use our head heart and hands in action. Before i introduce today’s guest and topic though i have one request head on over to apple podcasts or spotify wherever you’re listening and hit subscribe rate and review it helps us work to reach new listeners

[00:01:05] Today’s guest on the public love project is Justin Levy. Justin has served as the executive director of conscious Alliance since 2012. A us nonprofit, bringing healthy food into underserved communities and fusing music and opportunities to make a positive impact. Through the art that feeds food drives at concerts and festivals, they deliver over 2 million meals a year.

[00:01:27] So I’m really excited today to welcome to the show, Justin.

[00:01:30] To kick us off today. I would love to know maybe a little bit about you and your story and how you came to be working with Conscious Alliance.

[00:01:38] Justin Levy: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:40] I’m really looking forward to sharing the time with you and the listeners today. I started with Conscious Alliance. 18 years ago. I met two brothers outside of a concert in Denver, Colorado, and they were collecting food at the concert, encouraging concert goers to donate food. And when I went up and talked to them, I found out that they were supporting Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

[00:02:11] A few years prior to that, my high school guidance counselor had brought me to South Dakota to the Crow Creek Reservation, which is about four hours away from Pine Ridge. And I had a really transformational experience in my own life. And within just a few weeks started volunteering and on my journey with Conscious Alliance to make sure that kiddos and families were.

[00:02:40] What was

[00:02:40] Laura Hartley: it that drew you to volunteer there? What was your experience like at the time?

[00:02:44] Justin Levy: So I was born with cerebral palsy, the leading up to my birth my brain bled, So I was born with cerebral palsy and when I was born, the doctor said to my parents like, we have no idea what Justin’s going to accomplish.

[00:03:05] We’re just gonna have to wait and see. And so I went through hundreds of hours of physical therapy. I went through. Over 10 operations. Learned how to walk four different times and all while. Struggling with dyslexia at the same time. And so it pulled me out of school so much. Especially in middle school.

[00:03:30] I had a, a couple surgeries that completely took me outta school. I got really behind in math and was having a hard time and I remember wheeling my wheelchair into my guidance counselor’s office. And before I even said anything, he said, “that sounds important. Close the door”. So I closed the door and he says, I have a meeting I’m supposed to go to, but I really don’t want to.

[00:03:57] Let’s chat. And that was the beginning of a relationship that fully helped sculpt who I am today and, and what I’m up to. That first conversation and, and many others to follow. We would just talk about life and about books that I was listening to at the time, and every once in a while he would say to me, you get it.

[00:04:27] I remember thinking to myself, What, like, I get what, you know, I can’t read, I can’t walk. Like what do I get? And I, I started thinking like, and it, it was years later that I would realize, you know, that he saw something in myself at the time that I didn’t see. Right. So, I graduated middle school. I don’t know if I graduated or they just pushed me forward.

[00:04:50] But I went to high school. He wound up becoming my guidance counselor, getting transferred and asked me if I wanted to start a program with him to bring at risk youth to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota that I mentioned. And I absolutely said yes, but where I’ll stop is I didn’t know that I was one of the at risk students.

[00:05:09] Laura Hartley: He sounds like a powerful guidance counselor.

[00:05:11] Justin Levy: Absolutely. You know, taking the time to make the connections and, and see the gifts that folks can’t see in themselves.

[00:05:20] Laura Hartley: And then when you started, you know, obviously this program and you started volunteering and you started being a part of this, what was it that shifted in your life?

[00:05:30] Was it the shifted maybe in how you saw

[00:05:32] Justin Levy: yourself? Great question. For me, I had grown up with the belief that I had angels in my life, and it wasn’t necessarily just metaphysical. It was people who were taking the time to show up for me and support me, whether it was helping me with homework, whether it was physical therapy, surgeries teachers, right?

[00:06:03] My parents, my brother. And, and to me it was angels showing up to help me along my path and when I went to Crow Creek Reservation the only class I was good at was photography, so I brought my camera and we were at a powwow. And I, I spent time with this 11 year old who Was a beautiful dancer and you know, we didn’t know each other at, at all.

[00:06:36] You know, we just spent a couple hours together. The rule at the [00:06:40] time was like, if you take pictures, you have to send them to the family because you know, gains access to family portraits and things along those lines. Well before the iPhone and technology of that type. We got back to Chicago area, and I remember going into my counselor’s office and he said, I wanna see all the pictures that you, you took.

[00:07:04] And I showed him and he informed me that the day that we left, that 11 year old took his life.

[00:07:11] Laura Hartley: Oh my gosh, how

[00:07:12] Justin Levy: heartbreaking. For me, that was a moment of knowing this was my time to become a support system. I didn’t have to return the favour to folks that had supported me in my life. This was an opportunity for me to support others who I knew or didn’t know.

[00:07:33] Right? And, and it was that pivotal moment of I was never helpless.. I was always pushing forward, wanting to accomplish, you know with a, the tenacity and drive that I have today. But what clicked for me there was like, I have an opportunity to use my skills, my compassion, my empathy to support kiddos. So, Graduating high school, flying out to Colorado, meeting two brothers just weeks afterwards, who were collecting food outside of a concert.

[00:08:16] For me, it was an absolute no brainer. Like the Stars align. They’re supporting Native American reservations, they’re supporting youth through feeding people through music. My passions and today I say turning our passion into action.

[00:08:32] Laura Hartley: I love that. I love one of the things you said there was, you know, you referred to your compassion and your empathy as skills, and I think that’s a really important framing because a lot of the time we don’t see them in that way.

[00:08:44] That they, they are a gift that we have to offer and that they are skills that we can cultivate within ourselves as well. I’m curious. How, what’s your experience of that been? You know, how do you find that compassion kind of drives you now and what you’re offering today

[00:09:01] Justin Levy: in a leadership role and based on my past experience, the first group of teams that I ever created were teachers, doctors, friends who believed in me, support me. Right. And so again, leaning back on, on my experience within Conscious Alliance now and in my adult life, I have a skill set of developing teams.

[00:09:31] It used to be for me, so that I could get my needs taken care of. Literally like learning how to walk for the fourth time. Right now, it’s translated into developing teams of compassionate people who want to put their superpowers to good.

[00:09:56] Laura Hartley: How do we do that? Because you know, a lot of the people listening to this, you know, like a lot of us are working in aid spaces, you know, we’re working in non-profits or NGOs or in some form of helping capacity for the world.

[00:10:09] But a lot of the traditional leadership advice out there is actually kind of at odds with creating a really compassionate team. So how do we, how do we do that? How do we foster that sense of belonging?

[00:10:18] Justin Levy: It’s about building culture. It’s about building shared goals, shared values, and and creating multiple spaces, right? So being willing to have a conversation that. Maybe it’s just about connecting with your team, and it doesn’t have to do with work. Maybe it’s just about finding, learning and appreciating where people are at today, this month, this year.

[00:10:45] Right? And it can be in the same conversation, but it can also be a separate conversation of these are the goals, this is what we’ve agreed upon. And this is what we need to execute, not for us, but to deliver on our mission of again, what we’ve agreed upon so they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

[00:11:10] Right? But at the end of the day, we are here to do a job. We’re here to do a really great job. And it can be built on empathy and compassion, but, and with that has to come other skills too. Cause it’s not just about helping, it’s about empowering, changing the food system, supporting the environment, right?

[00:11:37] Like we’ve taken on a really big project, not alone, we’ve taken it on as Conscious Alliance. So what we’re doing here is we are building a Conscious Alliance and together we’re creating great impact.

[00:11:55] Laura Hartley: Which, you know, I would actually love, maybe it’s Conscious Alliance has come a long way, I love what you guys are doing and there is so much about our food system that needs to change and there is so much you know, really about the way we’re connecting with other people as well that needs to develop.

[00:12:09] Can you tell me a little bit about what Conscious Alliance does now and the support that you guys are offering? What are you hoping to change?

[00:12:17] Justin Levy: Absolutely. So we started in 2002 with a really simple idea, again, of engaging young people by hosting food drives, at concerts and supporting local organizations and community leaders to feed their community.

[00:12:32] When I came on board as a volunteer in 2004, I helped expand their reach by working with different bands, different demographics. I was living, I was going to college in Asheville, North Carolina with a reading machine in my room because I didn’t learn how to read till I was 21. Right. And so it was really about, again, pulling people in to support the mission.

[00:12:59] When I took over operations in 2010 and then, and then as executive director in 2012 for me it was about growing the impact, bringing more people along on the journey, right, and expanding the reach while being true to [00:13:20] the heart of our founding story and supporting Pine Ridge Reservation. So we work, we’ve been working hard.

[00:13:28] We, we do work hard to increase relationships in, in the music industry, right? The touring artists that we’re working with through the transition from the brothers who founded the organization. They had some really great wins and, and we developed together a relationship with Justin’s the peanut butter company, when they had three employees.

[00:13:52] And I hope by now you’ve been able to enjoy one of their peanut butter cups cuz they’re delicious. But Justin’s has been, I

[00:13:58] Laura Hartley: actually haven’t but it’ll have to be on my list.

[00:14:00] Justin Levy: No, it has to. Justin’s was founded in Boulder, Colorado where we were founded and they had three employees and they were trying to decide what nonprofit to support and they picked Conscious Alliance.

[00:14:12] It’s amazing and that same in the next few months. Whole Foods bought Wild Oak’s Grocery Store and they donated a million dollars worth of private label food to Conscious Alliance. It was like, whoa, we went from trying to find food to figuring out how to distribute food. Right. And yeah, a

[00:14:30] Laura Hartley: totally different set of of, of problems and skill sets there

[00:14:33] Justin Levy: as well.

[00:14:34] Absolutely. Right. So it was about leaning on connections. Like all of a sudden we were learning trucking and logistics in a, in a completely different way. Right? So again, we can lead from a place of empathy and compassion while developing the skill sets or bringing in the skill sets that we need, but we can always go back to that foundation of who we are as an organization.

[00:15:00] Right? So we started getting more natural food companies on board. We got Plum Organics, the baby food company on board. They introduced us to Suja Juice and all of a sudden we had our own flavor at Whole Foods. And it was, you know, the slow trickle, but there was food to be had and there were bands who were willing to play shows and have an impact with us.

[00:15:24] And there were a couple moments that I can highlight where it clicked. I was at a conference and I was learning about Best by, used by and sell by dates on food. And at that conference I learned that those dates are arbitrary, that they really

[00:15:38] Laura Hartley: are like, and I, for anybody listening like that, don’t get me wrong, there are sometimes like certain.

[00:15:43] You should really listen to that. But for the most part, they are completely arbitrary.

[00:15:48] Justin Levy: The FDA here says, you know, use your taste, your smell, and your sight to decide, right? So a protein bar, a granola bar, it’s not going bad at that date, right? It’s a, a bag of pasta. And so, What I realized is it’s about brand vanity and it’s like when you buy the product at full price, you want the best taste.

[00:16:12] You want the best touch, you want the best consistency for your consumer, which is a beautiful thing. But I realised as Conscious Alliance, we knew all these hunger heroes around the US, folks that were fighting hunger in their communities every single day that we had interacted with by going on tour with touring professionals and touring musicians. We knew trucking and logistics, right?

[00:16:37] So we started picking up product from brands warehouses by the semi load. So not only are hunger Relief Organization, we’re also have become an environmental organization stopping food from going into the landfill and instead getting this incredible product that’s already been created into the hands of kiddos and families in need across the country.

[00:17:02] Laura Hartley: I love this and you know, I wish I could remember the stat, but it is something like this incredible amount of food waste every single year, which goes into landfill, which is obviously contributing to environmental crisis and the climate crisis that we’re in, so we’re seeing this kind of intersection of where you guys are at, that yes, there’s environmental work, but it’s also about serving people.

[00:17:23] It’s also about serving people who are in need and people who are hungry. And serving communities and doing that as well with this element of like art and play and music and this incredible element that all comes together. Do you think this is kind of what makes you special? This intersection?

[00:17:38] Justin Levy: , I think there’s a lot of things that make Conscious Alliance special, and I think it starts with the community behind us, the countless hours

[00:17:54] thousands of people have put into this organization to make it what it is today, right? The staff, the folks that show up every day and give of themselves, our board, our volunteers, the musicians, the artists that are creating the posters, right? The, the folks on the ground feeding their communities.

[00:18:18] Every day our connection to the communities we serve like Pine Ridge. I mean, I think. It is just that it doesn’t go over my head that our name is Conscious Alliance and our opportunity is to lean in and be a conscious alliance,

[00:18:33] Laura Hartley: which, you know, the foundation of of an alliance, I think is relationships.

[00:18:38] It’s, it’s partnership building, which it’s a skill a little bit like what we’ve been talking about because you know, sometimes working with other humans is not always easy. And sometimes it’s working with people with different skill sets and different beliefs in different areas.

[00:18:52] How do you navigate this? What do you feel is kind of the, the foundation to building strong relationships as an

[00:18:59] Justin Levy: alliance?

[00:19:00] I think internally it’s about paying attention to what makes people tick. What makes them have that spark? What makes them fall in love and feel in love with their work? And we all have to do some things that, you know, maybe we’re working against the grain and it’s, it’s hard to do and maybe it’s not our sweet spot, right?

[00:19:25] Like, I’m still not a great reader, but I have to read every day. Right? At the same time, let people lean into. What they’re up to, what they love, what they believe in, and like as much as possible, let people do their thing. Let them like feel their magic. I think that that’s really important and I think going a layer outside of that, as we talk about relationships, it’s about authenticity.[00:20:00]

[00:20:01] Celebrating our community’s wins. And what I mean by that is not in. Calculated. We need something from somebody, right? But like really getting to know our partners, our friends, our supporters, our fans, right? And like celebrating those moments with them. A new job, a, a new family member whatever it might be, and, and like being there with them during the hard times too, and, and, Hey, we’re here for you and like really showing up, you know, or I’m thinking about you, and it’s not for a calculated, Hey, we, we, it’s not about the sale, right?

[00:20:50] It’s like that, that becomes so apparent, so quickly and inauthentic, right? But like, if we. And I speak broadly, like if we as leaders and, and as just people in the world, right? Not even leaders, just people in the world. When we truly give a shit, it shows. And so just leaning into that and, and showing up for people and allowing people to show up for us, it builds this incredible symbiotic relationship where we can all thrive a little more. .

[00:21:30] Laura Hartley: I, I love that. And I, I think authenticity is such a big piece and it, it is sometimes so hard to do sometimes because it comes with an element of vulnerability and it’s also what actually builds that kind of foundation of safety, that trust that we have with one another.

[00:21:46] Because if we don’t have that, Then, you know, there’s, it’s, it’s very much like sand underneath us. There’s not really much there that’s holding us together. I’m, I’m curious as well to touch on, something I mentioned earlier, this idea of, of burnout in nonprofit spaces. Have you seen this experience, this because like burn, I can see your face right now.

[00:22:08] It’s like, for anybody listening, like burnout is everywhere. Like how, how’s your experience of this? Have you burnt out before? What do you do about it? How do we start to kind of move forward in cultures that, you know, really promote our thriving, as you say.

[00:22:23] Justin Levy: As you said to the listeners, like my, my face lights up, of course I’ve experienced burnout.

[00:22:28] And I don’t think it’s just in the nonprofit space, but I think it, it shows up here and you know, it’s a topic of conversation. It’s a buzzword within topics of conversation. Yes, I’ve experienced it. Yes, I’ve fought through it with tenacity of the same tenacity of wanting to run when I was four and being told I could only walk.

[00:22:50] Right. Like it’s there’s a lot to push through and I think that sometimes those moments can create the vulnerability you were speaking of and the authenticity that comes with those moments. And no, it’s not where we want anyone to be or where we wanna push ourselves, but I, I’d be lying if I said, Hey, it, it’s never happened.

[00:23:16] Right? Of course it happens, but I think it and there’s not one fix, right? So this is the part that takes um, constant work on all of our parts, our, our own responsibility as individuals and then our responsibility as leaders too. I think that everybody owns a little piece of finding what works for them.

[00:23:43] Right. And then I think from a leadership role we have to push, I think, I know that I have to push to support the team. And sometimes it’s counterintuitive to the, the dual conversation that we started here with. Results and verse compassion and connection. Right. I think our biggest asset is our team.

[00:24:07] So the goal is to support them in delivering on our mission. And again, this looks different all the time, so I’ll throw out some concrete examples. Now, taking time as a team to exercise is something that we’ve done a lot for about a year during the pandemic and prior to the pandemic. We would go work out every Wednesday together and somebody on the team got to pick where we went.

[00:24:37] So it was an hour outside of the office where we got to move our bodies, right, and like do something completely different. Then during the pandemic. We continued it on zoom. We’ve shifted our work hours to do half day Fridays for a while. I love

[00:24:57] Laura Hartley: that. I’m a big fan of

[00:24:58] Justin Levy: that. Yeah. We’ve, we’ve shifted to just.

[00:25:02] Say like, Hey, we’re closing the office, right? Like, it’s about reading the room. And I am not saying that I am perfect at this. This is like something that is on my plate and, and challenges me daily because it’s always a moving target as far as what people need. But like sometimes it’s about, Just taking the day and going and doing an activity.

[00:25:28] Like a few weeks ago, we, we left the office and we went and hit golf balls, and like had lunch and it was like we went to a driving range. You know, nothing to do with work. Like it’s a, it’s

[00:25:43] Laura Hartley: a building relationships. It’s about more than work, right, exactly. It’s discovering who we are as like actual people.

[00:25:50] Justin Levy: And it makes some of the work stress and like the, the conflict melt away a little bit cuz you’re like, oh yeah, I’m just human. They’re just human. We had a nice time, right? Like people, then we get back to it, you know, and again, like none of this is the fix, like closing the office on Fridays is not the fix, right?

[00:26:12] Like, if it doesn’t come with the right intention, it’s just something that happened or it’s not the right fix forever, right? Like, maybe it’s just for a few weeks. Doing half day Fridays is an amazing thing, but it doesn’t have to be right? And so it’s about the, the message, the delivery, the. Is it working for people or would people rather say, Hey, I would love to pick a half day that I [00:26:40] would like off because I’ve got a family at home and it would really help if I, I could do this with them on Wednesday or, I really need to go to therapy and like I, I’d love to do that.

[00:26:52] Whatever, like, you know, for me I need to move my body so I, I take time and I leave and make sure I’m moving my body cuz it supports my brain and it supports my ability to, you know, not have my cerebral palsy become more than what it is, right? Like keep moving. So we all have different needs and it takes a lot more work to individualize.

[00:27:16] But when we can, it’s important and we can’t always, right? So like part of it’s like that recognition of, hey, we’re all doing our best, right? Like there’s no fix. And sometimes like people are ready to move on from their role too. And it doesn’t mean it was a bad fit, it doesn’t mean anything bad happened.

[00:27:39] Like

[00:27:40] Laura Hartley: sometimes we’re called to different

[00:27:42] Justin Levy: places. Yeah, we need different things.

[00:27:44] Laura Hartley: Yeah, I think that’s a big one. You know, sometimes we are staying in places that are no longer meant for us, that were meant for us at one time and were great. But then, you know, it is actually a new environment that we need a new team, a new challenge, something.

[00:27:58] And that sense of burnout can sometimes be a result of like, yeah, staying somewhere too long that is no longer meant for you. .

[00:28:06] Justin Levy: And I don’t think that that’s like there can still be an authentic conversation around that. It doesn’t mean a company’s culture has to change, right? Like maybe their culture is what it is and it’s just not the fit for that person anymore, or that leader anymore, or whoever, right? Like it could, it, it might not be the right fit for the founder anymore, but it doesn’t mean that anything was wrong or broken.

[00:28:33] You know, it’s, as you said, like different things serve us at different times, and the goal is to build on those building blocks and continue to go forward.

[00:28:44] Laura Hartley: As we kind of look at this idea of transition, I, I do have a question for you, which is, you know, so many of us, it’s so easy to see areas that need help and sometimes, you know, we see those areas and we have an idea.

[00:28:57] We’re like, wouldn’t it be great if somebody did this or wouldn’t it be great if this happened? And working up, the ability or the courage or whatever it is that we need to actually do it ourselves can be challenging to actually go, you know what? I see the need. I see something that could help. I’m gonna step up and try and actually start this initiative, start this community event, start this organization, whatever it might be.

[00:29:20] Do you, do you have any advice for somebody in that area?

[00:29:23] Justin Levy: Absolutely.

[00:29:24] What I’ve learned in my life is a couple things. Be willing to dream the dream and then get out of your own way in the sense of no action is too small. So you wanna do something, dream big, but don’t get overwhelmed with the top of the mountain. Just start.

[00:29:49] Laura Hartley: I love that. Just start. Don’t get overwhelmed with the top of the mountain. I think that is good advice for myself as well. Sometimes it’s so easy to look ahead and see everything, you know, and for it to kind of keeps you frozen. So then actually just, just starting and just taking that next step.

[00:30:06] Justin Levy: I utilized that similar feeling to propel me forward. I’m like, whoa, this is so big. This is overwhelming. This is so exciting. Like, let’s go. Like why? Like it doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be a little messy, right? So it’s like, Hey, we wanna do this thing. Well then let’s do it. It can be better in day two, month two, year two.

[00:30:35] Laura Hartley: Good enough to go safe enough to try.

[00:30:38] Justin Levy: What, like what is the worst that happens?

[00:30:40] Laura Hartley: And that’s the question here. I think there, there really is, it’s really never as bad as we think it will be. It’s just these, these kind of standards that we hold ourselves to, or these fears that we have about not being good enough or perfect or rejection or whatever it might be, you know, that keep us frozen in place.

[00:30:58] And I think there’s a lot invested in that. You know, the world as it is kind of benefits from that. But if we’re wanting to kind of shift the world and move the world to like, as it could, then, you know, it does require us to take those day by day, those small little steps that you’re talking about.

[00:31:13] Justin Levy: Yeah, I think, you know, those little steps put us in a different place 30 days later, three days later, a year later, and we have to also, this is something that I am fully working on, is stopping to celebrate the wins.

[00:31:34] I can often. Create the vision, push it forward, have the win, and already be onto the next three things. And like, you know, my team is coaching me on it. Like I have, I have a lot of support in this, but just, you know, it’s one of the things that I’m actively working on and, and like falter regularly of being like, oh yeah, that’s a win and that’s a win for everybody.

[00:31:59] And also, You know, we’re, we’re here to talk about work, but that’s like my safe zone, right? Like there are other parts where I’m like, man, what are my hobbies anymore? My hobbies have turned into my job. My job has turned into, you know, and so like, what does it look like as we get older to continue to create the new.

[00:32:20] We have so many pieces of who we are, right? Like I can be a leader in this role and completely shy, and timid a different role in my life. And like, that’s okay. That’s a beautiful thing.

[00:32:37] But it’s also startling , right? Like, yes, like take a test. It’s like, are you this? It’s like, well, in this scenario, yes, in that scenario, absolutely not. You know?

[00:32:50] Laura Hartley: This is so true. You know, there are areas of my life where I am incredibly confident and I feel like absolutely, like I can show up, I am a leader, like I’m good.

[00:32:59] And then there are other areas where, yeah, it’s, it’s terrifying still and it’s hard. And you know, there’s that feeling of like shrinkage. Yeah. And so navigating that, that two things can be true at once, and that our environment matters. 2,

[00:33:12] Justin Levy: 3, 4 things can all be like, it’s situational, right? I think it’s a beautiful thing as, and it’s, it is [00:33:20] challenging as could be.

[00:33:22] Mm.

[00:33:23] Laura Hartley: I have really enjoyed today’s conversation. I do have one last question for you, and you know, this podcast is about remaking the world, and I really think that’s part of what Conscious Alliance is doing. But what is your vision of a more just and regenerative world? If you, if you could really remake it in some capacity, what would be different?

[00:33:44] Justin Levy: That’s a big question. It is. It’s

[00:33:47] Laura Hartley: a very big question. Feel free to narrow it down to your area of interest. Cause it is a big question.

[00:33:51] Justin Levy: It’s a beautiful thing and I’m going to address it in a few ways. One, I’ll go back to taking action and if we really wanna create the world that we want, we have to start.

[00:34:06] I don’t have the magic paintbrush so to start over, so we’re going to, I’m going to continue to take this on as it is today, and do my part to make it a little bit better and a little bit brighter for as many people as possible. And.

[00:34:28] The other piece of that on an equally as important scale is to check in with our friends, check in with our family, and just reach out and let people know that you’re there for them. That we are here for each other. We can often. Get swept away in life and in our work and, and within Conscious Alliance, like, oh, it has to be big, it has to be truckloads it, you know, but it’s really about that individual connection that we’re talking about.

[00:35:03] And I think we could all use more support, more love mo more authenticity and, and so just checking in with our communities on a micro level to support one another through this journey that we’re all stumbling through together. Hmm.

[00:35:25] Laura Hartley: I love that. And I think those, those check-ins and that connection is so important.

[00:35:30] I really wanna say thank you so much Justin, for coming onto the show. It’s been a pleasure to have you and to learn about you and to learn about Conscious Alliance. So for anybody listening, you’ll be able to check out Conscious Alliance in all of the details in the show notes below. So please go have a look.

[00:35:44] Is there anything that you would like to leave us with or ways that people can get involved or learn a little bit more about you and the organization?

[00:35:52] Justin Levy: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s, it’s been a joy and we do have an amazing opportunity for folks right now. If they go to consciousalliance.org/takeaction, they can learn more about Conscious Alliance.

[00:36:08] Jump in, take action. If you complete three of the actions on the page, you’re gonna get entered to win two tickets to Red Rocks for any concert of your choice in 2023. So go to conscious alliance.org/take action. Watch a video, read an article, get entered to win free concert tickets for next. Ah, that

[00:36:30] Laura Hartley: sounds wonderful.

[00:36:31] Thank you again for coming on the show. For anybody listening, I do love it when you’re able to suggest guests or topics, so please reach out. You can visit me at my website @ laurahartley.com or follow me on Instagram at @laura.h.hartley,

How can we…. reverse the ocean plastic problem? With Tom Jackson

by Laura Hartley | Oct 26, 2022 | PodcastEpisodes

This conversation is with Tom Jackson, CEO and Co-Founder of Honest Ocean, a company on a mission to collect and recycle plastic waste, in order to prevent it from reaching the ocean and rivers by stopping it at the source.

Tom is passionate about plastic recycling and social enterprise, and shares an incredible wealth of information in this episode.  Take a listen if you want to be part of business remaking the world, or support more responsible and honest care for our oceans.

We discuss:

– The power of social enterprise & business in remaking the world – and the first step you can take to enter the green space

– Greenwashing, and how tech may be part of the solution

– The importance of relationships in social enterprise

– The power of activist movements & consumers in shifting business behaviour

– The future of ocean plastic recycling.

Interested in changemaker coaching or courses with Laura Hartley?

Web: https://laurahartley.com/

Insta: @laura.h.hartley

LinkedIn: @laura-hartley-

Want to learn more about Tom Jackson & Honest Ocean?

Web: https://honest-ocean.com

Linked In: @honest.ocean

Insta: @honest.ocean

Check out this episode!

TRANSCRIPT: Please note this was auto-generated and has not been edited, and may contain errors. 

[00:00:00] Tom Jackson: And we are not a scared business in terms of you know, the people that are greenwashing and the, the people that are doing the wrong way. We’re not gonna moan about it. We’re just gonna show them how you do it better and then we expect them to follow suit or be held accountable to that.

[00:00:15] And then, and if everyone had that outlook as a bus business with value, this world would be a much better place already.

[00:00:21]

[00:00:21] Laura Hartley: I’m Laura Hartley and welcome to the Public Love Project. This podcast is all about re-imagining and remaking the world, creating the conditions for social healing and collective thriving. Each week, we dive into topics around resilience, social change, birthing, and more just, and regenerative world and how we can use our head heart and hands in action. Before i introduce today’s guest and topic though i have one request head on over to apple podcasts or spotify wherever you’re listening and hit subscribe rate and review it helps us work to reach new listeners

[00:01:01] Laura Hartley: Today. I am excited to be speaking with Tom Jackson. The co-founder of Honest Ocean. A company on a mission to collect and recycle plastic waste in order to prevent it from reaching the oceans and rivers, stopping it at the source. So with a background in manufacturing, Tom was always interested in the materials that went into making products.

[00:01:21] Combined with 10 years of his life on the ocean, seeing the direct impact of plastic pollution, he knew that he wanted a change. So Tom and his co-founder Angus started by looking into some of the worst affected areas by plastic waste, including Indonesia, where he’s now based. They found that there was extremely poor infrastructure in place to combat the overflowing plastic pollution, much of which was actually coming from Western countries to begin with.

[00:01:48] So together, they started Honest Ocean and have concentrated on creating a closed loop, 360 plastic supply chain. Turning plastic waste into a commodity while also educating and empowering local communities to help in the fight against ocean plastic waste.

[00:02:03] So welcome to the public love project Tom. I am so excited to have you And I want to start with your inspiration for Honest Ocean. You know you’ve said that you were working on boats at the time around Indonesia but what was happening, what were you seeing around you that made you want to start a social enterprise?

[00:02:21] Tom Jackson: Yeah. So Laura, it started back in sort of 2015, 16. I was working on boats and we were crossing between sort of New Zealand and Fiji and things like that.

[00:02:31] And actually saw a lot of plastic in the ocean. And I worked, you know, at sea for, for seven years. And when I started, you know, You notice these things, it wa it wasn’t so bad back in, you know 2009, something like that. And as you, as you moved on, it was just, it was everywhere. And it got to a point where I saw quite a lot of it in the South Pacific and it really stuck with me. From there you know, I, I left that career and went towards manufacturing.

[00:03:05] Specifically we did vegan supplements and the manufacturing supplier, the only option they could give us with these little plastic tubes with the tablets inside. You may have seen them from pharmaceutical sort of pills and tablets and all that sort of thing. And there was [00:03:20] nothing sort of four years ago.

[00:03:22] And I said, Well, if I go and find a more social and a better you know, way of doing it than creating new plastic would, would you be interested in working with me, and they said yes. So two years ago or two and a half years ago, I left. I came to Indonesia and I got to work and I, I met with recyclers and local communities to, to look at what we could do, and plastic is a great product.

[00:03:50] It’s very usable. That’s why it’s in pretty much every part of our life. So being able to, being able to find a different way of using it and being able to recycle it and circle the economy around. The very important part of plastic was, was basically the motivation and why I left sort of crewing on yachts to moving to Indonesia..

[00:04:10] Laura Hartley: Which is quite a big move, you know, moving off yachts and that kind of work into actually starting a social enterprise, what were some of the, the challenges or the feelings that you were experiencing at that time? Because I’ve certainly been in places where seeing that level of environmental impact is.

[00:04:28] It’s challenging, it’s hard. It’s, it actually has an effect on us, you know? What was it that you were feeling at the time?

[00:04:36] Tom Jackson: Yeah, it was, it was really, really hard. Especially I mean, I, I’d traveled for the last sort of 11, 12 years through, through work. So I was, I was excited to go on an adventure as well.

[00:04:50] Moving to Bali wasn’t the hardest thing. You know, it took me about five minutes to think that was okay. But yeah, being in Indonesia and being in mainland Java where no one really speaks English the plastic, the burning the whole situation was just horrible and it’s almost like going back 25 years essentially in terms of there aren’t really any rules.

[00:05:12] So everyone’s doing, you know, what they like with plastic and things that it was really hard. So I spent four months, I got off the airplane from the UK to Indonesia and then I spent four months going around, look, talking to every single recycler all these communities and really working out where the problem was in waste management the manufacturing, the recycling.

[00:05:33] And I very quickly worked out that you know, there was about 275 recyclers in the whole of Indonesia to the 1600 virgin plastic manufacturers, which just means new plastic. So you can tell right there that there’s a massive issue with the amount of plastic being created versus, versus the infrastructure for recycling.

[00:05:55] That’s huge.

[00:05:57] Laura Hartley: And, the waste that we’re in Indonesia though, and not just Indonesia, and I wanna acknowledge this isn’t just from Indonesia itself though, right? It’s actually coming from Western countries.

[00:06:09] Tom Jackson: Yeah, exactly. And generally to South East Asia in general, there’s been a lot of material exported to, for instance, China.

[00:06:17] China closed their doors in 2019 and that was mainly from Germany, the UK and America as well. But there, the reason why it’s those three is cause people have been selling their waste, for instance, to Germany and then Germany be, has been exporting. And it’s been coming places like here Vietnam. I know Thailand have stopped doing it.

[00:06:39] I [00:06:40] think you can still it export waste to Indonesia. The rules are a little bit unclear and I have found UK supermarket bags. When I’ve been looking around river banks and you know, fields and it’s a really poor place. So, you know, everyone’s an entrepreneur here. Everyone will take anything to, to, you know, to work.

[00:07:01] And everyone’s either working day to day here in terms of local Indonesians or week to week, the long term plan for, you know, their lifestyle and being able survive workwise is very short term, and we find that a lot when we try and work with communities. One week we’ll be doing really well with them the other week, you know they would’ve closed it or, or something like that.

[00:07:25] In terms of in terms of us collecting it from that coastal area.

[00:07:29] Laura Hartley: So how does Honest Ocean work you know, as a social enterprise, you know, what is your structure here? How do you work with local communities?

[00:07:37] Tom Jackson: Right. So what we do is right at the start, so the, the plastic waste as soon as you go to a coastal community here on an island, it’s really bad. So first of all, what we do is we’ll go to these coastal communities and speak to the chiefs and the heads of villages, which you know, has really been the last

[00:07:54] year and a half of, of my job. And we’ll sit down and break bread with them and ask them what the issue is. Is the government collection coming to pick up waste here? Um, Probably not, cause it’s hard to reach areas. So what we’ll do is we’ll create a contract with them. We ask them to separate their plastic waste to have an area in their community.

[00:08:14] And, you know, we are not trying to create competition against what these guys are doing, we’re just purchasing it from them. So we’ll ask them to set that up once a week, once a month, depending on how big or small that village community is, we’ll come and collect that from them. From there, it will then go to our recycler, so about 50 minutes away from, from pretty much anywhere of the east coast of Java, which is the main strip of Indonesia here.

[00:08:42] It will then go to our recycler. With our recycler we have a great partner. Where we have all our materials separately stored, everything runs together. So it’ll be processed together for our customers. It’ll be shredded and washed there, and then from there it will be like exported locally.

[00:09:03] We try and keep it as close as we can. For instance, you know, Australia Southeast Asia in general, but it does go to Europe. Sometimes it’s a little bit too far, but our goal was always to get plastic away from Indonesia. And like I mentioned with the, the very little infrastructure to deal with it, that was that was always the plan.

[00:09:24] And then the very important and the last point of it is partnering with brands who really socially care and, and actually you know, really interested in working with a supplier who can be on the ground to work with, um, to work with all these, these kind of great communities that really wanna change.

[00:09:42] So it’s a long way of saying it, but as a short way we’re basically coastal recyclers who are socially impacting communities through collecting waste.

[00:09:52] Laura Hartley: So I wanna come back to one of the things that you talked about there, which was partnering with local communities and with other [00:10:00] organizations and people. You know, when we’re looking to do any sort of work of remaking the world, I think this element of relationships and partnerships is so important.

[00:10:10] You know, this isn’t work that we do alone, and this isn’t work that we can just go in as this you know, one person or, or you. Multi person organization from a different place and just expect everything to change. You know, we need these relationships and we need these understandings to help shape us and

[00:10:29] with this kind of work that you’ve done going into obviously a very different culture, a different country, you know, fostering these relationships and partnerships, how has this experience been for you? You know, where, where have there been tensions? Where have there been opportunities, and how have you

[00:10:45] navigated

[00:10:45] this?

[00:10:47] Yeah, that’s a great question, Laura. And it’s, it’s, the answer is, it is really difficult. And for anyone, whether you’re a company coming into Indonesia, like a big corporate trying to set this up, or you’re like us, you’re smaller and you have to go from village to village it is really difficult. So for instance, if you think about having 50 waste banks all along the coast, you’ve got lots of people involved in that.

[00:11:12] So you’ve got the collectors, who will bring the waste to these waste banks. So anyone can go out and collect with a bag. And it goes on the scales and then the waste bank will pay the collector for that. Okay, So that’s the first link. So all, all hoping that goes well, right? Anyone can do that as a freelance person.

[00:11:32] They get paid in cash, they don’t get paid in rice or oil or something that other people do, cooking oil, we just do it in cash cause like us, they just want a salary and then they can spend it how they want. So you have issues with having, you know, even if it’s 25 or 50 waste banks you, you have the issue of.

[00:11:51] Yeah, working with humans, which is not always the most reliable, especially in a place where it’s really hard to communicate. It’s a very religious place. There’s ceremonies about, you know, every seven or eight days, they do have that. So that’s another thing to account for.

[00:12:08] You’ve gotta account for money and what we have to pay for up front. When I first got here, I was putting deposits on things and things not turning up or plastic not returning as it was meant to. So yeah, financially it was difficult. Renting and lending equipment was a difficult one for us because they weren’t maintaining it.

[00:12:29] So there was a lot of education based around that. But yeah, I think every part of it was a chore and it was a learning process and I wouldn’t change any of it. We had to learn all of it from working with the people, educating them around the material, how to separate that getting bags of plastic with rocks in which they were adding weight to.

[00:12:52] So yeah, every part of it we had to micromanage..

[00:12:55] Tom Jackson: Uh,

[00:12:56] And make sure it was working and being honest with you, Laura, it’s not perfect now, there are things where we have to reject plastic and say, you know, you need to sort this a little bit better.

[00:13:06] So, it’s a balancing rope of we really wanna help these communities to do it, but we need to make sure it’s viable for us. And we’re a for profit business and that’s the only way we can sustain it. And we see a lot of [00:13:20] NGOs coming in and doing us, you know, a year or an eight month or a six month pilot project.

[00:13:27] Which is great, they’re able to do that, but it’s not sustainable. And if it’s a project, it means they’re gonna come and do it, and then they’re gonna take it away again. So you’re employing people and then you’re having to let them down because you know, you put a budget towards it and that’s just the issue with not it being your core business.

[00:13:44] So for us, we live and breathe this. We spend most of our time talking to these communities and trying to work on the best, best benefit. And you know, there are great people who really want to change it. And you know, we’ve got different types of waste banks with different plastics, which involve different types of people.

[00:14:04] So we very quickly realized, okay, these guys don’t really wanna do it, we need to find someone else in the area who, you know, is, is a chief. Who’s gonna let us operate here, but also is passionate about the people having jobs and the long term of it.

[00:14:19] I loved something that you touched on there around, you know, it’s, we’re making relationships with other humans. And therefore nothing is perfect, but how do we foster that trust? You know, and that sense of actual relationship with one another. I think, there’s the day to day actual doing that we have, but then there’s the actual relational work of showing up as we are, you know?

[00:14:42] What’s your experience there of actually building that relationship?

[00:14:45] Yeah. That’s why we, you know, I moved here and now all our teams based here, bar one, because we, you know, we have to be able to show that we are here and that we do turn up, and that the relationships we build with the individuals is really, really important.

[00:15:01] And for instance, we have one village and chief um, that we work with, who you know is, represents all of the fishermen, uh, In, in the east of Indonesia, which for us is amazing. And he’s a fantastic guy, great family, and really looks after the people in the community. And that allows us to then, you know, there, there’s all this plastic in our rivers and all these, all these coastal communities, of course, have all these rivers that flow out from the city, so there’s waste on their banks and there’s waste in the river, which isn’t their fault.

[00:15:34] It’s come from the major cities. But it, but it’s there. And it’s again, being able to say, Look, you know, we understand this. Building a relationship with you is really important. And, you know, we are here to help you. And, you know, with the fishermen based around that as well. We do collect a little bit from the ocean, but not as much.

[00:15:54] So building a relationship with not only the people on the ground that we talk to, with our local guys, Rudy and Ray, who work in Indonesia full time as, as local , managers for us, being able to, keep that relationship really important. You know, 90% of our business is done through WhatsApp, which has, has a lot of stress to it as well.

[00:16:16] We have to go and see them often. We have to make sure everything’s happy. Do you have safety equipment? Do you have gloves? Do you have bags? You know what’s, what’s the issue? Okay. We are gonna try and build a, a school in the next eight months. Okay, great. So then we’ll be like, let’s collect more material from you, which we can financially give you more profit.

[00:16:36] So not just, you know, handing out funds like I mentioned [00:16:40] before. So being able to have a relationship where you can call Chief up or the Waste Bank operator and say, Look guys, we think what you’re trying to do is really cool. First of all, let’s build out non-recyclable waste, which we can mix with concrete.

[00:16:53] And secondly, let’s try and help you fundraise that, or it will be a mosque or whatever that. Those, those end goals are really important for a relationship because then we’ll push, push, push, trying to help, get the material moving and then having an accountable result for that which the village or the community can be really proud of is a really big part of, you know, what we stand for.

[00:17:15] And not only does that help, you know, Non-recyclable waste going into to bricks or an outlet of some kind. The kids have got somewhere to go to school. You know, education time at school here is maximum about four hours a day. So it’s really how can we keep that longer And also the awareness around plastic in school.

[00:17:36] So relationships from the, the elderlies in the village, to the individuals collecting, to the kids, being able to speak to them, who these guys are, learning English quite quickly compared to their parents.

[00:17:48] So yeah, the relationship’s really important and they have to be managed with care and sometimes it doesn’t go well. Sometimes it does, and you really, you really need to quickly move on because, you know, waste banks is a very hard thing to run and we’ve got a lot of them. And your awareness of people just gets greater and you can understand you

[00:18:09] they’re not happy. What’s wrong? You know? Can we solve it? Okay. No, this person’s actually not interested, just interested in in the profit. And you know, if people just have that goal of profit, then things get missed or shortcuts get taken. So being able to go in there in five seconds or 30 seconds in talking to someone, you know, they’ve changed or their mindset’s changed or

[00:18:33] they’re not working with others, they’re doing it themselves. They’re just trying to keep all the funds for themselves. You know, straight away that that’s not a good place to do it. And you’ll set up camps somewhere else with people who want to get all these people to come in and for someone in a relationship, ideal situation for us, they understand that the more people that come and bring them plastic, The more you know, plastic that they’ll get, which which results in more funds for that waste bank.

[00:18:59] So the more people we have involved in this, the more collectors, the more people we can offer jobs to, the more material we, we can collect. And this, this business only works at scale. It is a big moving operation and it has to be like that. Otherwise, we are not putting a dent in the footprint of ocean plastic and preventing it from, from getting in there.

[00:19:21] You know, we are very early in the stage of the world is trying to stop plastic get in there. Yes, there are people that are trying to take it from the ocean, which is great, but it’s still running into the ocean. But yeah, coming back to Laura, answering your question again, is it’s really important to manage those relationships.

[00:19:40] If you can’t do that, and if you can’t , look after that and build on that, then you know, your operation essentially isn’t, is a disaster and won’t run. If we don’t have that human connection and partnership. You know, we really don’t have anything in the cycle of plastic collection.

[00:19:58] Laura Hartley: And one of the things that I loved there [00:20:00] about when you were talking about this idea of trust and connection was you actually built that through understanding what people desire and what they want, and mutually helping people kind of create that and create those opportunities.

[00:20:13] So whether that was helping to build a mosque or a school, whatever it may be, it was working with actual desires to create something in the world and not just transactional, as you’re saying, through profit. Right.

[00:20:28] I, I wanna scale this out a bit though, because this idea of trust is so important and. You know, a, as a climate activist, I, one of my great struggles in the world at the moment is this idea of greenwashing and this idea of endless consumerism.

[00:20:45] You know, and you mentioned that before, we kind of need to stop plastic as a whole, generally being unnecessarily produced, but we also need to stop at entering the ocean. We also need to learn how to reuse what we already have. So we have these kind of two issues here of trust, you know, the greenwashing.

[00:21:02] How can we trust what is being said and how do we trust that what is actually being manufactured is of benefit to the earth? Yeah. So how do we navigate this, cuz I know greenwashing is a big thing for you. Do you wanna tell us a bit about what it is and how you see it show up?

[00:21:18] Tom Jackson: Absolutely. So yeah, Greenwashing essentially is doing something that, or saying and showing something that you’re not doing.

[00:21:26] And yeah, for us it’s very difficult cuz we’re we all moved here as a social impact company to set this up. And essentially, you know, plastic material, whether it’s coming from the UK, coming from Indonesia, a lot of it looks the same. So there is a big part of the tracking and the traceability is Yeah, sometimes it’s not done.

[00:21:50] So essentially what we do is we track everything. So , we have, uh, you can scan, a QR system , of the tracking chain that we have from collection and origin of where that came from, right through to recycling process to export or, or local uh, sales to someone and then the product it’s made into.

[00:22:10] And indonesia is a small place when you’re a foreigner or foreign companies come here. So you do see people saying and doing things that they’re not. And you know, it’s Indonesia. A lot of people, for instance, in the West, don’t know what’s going on here. It’s a place that needs a lot of people’s help.

[00:22:28] That’s why they’re here. But it’s really, really hard to do what we do. And it’s, that’s not a limitation by funds. It’s a limitation of like it touched on waste banks and being able to do that. You know, people will have people here you know, representing a big company in another place and, you know, they’re relying on that person or that team to tell them what’s happening.

[00:22:49] And to, to say how that’s happening. So again, we had to move here and do it. We had to be in control of it. And sometimes people would tell you one thing and do a different thing.

[00:23:00] I just urge consumers to, and especially companies smaller companies and bigger companies that really want you know, be, be accountable and show what their materials, where it’s coming from, the people they’re impacting. And at the end of the day, people are really scared now cuz they’re this whole greenwashing tag.

[00:23:19] Companies are [00:23:20] really scared of being associated with a social pla social cause, or recycled plastic. Because if they get found out, you know, it’s their reputation. That’s really important. The more greenwashing there is in this space, whether it’s, carbon credit’s being burnt twice, or plastic just coming from a normal recycler or supplier versus you know, where it’s showing where it’s actually come from.

[00:23:44] It’s, yeah, it’s being, it’s being accountable as a brand and that supplier has to understand that, you know, we Honest Ocean is supplying to this company that, you know, they really wanna impact and they wanna show their consumers. And, that’s, that is a premium product cuz the amount of work that we do and the amount of impact that brand wants to supply.

[00:24:07] And that connection’s really important. Now, if you’re a big company and you’ve got, let’s say, 12 of the biggest plastic companies in the world, can you supply social impact plastic to all those big companies and account for every single part of the chain being accounted for, It’s pretty doubtful, especially with the new space of where this social implant social impact plastic is, you know, in our, in our life, lifetime

[00:24:34] plastic. So

[00:24:36] Laura Hartley: as consumers, what can we do to really recognize that one, there is an incredibly outrageous amount of greenwashing out there of companies and products who, you know, have been co-opted. It’s been co-opted by capitalism as a marketing tool. You know, how do we actually just sell more and now by seeming green? how do we recognize that versus companies that are actually sustainable, actually regenerative and actually doing things for the Earth.

[00:25:03] Tom Jackson: Yeah that’s great question. And it’s not an easy one to answer. So the the first thing is , as time goes on, those, those companies that aren’t doing it the right way , will be made accountable for, you know, that’s really the, the hope we have behind it. So that will minimize people in the market space.

[00:25:21] And the consumers, it really doesn’t feel like you have much power, but you really do in terms of purchasing power. And for instance, if there’s two things on a shelf one that, for instance, our products we’re currently going through this at the moment, will have a QR code on it, which before you’ve even bought it on the, in the shop.

[00:25:38] You can scan that on a product and know which community you’ve impacted through a QR code. And that’s a really important thing. And if you can have that across a range of products, from detergent to your single use plastic bottles, which, you know, we try and stay away from, but it’s a massive part, part of the plastic manufacturing chain.

[00:25:57] If you have that with a slight higher price tag versus something right next to it, which is wrapped in plastic packaging, it’s in a plastic bottle which doesn’t have that, and they’re both social impact products. It, it’s really can that prove where that’s come from? And if it can’t, why can’t it? Cuz we are in a space of technology which we’re surrounded by, which is actually not a very difficult thing to do considering working with plastic is so.

[00:26:25] If a consumer, you and I, Laura, go and buy that companies pivot to how consumers react, and you know, you think it might be one purchase in one shop, but if you’re in that supermarket or if you, if someone else in the next [00:26:40] town is doing the same in that, and then quickly in that region, it’s 10 people and then within that country it’s a hundred on that day, that data adds up really quickly for a company.

[00:26:51] If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t go on the shelf. Everything is created for us, for for being convenient and things like that, so we can really start reacting and, you know, we’re all in a hurry. Everyone’s got busy lives. So things on shelves are, you know, you know, are set up to be quick and, and, and to be taken away quickly.

[00:27:11] But as consumers, we have massive power in terms of what we pick up off the shelf and what we’ve put, put in our bags. And , we’re trying to get everyone to offer that as a supermarket. For people to be able to feel better and contribute to the bigger picture.

[00:27:26] Laura Hartley: So, you know, I loved what you said because I think we often think as consumers that we are powerless, You know, that we don’t have agency, and I really do believe that how we spend our money matters.

[00:27:38] That every single dollar we spend helps shape our world, right? And what I see again and again is an emphasis in capitalist cultures to put all of the emphasis for change onto individuals to change the market. And as much as my purchases matter and they do help shape things, it also doesn’t hold the collective agency and their collective change that we actually need.

[00:28:02] You know? So there’s this, there’s this tension and this. Yes. And between how we spend individually matters. And organizations need to change of their own accord. Now what I see is that organizations that often promote this idea of greenwashing have one bottom line. You know, it’s profit, you know, that is all that they’re kind of driven by.

[00:28:24] Social enterprises is one form of a different way of doing business. You know, there’s people exploring anti capitalist business, which is more like where I play. There’s obviously B Corps and different forms of social enterprises. Mm-hmm. , what value does, does having a values-based business bring, you know, how do we infuse that and what does it offer us?

[00:28:44] Tom Jackson: Yeah, it, that’s such a great question. And, and first of all, you know, it, it has to come from so many elements because this is such a big supply chain, and we’re in a fast moving world. So first of all, businesses that produce plastic or put it into the shelves, cannot blame consumers for not recycling it if they’re the ones putting it on the shelf.

[00:29:06] And if you think, if you are an alien, finding out about what our planet is doing, You would, you know, you would either laugh or cry because we see it throughout history in this space. Um, Consumers, you know, it’s a fast paced world. Things need to go quickly and they need a circular economy. And that’s really, you know, where we’re at at the moment.

[00:29:27] Consumers purchasing the right way is a massive part of that, you know, as, as a ocean prevention supplier from plastic. We spend our life talking to these big companies. But if their consumers aren’t asking for it, they don’t, they don’t want to come to us. Right. And you said there’s a big thing about profit?

[00:29:46] Absolutely. You know, is it ex expensive buying material from us? A yes compared to normal recycled plastic. It is a premium, but then that also needs to echo, echo down to consumers where they’re [00:30:00] happy to also pay for that as well. Like you said, Laura, it’s not the, it doesn’t rely on the consumers and we see it on TV going recycle more, recycle better. And it’s, you know, it’s being put on the shelves by the companies that are creating the new plastic.

[00:30:16] And then on the other hand, As soon as it goes through the consumer’s hand, then it’s waste, right? So it’s new plastic and then it’s going into the bucket and then it’s waste. And now it’s a problem. So for places like here, it’s a massive problem, but even in the West, with the recycling infrastructure, 9% of that material is getting recycled.

[00:30:35] And the reason for that is because, you know, if it’s dirty and it goes into a cycling, , recycling, box, whichever one you have at home. Then that’s high contamination of food, which then won’t, probably won’t get processed by the council or the recycler who’s processing that, which it’s then deemed a low value plastic, which it then goes to landfill.

[00:30:59] So consumers have a lot of power and it’s not putting the pressure points on them. It’s putting the pressure points on the supplier through the purchase of what you wanna do, and the recycling infrastructure. You know, recycling was always put there to solve a, a problem from new plastically manufacture.

[00:31:18] So it’s like peddling a bike, recycling world has been trying to keep up with it. And you know, we are never gonna slow down as a, as a planet and a human race trying to move forward. So it’s suppliers being accountable and we can see them now moving to paying a little bit more for a social impact material.

[00:31:40] And it’s the consumers leading on saying from from products they buy, This isn’t good enough. And it feels powerless as one person, like you said. It really does. Even, you know, we are all consumers when we’re individuals, but it’s coming together and we saw a great thing in, in Bristol in the UK a few years ago where everyone took their food out of the plastic in the supermarket and left them with it.

[00:32:05] I think it was Tesco’s Supermarket and, and Tesco’s was, well, what do we do now? We’ve got all this plastic waste. First of all, that’s very high grade plastic because it’s right there and it hasn’t gone through waste. So first of all, it’s a great point. Second point, supermarkets should really weight it up and go, Oh my God, if people are doing that means we’re not doing enough.

[00:32:28] And they control what their suppliers do, right? Yes. Okay. It needs to go through many people’s hands and it needs to be clean and it needs to be healthy. But it’s amazing just to show an example what consumers can do

[00:32:39] Laura Hartley: that’s a, I love that example, although I would almost say that that is less of an example of consumers and what they can do and instead what activists and collective ideas and movements can do because there’s still, Yeah, there, there is this challenge though, in what we’re talking about that, you know, as you said, well, you know, companies need to pay more to use recycled plastic or proper you know, 360 closed loop plastic.

[00:33:08] Then we need to be willing to pay more. But at the same time, in a world with increasing wealth inequality, you know, especially coming out of the pandemic and these incredible few years that we’ve had with the increasing impacts of [00:33:20] climate change, you know, we’re not seeing the wealth disparity gap, you know, close in.

[00:33:25] We’re we’re seeing it get larger. Yeah. So again, we’re kind of needing to infuse these organizations actually with a different set of values and by which they make their decisions. And I know you mentioned there that yeah, we don’t slow down as a world. , but what if we did, I mean, you run a value based organization.

[00:33:42] How do we inspire that in others?

[00:33:45] Tom Jackson: That if the world went back to a simpler way of, and you know, the re the reason why, refill your own bags and things like that. In terms of these shops, I think you got a good amount of them in Oz, in the UK and I’m sure in the US as well, which is great.

[00:34:01] But yeah, I mean if that doesn’t prove as evidence, why that hasn’t been rolled out of scale sort of shows you, unfortunately the world, which we are, you know, we are running so fast for things and we’ve all got things and you know, children and dogs and all sorts, and it’s trying to keep that ease.

[00:34:18] But if we did go back a step and really looked at what we are doing, you know in terms of the footprint of not just us as individuals, but that village or our community or our town or whatever that is? And then you are, for instance, ranked worldly on how well you are doing things, which is always something I’ve been really interested in, in terms of can your vil, not just you, but can your village or your town do it better than other people?

[00:34:47] And essentially everyone’s in competition with each other to try and do the best, right? Being the, being the joint result of the world, benefiting in a better place and emissions and everything. Whether that’s from bicycle to plastic consumption. And I, and it’s, it’s a really interesting factor, and a question or you say, of slowing down because when you slow down things, you can review things better and you’ve got more time to do that.

[00:35:13] And whether that starts as one thing, which it being you know, refilling your products to taking a bicycle, to being able to do things at a slower pace, and then the demand of work and the demand of pressure social pressures and families and things like that.

[00:35:32] It’s really hard balancing act of taking longer. We’ve all got smartphones. We all expect things within five minutes. For instance, I don’t have Amazon delivery here, and it’s really nice not being able to, to have that around. But, but speaking to families and things, having that, you know, that same day or next day delivery sets expectations for yourself.

[00:35:53] And then you’re getting angry when it doesn’t turn up at the time it says, which is crazy because it, you, you only ordered it 13 hours ago. So as we go faster and faster, how can we, you know, put incentives into slowing down and reviewing what we are doing in terms of individuals, but as a human race. And I think it’s really important to have, you know, not these government, these massive budgets, but in these towns and these communities, how can this village, how can this town run off 80% solar?

[00:36:27] How can we cut our emissions? Do we, do we need that street to have cars in it? Can it that be bicycle? How, how many people have got bicycles in this village? Oh, 75% of them. How many would be [00:36:40] motivated to buy them if they had to pop to their shops or their work in that town? So, and it comes from incentivizing people, and it has to be that way.

[00:36:48] You know, us as humans, we, if there’s an easier way we take it because, you know, we’ve got a hundred problems in our personal lives, we don’t want another one to add to that societal, structural issue. So, Saying, ah, , you can come into work 20 minutes later if you’re gonna take the bike, the start at nine 20 instead of nine.

[00:37:07] A lot of companies won’t like that cuz that’s not helpful for them as a, as a business side of it. But what does that do as a social impact for your company? It shows that you are treating your employees better and a relationship between business and environment is, is creating a really close

[00:37:27] connection, which we don’t have. We really don’t. People, people don’t understand that, you know, if you make printers for a company or if, if you are a marketing company, how you can uh, positively effect the environment even if, you know, even if it’s a tech company. How can you do that around your employees and creating carbon or reducing that through what you’re doing?

[00:37:50] It affects every single person. And, you know, , now we’ve got this amazing opportunity now of, we see the millennials and the Gen-Z generations coming through. They won’t work for Big companies. That what don’t supply motivations or social causes or community employees coming together to, to have you know, a social bond through that.

[00:38:15] And if you are a big company listening to this and it’s now 2085 and you’re still not doing it, you probably don’t have any employees. Because it is a really important part, and it’s fantastic to see these younger generations just going, No, we’re not gonna put up with it. And we can already see that. And they want to go to that social causes.

[00:38:33] And that’s a change in structural from these massive corporates, which you started at 24 and now you’re 50 and you’re in the same business, which is a traditional way of doing a lot of business kind of ways. And that’s completely changed societal movement. And it’s really exciting to see whether

[00:38:51] giving them an option to work from home, take a bike in, having offsets in a business, which you didn’t think, Oh, I can’t offset a business because you know, we uh, we design flyers or letterheads, of course you can. It’s the culture you’ve created and it’s what you can show that you’ve done

[00:39:09] through your employees or your change or the values that you want to grow. As a result, you get more people wanting to come and work for your business. Doesn’t matter what business that is, if you are giving them you know, better workflow or happy work life it’s gonna work. And we work, Honest Ocean works a very intense

[00:39:29] routine and that we, we all do six jobs. So we work a four day, work week and that we know that if we push, we, if we haven’t hit our goals for the week by Wednesday, Thursday’s, push day. And yes, of course there are issues at being a startup. We do have to do a couple hours on Friday and things like that, but, It’s really important to create a culture based around motivation and a happy work and, and social output and not even on purpose.

[00:39:58] I see a few of [00:40:00] our guys, you know, doing a little bit of work on Sunday. Or Friday mornings, and I haven’t asked them to do that. That’s just the culture that we’ve created based around them having the work on their mind and just loving it. And you know, we saw in New Zealand with IBM doing the four hour work week as well, it really does work because if people are socially happy at home, they’re highly motivated to do their job, even if they don’t love it as much.

[00:40:25] So yeah, I think every part of being accountable, slowing down positive impact in a business that way.

[00:40:33] Do we need to recycle it or can we take 10 of those bottles and put it into a kids art project? Like it, it’s really interesting to, to, to pick that question apart. And as you can see, I don’t have a quick answer for it.

[00:40:47] Well,

[00:40:47] Laura Hartley: I think that’s because there isn’t a quick answer, to be honest. You know, we. We’re talking about slowing down, You know, in a sense that answer shouldn’t be quick, but there’s a lot of places that you unpacked that. One. I’m a big proponent of the four day work week. I think this idea that we were all supposed to work, you know, eight, nine hours a day, five days a week, is, you know, a relic from a different age.

[00:41:11] But you also mentioned the importance of community in creating change that it’s not just about what we do as individuals, but you know, and not just about large government systemic change, but it’s also about as communities, how do we want to come together and what are the values that we’re choosing to, to live by and to work with.

[00:41:31] I, you know, as we kind of come to a close with this conversation, I have a couple of last questions for you. And I, I want to ask first about what you would say to somebody who was thinking about starting a social enterprise.

[00:41:44] Because a lot of the time, you know, when we have these ideas, we get overwhelmed or we think, I can’t do that, or it’s too big, or I dont how to start. How does somebody who has an idea just start? And get

[00:41:58] Tom Jackson: going. Yeah. I love this. So first of all how do they get going? It’s by, it’s by doing it. So, but that can’t be done without a plan or a strategy and.

[00:42:13] You know, this is my third business. So I do love this question and it really comes from what do you wanna do and what’s the emotional add in that you are doing because, any business, whether it’s social or normal, it takes up a hell of a lot of energy, let alone emotional.

[00:42:31] And for all of us who are trying to create a green business out there it, you know, you go to bed and you are, you are excited and things like that and it takes up so much energy and it’s being able to think, right, so where, where do I fit in with, you know, a social enterprise, who’s not doing it?

[00:42:51] Which is a company that maybe I can benefit from doing this? The way to start Laura, is just by talking to people, talk to companies and say, I’m thinking about doing this. You know, would, would you guys benefit from me, you know, me doing that as a third party company to you?.

[00:43:08] Maybe, or yeah, but we need you to be really big and then we can buy from you. So it’s like, okay, so that’s not the right fit. So you really need to just talk to people. Business is people [00:43:20] and you know, I would say don’t try and do it on your own. You know, I tried it for years on my own, and all you’re doing is creating a cocoon around yourself.

[00:43:28] So talk to companies and see what it is. Say you wanted to, and I used this example before, Measure your carbon coming out of an exhaust pipe and you make this tiny, little awesome measuring tool, right, That you just clip on an exhaust that can measure data. Okay. You might think, Oh, you know, this is a little thing.

[00:43:47] No one’s gonna like it. There might be an automation company out there thinking, this is amazing. We want to be able to show like our old cars versus our new one. And it’s just being able to go and take talk to people. LinkedIn is a fantastic process of being able to talk to people, whatever you wanna do, it’s really easy to think, I wanna solve all of this.

[00:44:08] And, you know, all that’s gonna happen is we’re, we’re all gonna have mental health issues from trying to save the world and we can’t do it. So everyone, we need to find that little USP that, that little unique selling point where in the social green space where it can help and, and what that is. And there’s so many grants now, which

[00:44:27] it is not always the easiest way of doing it, but if you can just find that little, little thing that you find that’s really important, don’t try and solve the world straight away. Just try and start. Find, find that one thing or that village or that product that you can bring to market, which can, it doesn’t have to be the, you know, in 10 years that product’s not gonna look like how you start.

[00:44:53] So don’t worry about it being perfect. Just worry about it being in a place where, where you can create it and offer value to businesses, and then they can offer to consumers. Or if you are offering straight to consumers even better, how can you work that into your business?

[00:45:09] And it needs to be financially viable. It needs to be socially viable. And it, it needs to be scalable really, if you want to be able to make a massive impact. So Laura, I’d say just start, Just talk to people. And as passionate as you are about these social impacts, you need to keep that business head on as well.

[00:45:29] Uh, Saying from business experience, I’ve gone down a route of, I got into this recycling village and I just wanted to get stuff going, and I felt how bad it was. And I, you know, we bought machinery, I bought machinery for it, and then they didn’t uphold it. So that was me emotionally rushing into things where I should have, you know, Planned a little bit more, but yeah.

[00:45:49] Startups in a green space are needed and are needed yesterday. So if you do have an idea around green space and you think it’s good, first of all, don’t ask 10 of your closest friends, because sometimes people don’t always want you to succeed in your circles. Go and speak to some business people.

[00:46:08] Create that network around you. Get on LinkedIn. If that person’s in your, in your area, go for a coffee, build that network and then ask them. And then they might even be like, Oh, I love that. I’m thinking about quit my job. Let’s do it together. And organically that’s how it should be.

[00:46:23] Laura Hartley: Yeah. I, I love that. And I actually, I so agree with you.

[00:46:27] You know, there is a space to share our dreams and we should, but also be very careful when they’re in their, like, incubation phase of who you share them with. Yeah. Because not everyone. will believe in them. Not everybody will support them. [00:46:40] And so finding that space of actually like, you know what, I, I believe in this.

[00:46:45] I’m safe with this. I’m comfortable with this. And then as you say, talking to people is so important.

[00:46:50] So I wanna say the Public Love project is all about remaking the world. So I want to ask this last question. What is your vision of a more just and regenerative world, and what role do you hope that Honest Ocean can play in the year ahead in creating that?

[00:47:08] Tom Jackson: Wow. Yeah, so I really hope as a human race and, and a globe, you know, we’re trying to run, everyone’s trying to get to the next planet before we’ve cleaned up this one. So it’s really to have responsibility, not as individuals, but as you know, as humans and as the shift of the government and, you know, not the financial breakdown, like we said before, it’s going to the wrong places.

[00:47:34] So how do we elevate those areas of stress? How do we change? And how do we create legislation based around yeah, you can call it a social push, but it’s not that, it’s a starting again push. So it’s being able to , financially put people in better situations and share that, share that wealth through smaller businesses, and that’s where it needs to come from.

[00:47:58] You know, there’s four or five mass large businesses that control pretty much the movement of the world from mining all the way from manufacturing. So it’s being able to change the shift of, of where financial structure goes and how we can do that across smaller businesses to create one bigger social push and a.

[00:48:19] Circle, circular economy at scale. I mean, within the 10 years, that’s really, for me would be a, a change that we really need to make and to be able to break down the barriers of, of where that funds are getting dedicated to. For Honest Ocean, it’s really to have as many people as we can collecting material through this.

[00:48:41] Being able to work with the government, create better infrastructure here is generally throughout Africa and South East Asia as well. And you know, we’re a small company, so being able to trace plastic when it gets sold, when it gets recycled, where it’s in landfill. Being able to have the technology to map where that is and why it’s, why it’s gone there.

[00:49:01] You know, as recycling industry, no one can really tell where their plastics gone, and we can only do that through working with, you know, big companies that produce either, you know, single use or long term products. We can only do that by partnering with them. So that’s really a big part of, of how our business model can succeed is, is finding the right partner.

[00:49:21] To be able to fit with and yeah, we really, we really hope to be the tech based social platform in the next few years where anyone can see where our plastic’s doing, its public information and how we can show other companies how to be accountable and we can solve it for them. I think that’s a massive, a massive part of our growth as um Honest ocean and.

[00:49:44] That’s really not only for us, but showing companies like, Why did your material go here? And they’re like, Oh, we gave that to a waste management company to look after. And they said they did the right thing. Well, you haven’t, and that’s not your fault. It’s their fault. But we are gonna [00:50:00] change that, and you are gonna pay us to do that.

[00:50:02] So that’s the kind of thing that we are really working on. And we are not a scared business in terms of you know, the people that are greenwashing and the, the people that are doing the wrong way. We’re not gonna moan about it. We’re just gonna show them how you do it better and then we expect them to follow suit or be held accountable to that.

[00:50:19] And then, and if everyone had that outlook as a bus business with value, this world would be a beau Much better place already.

[00:50:26] Laura Hartley: I think that is wonderful. You know, that accountability aspect is something that we so need. So Tom, I really wanna thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your story and everything that you’re doing with Honest Ocean.

[00:50:39] Tom Jackson: Laura, thank you so much and it’s been a pleasure being on here. I’m really excited to see when this platform is gonna, Take over the world of social empowerment and getting people’s voices heard. I’m really excited and hopefully we can talk in a year or two and see where we’re both at and .

[00:50:57] Really excited to chat to you again, Laura. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I’d love

[00:51:01] Laura Hartley: that. Thank you so much. That is all we have time for today is everybody. Please go check out Tom and Honest Ocean. All of his details are in the show notes below so you can check them out. I love it when listeners are able to suggest topics or guests, so please head on over to our website, PublicLove.Enterprises. You can send me an email. Otherwise follow me on Instagram at @laura.h.hartley.