How service-based businesses can help save the planet with Nick Dean, Chair of ADLIB

In this episode, learn how service-based businesses can become carbon-neutral and thrive. 'It's not hard, you just have to commit,' says Nick Dean.

Nick is the Chair of ADLIB, a 100% employee-owned recruitment agency whose purpose goes far beyond recruitment. B Corp certified since 2019, ADLIB believes that an inclusive workplace will bring engagement, and create an environment of involvement, respect and collaboration, which ultimately drives more business value. ADLIB prides itself on being the trusted partner of its clients, as well as champions of Diversity and Inclusion.

Transcript

0:00

I'm your host, Yiuwin Tsang. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Nick Dean. Nick is the Managing director of ADLIB, a hundred percent employee-owned recruitment agency whose purpose goes, far beyond recruitment. B Corp certified since 2019 ADLIB believes that an inclusive workplace will bring engagement and create an environment of involvement, respect, and collaboration, which ultimately drives more business value. ADLIB prides itself on being the trusted partner of its clients, as well as champions of diversity and inclusion. Nick is also a B Corp ambassador supporting fellow B2B service providers on all things B Corp.

Yiuwin Tsang: 0:37

So Nick, in your mind, how important is it for business owners to do what they can in protecting the planet? Tell us, where's your head with this after the COP and everything that you see in the news. Why do you think it's important for business owners?

Nick Dean: 0:50

Yeah, I think there's two sides to this, so I can come at this as a really straightforward B2B service provider. And I think that it's quite important to get that across because there are masses of B2B service providers. So when you look at our supply chain, it's, you know, some hardware, some media phone system and deliveries to the office. It's as easy to look at that impact on the environment as it gets. So for us, and I would kind of really implore. So what happens at the moment is when you say to business, so they're just, I don't know. I don't understand it. It's too complicated. How would I ever measure what's scope 1, what's scope 2, what's scope three. And it's like, you don't need to worry about it. You don't. You can either find somebody internally. So for us, our office support was just like, I would love to get involved in this and track it. So she worked with a piece of software that now tracks everything that we do and we offset and plus some, so we go carbon positive. And once she'd got it up and working, so for her, it felt like, well, it's a) bit of career advancement because I'm learning something new. I'm really passionate about this area of it. It's the skill, which is contributing something. So I got on and, you know, she did it. And so it was like a win-win for everybody. And the reason I come back to that why it's so easy for was there. Any B2B service provider should work with either find somebody internally that he'll get their head around it, like say the starting point is quite complex, but once you're set and running, it's basically you're putting in data and it will tell you what you're using and how you do it. And if your business is fairly stable in terms of its scalability and the energy consumption and so forth. It won't really change from that. So it's very easy to offset. And then it's about finding a, again, it sounds complicated. It's not, it's then ensuring that where you offset, isn't just planting trees and that it's Gold Standard accredited, that it's highly effective. And that's very easy to find when you go looking for it. The other thing that you can do is work with organisations like, Ecologi is a great one. It's two things or three things. We need to understand where you're at. We need to put your strategy in place, and we need to offset and it will break it down for you. And they will go and sort that out for you. Where it becomes more complex is when you move into something like manufacturing. And this is where we're fortunate, and this is why I can talk about it very easily from that B2B service side, if you're going something like manufacturing and you're dealing with a global supply chain, it's much, much more complex. And I can't speak for those people because it's much more complex. The reporting is more complex, but there's also a huge impact that's being created by the planet by a manufacturing business. And therefore it is as essential regardless of what the business is, but the solution will be the same as to work with either an internal team, or to hire a team and to invest into that team or to invest in an external consultancy that will work with you in terms of offsetting and reducing. Coming back to the Better Business Act that we touched on earlier, I believe it should be law, and that's why we signed up for it that you have to report every year you're offsetting because if every business does that, it's gonna make a huge difference. And there were people that were say, offsetting, isn't the solution. Yeah. I mean, this is my, you know, I am not a planet expert in, in this respect. We do what we believe is right. And we know that will change. But hopefully we select the right partners by which to work with. But if every business was held accountable for reporting their carbon and it's actually working to net zero, reducing targets and then offsetting, however that is achieved. It's all we'll contribute, so it's not hard. You just have to commit, you know?

Yiuwin Tsang: 4:25

Yeah. I fully agree with you. And the more that I listen to people talk and listen to different podcasts and listen to, and read different books. And to your point about offsetting, is it the right answer, is it the wrong answer? I feel like we moving away from this kind of binary. It's the right way of doing it, or it's the wrong way of doing it? You know, you either offset and everything, or you don't and little steps as you say, if it was a legal requirement for all businesses to report on, then it, first of all, it just means that there's an awareness. I feel like there's perhaps a whether it be innocently or not, there's a an ignorance in terms of what your business produces. And this lack of awareness, or if you would ask me now as a business how much carbon do we produce as a business in my consultancy business? I'd genuinely be scratching my head. It would be finger in the air at best. And I'm sure there'll be 1,000,001 kind of holes in my kind of thinking then and you've mentioned B Corp a few times around this governance piece of it brings around to organisations and I'm just really curious to know, in regards to your journey of being certified, the environmental elements, all things you just mentioned then, you know, in terms of our suppliers and logistics, couriers, energy and all these different things and there seems to be quite a lot, but how strenuous were the environmental elements of the certification for you and the team?

Nick Dean: 5:39

Again, it's about investing into it. So either you want to do it or you don't want to do it, but if you just going to try and fumble, then you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Like if you're really not prepared to just go and work with a consultancy that will figure it out for you. And you know, we're talking about small businesses. Big businesses. I mean, like we say, manufacturers, it's a huge responsibility and that is you need a team, you need an approach that has to be part of your strategy as a business in this day and age going forward, I'm referencing it back to small business owners, SMEs, whether it's B2B, B2C, whatever it might be. Generally the people that just go'ah, I don't know, I can't get my head around it.' And you're like you don't. For example, there's a business in Bristol that we know well called Spherics and they've developed a piece of software that links with your accounting system. You put it all through everything that comes from your accounting system, so let's say that it pays for travel, that it will pay for... that you've had a delivery from Amazon or whoever, it will calculate your carbon done by that and it will set you up along the way. And at the end of the year, you'll go, that's what you've used. And that's where it's done because it's all run from that and it's incredible. So I mean they're flying, huge investments there, and there are more and more of those systems all the time. It's not hard to get the software, it's all about, but if you're going to invest up front a couple of days and go, I'm going to spend my time getting the software up and running, it will then just work from there. But if you're not prepared to do that, then yeah, you don't really care, do you?

Yiuwin Tsang: 6:58

It's not going to go, is it? I think this is it. And so there's that mentality piece, there's that mindset piece, and that brings us quite nicely onto my next set of questions really, which was around the work that you've done and we see it in the comms, we see it in the stories that you tell us about the teams, about the initiatives things like this. And what I feel kind of drives that it's going to be the culture and it's going to be the values that people kind of join, but there's also the leadership skills, your own and your leadership team, and that process of bringing people on and bringing people on this journey with you and be that saving the planet and protecting the planet and you know, I've very much been brought up on this kind of ethos of when you have a privilege of leading a team, then you don't ask people to do what you wouldn't be prepared to do yourself. This whole kind of thing about leading from the front and things like this. But from your perspective, what would you say the leadership skills, the mindset, and it comes back to that mindset piece that the business owners need to have if they are going to drive environmental change and as well as commercial success.

Nick Dean: 7:57

Yeah, I think again, it comes back to you though, but I think you've got to have it in your everyday life. Like you can't just bolt on. Like, I think, you know, it would be hypocritical, for example, if you're, I don't know, be a little bit extreme, but if you're saying you're doing all the right things and then I don't know, rocking up in a six litre diesel car everyday then, do you know what I mean, there's triggers along the way, which go, well, hold on a minute. Or your employees are gonna look at that and go, hold on a minute. Let's just think about why we're doing this and actually the reason behind it. But I think it's just, it's just part of who you are, you know, like, I think if you're building a business on those things, it comes back to that very basic point. It's like, I'm not an expert on the planet at all, but I care about people and I care about the planet and therefore, by caring about the planet, I know that we have the governance in place and I will ensure that it remains in place through the team to make sure that we're not, if for the moment we think that offsetting is, is the right thing for us through the partners that we're using. And then we over offset. Because we think, oh, there's probably something we missed or we probably got something wrong. So let's just put this amount more in every single year, just to make sure to feel that it's the right thing. So again, we don't, we don't turn it into something which is very, very complicated. The thing was that we knew that we had to get the right solution and the measurement in place upfront. And if we're comfortable with the measurement, which again could come from a consultancy or the software that. It takes care of itself after that. And you've just continued to drive it through, but you have to want to do that in the first place. It should just be part of the business really. And the thing is, is it's not expensive. I mean, actually sometimes we look at it and feel guilty. You kind of like that doesn't feel enough it's cause we've got a very small supply chain. So like we actually introduced something else. So we, we do our offsetting and then we were like, right, for every placement that we make and for every employee we did, we're going to give a donation to Avon Forest but, I can't remember the exact name of it. And it's not just planting, so they do plant trees, but it's not about offsetting through trees, but it's about actually working with community groups from again, from disadvantaged backgrounds who don't actually get to over, go into Woodland and do things. So it was about actually, they take people out for a weekend and plant trees and do stuff and build things and that is an amazing experience. Again coming back to how privileged that sounds that that's a treat, but that is a real treat to some people. So again, we overcompensate in ways, which we think we can do, but we're not experts in this at all. Like we're really not. It's just, you can figure it out logically because you want to, work with an external partner or figure it out internally and then just get on and do it. But it's not. The biggest thing is, and that's what Ecologi will say to you is people worry about it. And they're like, I couldn't get my head around it. And therefore I will blank it. Rather than just letting it be taken care of.

Yiuwin Tsang: 10:48

So it does sound, again, comes back to that point you make about authenticity. It's about wanting to make a difference. And it's been, you know, overcoming that, that human inertia, it isn't that hard as you say to do it. And it is, let's say putting a few days aside, get the software going and all the systems and processes in place in order to manage the environmental impact, the offsetting part and also what's starting to come through there is well, the authenticity part in terms of your own behaviours as a founder but what you do, I love your example of not driving a six litre polluter into work every day, so that you'll have to kind of live the values as well. It comes back a bit to that transparency part as well, by the sounds of things it's having that visibility and accountability to not just to your team, but to yourself and to your values in order to maintain and make that impact.

Nick Dean: 11:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yiuwin Tsang: 11:36

Great stuff. And just to finish off then Nick on this journey to become B Corp certified was there anything that you learned on your way that perhaps businesses could implement, whether they want to go with the full certification route or not, but are there things that you picked up that you're do you know what that's really clever way of doing stuff that can make these incremental kind of differences to protect the planet?

Nick Dean: 11:55

Yeah, really simply and quickly. I'd just say. If you go through the impact assessment, it will break down your business into core areas, governance workers, community, planet, et cetera, et cetera. And it basically is a to do list and you look at it on the way and go, have you got a policy for X? No, we haven't but we should do, now I know that we'll have that policy and you set off from that day. So it's not, how great have you been, it's about setting you up from where you go from here as well. So it's basically, if you go through that, you'll get numerous wins along the way even if you don't meet the criteria at the start, you will have implemented so much, which will add value then, you know, you've started.

Yiuwin Tsang: 12:41

Thank you so much, Nick from ADLIB. It was a real pleasure getting to speak with you and finding out about all the things that you're doing at ADLIB and the way that you've engaged your team in such a meaningful way.