Latest / The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business / EP120 - What If Your Business Is Doing More Harm Than You Think? with Kathryn Frimond

Transcript

EP120 - What If Your Business Is Doing More Harm Than You Think? with Kathryn Frimond · The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business

• 0:01
  Hi there business owner, and welcome to the Three BS Podcast,
• 0:04
  the place where we go beyond the numbers and dive into strategies
• 0:07
  to help you build a Better Business one step at a time.
• 0:11
  I'm your host Stephanie, a multi awarding entrepreneur with over
• 0:13
  a decade of experience in the bookkeeping and currency world.
• 0:17
  If you're a business owner looking to streamline, grow and
• 0:19
  get back the time that you deserve, you're in the right
• 0:21
  place. Tackling real world problems,
• 0:24
  answering tough questions and digging deep into business
• 0:26
  building secrets in just 15 minutes each week.
• 0:30
  So Are you ready to build a Better Business with confidence
• 0:32
  and clarity? Then let's go.
• 0:37
  Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Three BS
• 0:40
  Podcast. Your go to a 15 minutes of CPD
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  motivation, education and inspiration to help you build a
• 0:48
  Better Business each week. As always, I'm your host
• 0:51
  Stephanie and I'm here this week with a really exciting guest.
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  So, Catherine, would you like to introduce yourself?
• 0:56
  Hi, yeah, I'm Catherine Ferment. I ran a bookkeeping practice
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  called Your Local Bookkeeper and we focus on sustainable
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  businesses and teaching accountants and other
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  bookkeepers how to make their business more green and more
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  ethical. Amazing.
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  And that is what we're here to talk about today.
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  So sustainability is quite a buzzword.
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  It's talked about a lot into on social media.
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  We see in the news quite a lot now.
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  But what actually is sustainability in business?
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  Good. Question.
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  So for me, sustainability is quite all-encompassing.
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  And the other phrase that you'll hear a lot of is ESG, which
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  stands for environmental, social and governance.
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  And I would lump sustainability in that as like the umbrella
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  title. And so it is being making sure
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  that your business is environmentally conscious.
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  So that might be things that you purchase and making sure that
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  you are socially doing good, so you're not your business isn't
• 2:00
  harming others. And then the governance is
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  things like making sure people are fairly paid and making sure
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  you've got all your documents and in a row and things like
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  that. So for me, sustainability is
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  like the umbrella of the ESG. Raising, I've not heard of that.
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  So I guess for me, sustainability, a lot of people
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  think like it's all or nothing like you have to be 100% green
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  or you have to be nothing. And as business owners, we're
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  wearing so many hats all the time, doing all the different
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  things that people are like, I just don't have time to put
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  everything into it. Is there some smaller sort of
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  first steps that business owners can take to just start being a
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  bit more sustainable? Yeah, definitely.
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  I think the first step is knowing that you want to do
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  something. Then I would say most steps make
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  a huge difference. So you could maybe change your
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  bank account to a more ethical provider.
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  That will make a huge difference because you're talking with your
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  money, changing your pension. Other small changes might just
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  be making sure that you take your like, one thing that might
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  be achievable for you is just making sure that you take your
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  reusable cup out. And if you're having a coffee
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  every day, like 1 coffee from Starbucks every day, that's 365
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  coffees and cups saved. And in the space there are, I've
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  been told before that there's quite a bit of judgement and you
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  know, oh, you're not Avi get told off for not being a vegan.
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  So oh, you're not a vegan, so you can't possibly be
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  sustainable or you're not taking your water bottle out.
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  So you can't possibly be sustainable.
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  But it's what's attainable for you.
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  And people have different thresholds of what could looks
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  like. But for me it's more as long as
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  you're making a conscious choice and you're thinking about it,
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  then that's, that's fine. That's what you can do.
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  I love that. Yeah, we're all human.
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  I try to make sure I take out our Ease World Cup, but there's
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  many a times where I've got no intention of buying a coffee.
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  And then like when we pass, you know, we just do what we can do,
• 4:00
  right? Yeah.
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  It's about accounts. You said about bank accounts and
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  pensions. How would you even, like, look
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  for a sustainable? How would you rate a
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  sustainability? Is there somewhere we can go to
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  find this information or what are we looking for if we were
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  looking to to make those steps? Yeah.
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  So what you're looking for is a bank that has pledged not to
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  fund fossil fuels, for example, or not to fund the big one at
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  the moment is the war in Gaza, like not to fund arms and
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  ammunition. And the best place to look for
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  that is a company that's bought it all together, a website
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  called Bank dot Green. And you can type your bank in
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  there and it will give you a rating.
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  So for example, Barclays has a really bad rating.
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  I think they have just, they've, I can't remember the exact
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  money, but they put billions into fossil fuel funding and
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  funding companies like BP and Shell.
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  Whereas Mons, a company like Monzo, have pledged not to
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  invest in fossil fuels. So they have a green rating on
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  bank dot Green. And we've actually just switched
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  a client from Barclays to Alec, a bank Alec.
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  I have a really good rating. And the switch was so easy, like
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  it happened within an hour. It's made no difference to my
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  clients business at all. It's made no difference.
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  Like there was no more work. But he's now doing better
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  because he knows that his money's not being invested in
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  things that you wouldn't invest your money in if it was under
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  your mattress, you know, you wouldn't go out and buy a gun.
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  So why would you let your bank do that?
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  And pensions is a little harder because pensions are invested
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  everywhere. There was a business called Make
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  My Money Matter, Make Money Matter.
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  But they've that we would like a charity, but they've now stopped
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  because they ran out of funding. I don't know if you can still
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  get on their website, but they're quite good.
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  But I would speak to your pension advisor and a lot of
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  clients, small lender with Nest. They have a good ethical fund as
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  do Penfold. But if you're talking like a big
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  amount of money and a big company scheme, then definitely
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  talk to your pension advisor and I have people that I can
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  recommend if people get in touch.
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  Amazing. Do you know what the good news
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  is? I bank with Alicott Monzo and my
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  pensions have Penfold so I feel like I'm already halfway there.
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  You're not there. Alicott was blew me away with
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  their, their impact report and I asked them for it at, I don't
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  know, at account X like a couple of years ago or something.
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  And they were actually read on bank dot green.
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  And I read the report and told them and I was like, you need to
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  get on bank dot green because you're on red and you shouldn't
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  be. And they got their score
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  overturned as well. So that was really good.
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  Amazing. And it is those little things in
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  it. And then maybe as business
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  owners, we don't realize we're doing it already, which is
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  always quite nice. So sustainability to me when I
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  think about it in the business owner sense, quite often you
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  think of reusable packaging and manufacturing processes.
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  But as a service based business like we are in the bookkeeping
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  accountancy world, we don't really have packaging on
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  manufacturing. So for service based businesses,
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  how can being more sustainable, how can we do it and how can
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  that give you a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace?
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  Yeah. So how could it is it is more
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  difficult. So without going too into too
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  much detail, that sort of carbon is measured in something called
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  scope one, Scope 2 and Scope 3 most.
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  So scope 1 is things like electricity and things that you
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  have an impact on. They're really easy for service
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  based businesses to change. If you're running an office, you
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  can switch your energy provider to Octopus or another greener, I
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  don't know, ecotricity. And that's that's an easy win.
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  What's really hard is the scope 3, which is the, as you say,
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  like the supply chain and for other service based businesses,
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  we tend to be working with big companies like 0 QuickBooks Dex.
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  You know that you think you probably don't have much say
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  over, but I would say the best thing you can do is ask them the
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  question and say, well, where is your impact report?
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  Because large companies like that are going to need to create
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  impact reports that it's actually gone to the government
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  this week where IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, which means that you have to
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  report on carbon are hopefully going to get, you know, like the
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  rubber stamp. And for big companies, they're
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  going to have to do that. And they, we're definitely
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  seeing that they have to do that for investors.
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  And so I'd say it's asking that question and leaving them if
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  you're not happy with the answer and then you asked, I've lost my
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  train of thought on the on the question, but how can it help
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  our business? Yeah, give us.
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  How can it give you a compositive edge in the
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  marketplace? I guess you would like publish
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  your own findings. I know I haven't put anything on
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  on the ABCSUK website and I probably should about where I
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  stand and what I stand from what we're doing.
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  I guess our own impact report maybe.
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  Absolutely. So I would always start, and
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  some people wouldn't start with this and have arguments with
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  people about it, but I would always start with measuring your
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  carbon footprint. There are tools that you can
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  literally just plug into zero and it creates a spend based.
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  So based on your spending, it creates a carbon footprint.
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  It's not totally refined and it's not ideal, but it gives you
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  the starting point of where you're spending and where your
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  carbon is being spent. I would say for our businesses,
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  it's properly travel and things like emails and the people that
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  we are. Dexed is a huge one for me and
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  software, so I'd key that in and then yeah, create an import
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  packed report off the back of it.
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  We've actually just applied to me and another bookkeeper have
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  just applied to speak at an event where we'll run a workshop
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  where you can do that impact report.
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  So that'll be exciting if we get through and yeah, get the impact
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  report on your website. People are looking for this and
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  the other, it's not just clients that are looking for it because
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  they may now have to report their scope 1-2 and three.
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  So you are part of that scope 3. So clients will come to me and
• 10:57
  say, oh, I'm happy to even pay a little bit extra because I know
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  you've got the same values as me.
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  And I'm definitely seeing that in the market.
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  Like I'm definitely seeing people come to me because of
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  those values. But the other big thing for
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  service based businesses is that staff are going to want you to
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  be looking at this. Long gone are the days where
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  like a pizza after work made staff happy and they want you to
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  be investing properly. They want you to have proper
• 11:29
  pensions that they're happy with and it's investing in their
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  future. So they want you to give
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  volunteer days and be a community conscious business.
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  And I know that a lot of you know it's not just about money
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  anymore, but they do obviously want you to pay them fairly as
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  well. There's so much, but I think,
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  yeah, shouting about it as well, definitely, I think.
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  Yeah, definitely shouting about it.
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  We did a, a carbon literacy training with one of the big
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  accounting softwares recently and I wouldn't have put them as
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  sustainable in any way. And then they started telling us
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  actually the initiatives that they have in the business and
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  they have got so much and they do not shout about it.
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  And I think people get a bit scared of greenwashing and sort
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  of claiming things that they're not.
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  So there's actually like a counter thing called green
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  hashing where you're not saying enough.
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  And I think as long as you can back up your claims and tell a
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  story, then people appreciate that and that's what they're
• 12:40
  looking for. Was it 0 by any chance?
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  It wasn't 0, but zero are very good.
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  Because 0 sponsored the book Finance for Life.
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  So the book that I wrote in February 1st 0 have a scheme
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  called 0 for Good which is where they support smaller community
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  based products projects and they're the ones that sponsored
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  the books we could put books into.
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  Schools, they have some amazing stuff and I know that they've,
• 13:04
  they've got like an impact fund and they're really trying to
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  like give back and they're like changing all their offices and
• 13:14
  things like that. And it's actually Zero that have
• 13:16
  partnered with the company called Someday where you can,
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  it's free for 12 months and you can plug in Zero to Someday and
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  it creates the carbon footprint and it takes minutes.
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  It's amazing. I know what I'm going to be
• 13:31
  doing after this, but thank you so much for joining us.
• 13:36
  We're nearly over, so thank you for.
• 13:37
  Having me. Final question I always ask
• 13:40
  guests when I come on a podcast is if you could sum up your
• 13:42
  business in one word, what would it be and why?
• 13:48
  It's a cool. That's a really good one, Really
• 13:52
  good one, I'll. Try my best to be anyway.
• 13:56
  Amazing. Please tell Mike community if
• 13:59
  they're watching on YouTube or listen on a podcast platform
• 14:01
  where they can find you. Yeah, the best place to find me
• 14:03
  is on LinkedIn. It's like LinkedIn, Catherine
• 14:06
  Freeman and and I'm there plugging away at the algorithm.
• 14:12
  I'll pop all the links in the show notes as well, everything
• 14:14
  we've talked about so people can find it nice and easily.
• 14:17
  Thank you for joining me. If you are listening on a
• 14:19
  podcast platform, do rate review, leave a five star.
• 14:21
  It takes you 10 seconds. What makes a world of difference
• 14:24
  to reach more business owners so we can all build better
• 14:26
  businesses. And I'll see you next week for
• 14:28
  the next episode. Bye.
• 14:31
  And that brings us to the end of another episode of The Three B's
• 14:34
  podcast. I hope you found it useful and
• 14:36
  that you're walking away with some motivation, inspiration, or
• 14:39
  education to help you build a Better Business.
• 14:43
  Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and of course, connect
• 14:45
  with us on social media for more insights, tips, and behind the
• 14:48
  scenes content. Your next step in building a
• 14:50
  Better Business is just a click away.
• 14:52
  I can't wait to connect with you and I'll see you on the next
• 14:54
  episode. Bye.