Powering a green revolution: Running an ethical energy company with Doug Stewart, Founder and CEO of 100Green (formerly Green Energy UK)

Welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast, hosted by Yiuwin Tsang. In this enlightening conversation, Yiuwin sits down with Doug Stewart, the CEO of 100Green (formerly Green Energy UK Ltd), to explore his remarkable journey of setting up an ethically driven electricity and gas supplier that aims to transform the way we think about energy consumption in the UK.

Doug shares his personal passion for green energy and the driving force behind 100Green's commitment to ethics and sustainability. Yiuwin and Doug discuss the challenges of managing staff in an industry with a tarnished reputation and the company's determination to make energy a joyous purchase for customers.

We also talk with Doug about the many issues within today’s energy market. Doug sheds light on what sets 100Green apart and how they align their business with core values of honesty, transparency, and equity. They also aim to tackle the energy trilemma, touching on affordability, sustainability, and energy security, and how 100Green's customer-centric approach plays a pivotal role. He also touches on the significance of contributing to charitable causes and the secondary satisfaction of being part of a renewable energy revolution.

Join us for an eye-opening conversation that goes beyond the power grid and into the heart of ethical energy innovation. Doug Stewart's story is a testament to what's possible when ethics, sustainability, and determination converge in the world of business. Discover how one company is changing the energy game and working towards a greener, more ethical future.

About Doug Stewart

Doug spent his formative career at Ford Motor Company in a number of sales and service roles, followed by a move to a start-up IT company and eventually setting up his own business retailing Volkswagens and Audis as a franchised dealer.

Having sold the motor business at the turn of the millennium, Doug found himself in the fortunate position to choose what to do next. The blueprint for his venture was an ethically sound business model that contributed to the wider issues of life through commerce.

The newly deregulated electricity market offered this opportunity and so Green Energy (UK) Ltd, now trading as 100Green,  was born with the express intent of rewarding consumers who took active steps to do something about the wider environmental issues we face. Whilst the business has evolved into the company and brand we see today, these values have remained. 100Green is the UK’s only supplier of 100% green gas and renewable electricity.

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Transcript

Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.   Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business team. And this week, I was joined by Doug Stewart, the Chief Executive Officer of Green Energy UK. A graduate of Southampton University, Doug worked at Ford Motor Company and then in IT recruitment before setting up an eponymous Volkswagen Audi franchise. Having sold a car business in 2001, he formed Green Energy UK Limited. Now trading as 100 Green, an ethically sound business offering a competitive green electricity product 100 Green supply green electricity and green gas to homes and businesses across the UK. In fact, they remain the only supplier to offer only 100% green gas to all its customers. Not a percentage, not an offset. But 100% biomethane. Doug, we're going to talk a little bit about running an ethical business, but one which is in an industry which has a bad reputation. So let's start off with you perhaps giving us a bit of a background to 100 Green. Tell us a bit about the journey that you've been on.

Doug Stewart  

Sure. I mean, we're an ethically sound electricity and gas supplier, we supply renewable electricity and renewable gas to not renewable gas, green gas, there is no such thing. So we supply renewable electricity and green gas 100% green gas to customers or to people with businesses with a conscience. And we started it in 2001. When it was a bit left field. If I'm honest, I think there were green terrorists out there but nobody if they promoted them, they didn't have anything to back it up. And it all came about from a chance conversation at a one year old's birthday party. I was I guess it came out of guilt. I'm a gamekeeper turned poacher. So I spent most of my life in the car industry. I'd sold my garage, Volkswagen Audi and commercial vehicles sold that in 2000, like nearly enough money to retire. So had to sit down with that blank sheet of paper and say what am I going to do next. And the difficulty with trying to think of what to do next, as you always think of the same thing, whatever you always revert to type, you always revert back to eventually, I started with a blank sheet of paper and decided put together this new business to provide. And I want to first of all, 10 months a year off, I have not achieved that anywhere close to that. But one has to have objectives. And 10 knocks off equates to walking into the office one day a week, straightening the the documents on perception, saying that's not enough and disappearing to the golf course. So that was one of the visions for life that I in a friendly motor dealer mind had way back in the 80s in the 80s and the 90s. Anyway, so I'm thinking what to do. I wrote down various things. I didn't want staff. I didn't want inventory. I'd looked at all the things that I'd found complicated in my previous businesses, I run a couple and don't you know, I just had this list. I went to this one year olds birthday party and met grandmother, the little boy whose birthday it was his septum, your your cannons. And yep. And she said to him, you've got a degree, no simple yet what's that got to do with anything? And she'll come and talk to my son don't have no one knows what he's talking about. When he started my degree was in psychology, but she said no, no, come and talk to him. And I went to talk to him, then I understood what she meant because I introduced myself. And was it you do? And he said, I'll do my PhD in photonic physics, which was just gobbledygook to me that was just noise. I said really? Well perhaps if you speak in English, because that's my first language we can have conversation. He said when I was speaking in English, except photovoltaics said Nope. Still no no register on the solar energy law yet. Oh, course we all know about solar energy, but we don't get enough sunshine in the UK to make it work, too. He said that no, no, we turn light into electricity, not sunshine. And I was like, really? So we had a long chat. In fact, we've chatted for the entire duration of the party. I didn't get to play pass the parcel or anything because I was quite fascinated. And I left with the idea that this solar energy thing might be quite interesting. And also I made the mistake everyone else makes and forgot about the transmission charges. So he was telling me that the place where he worked they had solar panels on their roof and they were selling it back to the grid at three p unit shows how long ago it was. And I was paying seven pence a unit for my electricity so I thought there's a four piece spread there. There's got to be room for me. What I didn't know it was the most of the four P was taken up in transmission National Grid regional metering. All of the costs that are hidden, no one ever knows. So that was a bit of a, Oh, can't do this sort of thing because no arbitrage there, we looked at various EIS schemes of buying people, or renting people's roofs and putting solar panels on face that looked took a lot of capital. So we parked the idea of being a solar energy company and thought, well, actually, what can we do to keep your foot in the door, and we just got an electricity company. And I said to them, I'm thinking about becoming an electricity supplier. And they said, Oh, that's a big boys business. You'll never survive in that. And that was like a red rag to a bull. Never tell me I can't do something. I am just obnoxious when it comes to that. My parents or my parents told me not to climb again. I was over it. So what do you mean, I won't survive. So I set off on this journey, partly out of interest in partly proving someone wrong to become an electricity supplier. And here we are 22 years later, with a profitable ethical business, which I really enjoy. So we discovered that virgin energy at the time, we're using, I think it was EDF licence and they were doing the marketing. So we thought, well, if they could do it, I'm not comparing myself to Richard Branson. I am not vain. I'm nowhere near just capabilities. But if he could do it, then technically, it was possible for me to do it in my set about trying to find someone who would loan us their licence, rent us their licence, contract us their licence, and we found someone. And off we went on this journey to do we wanted to make it because I was interested in it from the solar perspective, the green thing was quite important. Believe it or not, I know Volkswagen have had their trials and tribulations on diesel in America. But when I had my Volkswagen franchise, Volkswagen were quite a green company. I mean, they took the old bumpers and made battery covers from them and did recycling stuff way behind the scenes that nobody knew about. And equally, I discovered, just the more I looked into the green market that I was quite green, with my family was quite green. My children grew up in Terry's nappies, which is a bit messier than disposable nappies, but much better, that the plan, and there are ways of making it less messy, obviously. So that was quite a green thing, we did a fair amount of recycling. And actually, it wasn't too big a step to try and do other things in a green way. Therefore, the idea of running a green ethical company was quite in line with the rest of my life. So off, we set on this journey. And when I looked at my blank sheet of paper of the objectives that I've set for a new business, this one ticked nine out of 10 of them. And I guess, you know, you realise that one it didn't take was 10 months a year off the rest of the rest of it, tick, double, and offset. And we originally, we had it as a virtual business. So one of the things I said very early on was I didn't want inventory, and I didn't want staff. Well, the electricity industry doesn't have industry. Yes, we have Contracts for Difference. Yes, we have marked up market contracts, yes, we have hedging positions, and all of that sort of stuff. So that in a way is a kind of infantry, but we haven't got any shelves full of stuff. And electricity is more perishable than yoghurt, because if you sit by and sell it every half hour, so it trades every half hour, and you have to settle every half hour. I have very clever people to do that for me. But that's how it works. So I had no inventory. And we outsourced everything in terms of staffing, because we were using another licence, we have our own licence. Now we have our own gas licence, we're a fully fledged electricity supplier. But back in the day to start, it meant that we could start and we didn't need a massive amounts of capital outlay, because I didn't have a massive amount of capital to outlay. And that is essential. So it came out of a chance conversation. My lifestyle was green, but I didn't know it. And I think lots of people, when they look at their lifestyles, will find they do lots of green things. They do lots of things that are in tune with trying to get sort of net zero, but because they don't assess themselves, they forget they do.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yeah, I love that your journey started in terms of starting in earnest with a mixture of curiosity and interest in green, and a good dose of indignation that somebody said you could do it. I think that's a great motivator to kind of get me going into Can I ask Doug, that that kind of green element and the fact that you recognise that you were naturally inclined towards being more green, your family's more green in terms of the way that you consume goods and services and things like this was like a key factor early on for you in terms of setting off on this journey, I suppose. Was it like, you know, you may agenda you have this conversation, a kid's birthday party, which I absolutely love. And that piqued your interest was the green and the environmental element, a key driver for you from the outset, or because when I hear you speak, and I hear about, you know, the four P sweat that you've had, you know, it's an opportunity you spot it. So from a business acumen perspective, I guess it's finely honed from yours. In the motoring industry, what was the driver at the beginning? That wasn't the ethical green bit? Or was it the commercial opportunity that you spotted? Or wasn't a mixture of both?

Doug Stewart  

Is it a lot? I think we needed a differentiate the energy market is a commodity, you know, you plug it in, it comes out the wall, you know, and we don't deliver green energy to people's houses, we put it into the grid on their behalf. So it was a differentiator point one, I think, and it made us it gave us material different. The issue of being green meant that actually, there must be more people like me that hadn't done the audit, and therefore would be interested if they offered it. And the other, I wouldn't call this business acumen I call this sheer laziness. It was a huge market. And it didn't matter whether we were going to be good or bad at what we did, we were going to grow. Because the Green Market was set, we think the Green Market Research Group, and it did, yeah, I'm no, I'm not a forecaster or predictor. Just lucky, and I got lucky at the right time. But because he people said that you were in at the snow that must have been super visionary. And the one thing I am not is a vision. It was just it was luck, as I said chance conversation. But the idea that the green market would grow. And therefore no matter how good or bad we were, we would have to grow with it. Now we didn't set out to be bad application to add and we didn't set out not to be very good. And I think we are very good at servicing customers at the centre of our business. It all revolves around them, we answer the phone in 15 seconds, all of that sort of stuff. And we have a philosophy and internal philosophy of what's the right thing to do. And our biggest challenge managing staff is to get them to believe they can give people money back that they can do things that are in the customer's interests. And we say, Look, we have checks and balances within the business, if you give all of our money away to the wrong people, we will notice. And that suggests there might be a training need that we need to train you in when you should give money to people and when you should ask them for money, rather than the other way around. So but you know, as a basic principle, we operate on the basis of, you know, what's the right thing to do? What would you do if it was your mum,

Yiuwin Tsang  

that's so lovely, and so refreshing to hear from any business really, isn't it in terms of you know, you look at business on the purpose of a business, as traditionally says to return value to its shareholders. And that kind of flips it over onto a tenant about creating and returning value to its customers, which when you say out loud, it makes perfect sense. But since your dot, it's been the other way around, I wanted to explore a little bit about the industry that you are in the energy industry generally has got a pretty poor reputation. So I'd be interested to hear what I guess this ties back into what you said about training your staff and understanding that you need to do the right thing. But how does that manifest? What kind of things do you do at 100 Green to try and I guess, fix that reputational position of the industry. I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners crystal hosting. Crystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Crystal services super fast and super reliable. And they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners, our beautiful business and we're delighted to count crystal as one of them. Back to the podcast.

Doug Stewart  

Let's touch on the industry's reputation because the industry has a poor reputation courtesy of the press and the media and courtesy of a very negative outlook on life and business in general. And a very negative view of headline grabbing. So bad headlines, grab headlines, good news, really hard to find that. So we've been beaten up from pillar to post in both broadcast and publish media. But you know, I've never been one to try and trade off other people's failings or shortcomings. I think we should concentrate on what we do. We should concentrate on how we do it. And we should concentrate on what our fair offering and let people come to it if they want to. The Rip off Britain thing. I mean, the CMA were asked to do a review of the energy industry and they published their report in 2016. And they I published their report and said that there was 1.2 billion pounds of the consumer detriment because your average customer was paying loads more money than the cheapest tariff on the market. I think it was clause 61, or something in their report, but it was how few was the wrong comparison, because the cheapest tariffs in the market were unsustainable. And the events of 2021 prove that to be the case where we lost 30 suppliers inside two months, but we'd been losing suppliers for some time before that. And there was this suggestion that the big six were these evil people stealing money from the disadvantaged. Now, we've always said we're different. We've never said we're better. Whether we believe we're better or not, is a completely different issue and our culture is that we think we are but we don't, that's not a broadcast issue. But if I had 712 15 million customers like British Gas used to have, I think I'd let a few of them down as well. Because in a business now big, the divorce phone ship from control is an economic theory that is there to see. So yes, the industry has a bad reputation. But we did some research with UGA. And it showed that consumers trusted a big six more than they trusted, smaller suppliers, because people gravitate towards other people's activity as well. And that sort of strength in numbers. They were a recognisable brand. You know, they've been there a long time, then they might be getting bad press and apparently bad at this, that'll the next thing. But they're still there, and I'll be safe there. So I think I've never downplay big six we, the Labour government and the labour opposition back in 2013. Ed Miliband mooted the idea of the price freeze, that the Labour Conference, Caroline Flynn was the shadow energy secretary or dec secretary, and she read this big thing about the Big Six, were ripping people off ripping people off ripping people off, we then have the issue of letting lots of people into the market. I mean, we came into the market in 2001. But in between 2015 2021 70 companies came in, if you had 50 quid in a credit card, you could get a licence to sell electricity. The trouble was, if you had 50 quid on a credit card, you didn't really have much substance. I mean, I know I said, I didn't have a fortune to invest in my business. But I had some substance to get into. And, you know, time has told the truth, you know, those people were selling energy below cost. And, you know, I was interviewed at sky before in 2021, actually, and someone said, What's your secret? You know, if you've been around for a long time, 20 years, what's your secret? And I said, there is a secret. I said, if you buy something for 10 pounds, and sell it for eight pounds, you won't last very long. We tend to buy something for 10 pounds and sell it for less. And that's what we do. And there is no secret. It's just good old fashioned economics. The fact that politicians of every persuasion was saying that the big six which overcharging everybody was not, you know, the idea that you could save 300 pounds by switching to some supplier, they were all running a massive loss. It's, as I said, you know, time has told that comes out pretty true. And therefore, the real price of energy was where it was, it wasn't 300 pounds cheaper. But if you keep telling people, it should be 350, but they will eventually believe you. And I believe some of the politicians genuinely believed that you could buy it at 300 pounds cheaper than the big six or seven. And they keep saying that the market would be told the market kept getting pilloried for this while you're not you're making too much money, if we're making too much money, how come they all went bust? Companies House shows quite clearly that they will last making. So our industry got a bad name because it suited the politicians to make energy, a political football. It's easy to do that. If you think about it. It's an essential service. It's a utility during the pandemic, we were allowed to work throughout the pandemic because we were an essential service. So first time I've ever been essential to anything. So I can understand why people are very sensitive about how the industry treats its consumers. But you know, it's a regulated industry. So as water, you know, the board has failed on its environmental objectives. Its failed in its financial objectives. So Far be it for me to ask for tougher regulation, but that's what we asked for between 2010 and 2020. We're getting it. Now I'm not sure I like what I asked for. But always, always be careful about what you ask for. So yes, we work in an industry that has a reputation in the media. But we concentrate on doing the right thing for our customers, we concentrate on answering your phone, we concentrate on being a friendly voice. But at the end of the day, we concentrate on the quality of the energy that we provide. So we only provide renewable electricity, we only provide green gas, so we get gas that's generally for everything digested from waste products, and then take that bio methane and burn it, yes, there's some carbon emitted, but the waste products that are used in the generation of biomass. If left, if it's animal dung, and Phipps waste, left to rot, with natural, it releases methane into the atmosphere, which is greenhouse gas, 21 times more toxic than co2. So we're extracting that problem and using it in our green gas. So we've looked at providing quality, energy, but we supply our service that we supply, and transparency in what we're doing. Because in order to be green, we have to prove green. And I think if you're honest and open with people, they're going to come with you on your journey. Some of them are cynics out there. I don't need all the cynics that buy energy from my business, I just need some people with a conscience who think we can do something one step at a time, and move the game forward. And we have moved to getting free. But when we wake up every morning and say, Let's go to work and save the planet. Well, not quite like that. But that's what we've been doing for 22 years. So we're a small part, very small cog in that wheel. Without someone making an effort, nothing gets done.

Yiuwin Tsang  

And 100%. I couldn't agree with you more, Doug. And it's really interesting what you said there about the reputation of the Big Six. And you're right, you know, we are fed what we hear through the news through, you know, the editors of those news outlets, whichever way that they lean, but certainly in the energy industry, my perception is the are taken a battering, and then you hear about some of these companies and the profit that they are making. And their reporting is I don't know, I find it very difficult to kind of reconcile, you know, the level of profit that you generate will be context on that. Yeah, I agree, I would really appreciate it. Because I'm finding it really, I try and purchase things with an open mind as I can, I am with you as well, in terms of business, we talked about returning value to the shareholders, right. And you can do that through returning value to your customers. But you don't get anywhere with a non profitable business. It's just a slow and very horrible death. So if you're going to make an impact with your business, you need the profit to fuel you on that journey. That's certainly what we believe a beautiful business. But when you see the level of profit, as reported from some of these companies, it's just I can't wrap my head around it. So I would or you've answered, Yes, I'd love to come back to you.

Doug Stewart  

She I can't count to a billion. All right. It's a number that I just don't comprehend. But you know, let's take British Gas, the biggest the big set, as what I would say is all the effort to undermine the Big Six has left us except we empower have gone, SSC have gone into over octopus have appeared in court and taking lots of people on the supply of last resort, we still got five, six very large suppliers. They're just different suppliers. So it is an industry that needs scale. We don't operate at that level. But we operate a different kind of business and niche business and ethical business. There is room for us to operate in this massive marketplace. But British Gas is a huge business, and therefore, it's going to build huge numbers. So it's going to send out lots and lots of bills. And the amount of money that comes in on those bills is going to be very, very large as well. However, in order to build people for gas or electricity, they've got to buy the commodity and pay for it to be distributed through the networks to everyone's home. No one really values what we do until I don't do it. Have you ever noticed how when there's a power cut, people will do anything to get their power put back on. I often use the analogy of milk. Would it be nice I don't get it whether you drink milk. Some people don't and everyone knows that people drink oat milk now and also our almond milk and all sorts of milk gets delivered to your door. When you don't you go to the supermarket most people I put on my green lifestyle I get my milk delivered in a bottle. The bottle goes outside gets washed, recycled and brought back with more milk in it. But if you could have a tap next to your water, tap that just put milk into your house. You'd think that was pretty convenient. So And more importantly, we allow you to have electricity and gas without charging you in advance. So, you know, we don't know whether you're capable of paying for it when you start using it yet, okay, we have a credit control department login for a business. So that's not make us out to be a charity for a business. But you can turn on your gas to 11 if you want to. And we let you do that, we just send you a bill in 30 days time. So but it's a lot of money, right? The point is the difference between how much we have to buy for gas and the electricity for and what we sell it to you for is a small margin. But British gases turnover is huge. And yes, it made a big profit this year. But half of that profit, they made 900 million 500 million balance was because often had to change the price cap to reimburse the industry for cost it bought during the pandemic, which the price cap wasn't covering. So that distorted when we earn that money. And when we report it that money, and therefore, this year, those profits have been inflated by government interference, in my view, yeah, government don't have very, and then no government has very good record interfering in markets that it always goes wrong regional policy prices and incomes policies, they should just, you know, I'm a capitalist at heart, not officious one. But, you know, I tried to make some money, and any government intervention is just doomed to fail, in my view. And at the moment, even the chief executive officer said, I think the price caps run its course it's pushed the price higher than it needs to be everyone's technically on it, the government setting the price. So to put the amount of money that British Gas into perspective, hey, it's a massive business. B, half of the profit comes from being repaid for not getting the money during the pandemic. And it's rather fortunate that we had the big six because they could afford to run that kind of cash in balance, and keep operating without the money. So Far be it from me to defend my competition. But you know, they are big businesses, they need to make sensible returns as a percentage return.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yes. Now, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you, Douglas, for explaining that, to me in a really easy to understand way. Essentially, the number is very big, because they are a big business if you've got big numbers of customers. Yeah. But then the question comes back to I suppose the kind of the ethics behind the business, and then focusing back on what you do it 100 green around renewable gas as well, which I understand is quite unique. I guess it really demonstrates for your business, that there is a almost like a discretionary level of spend in consumers, where they won't just buy the cheapest thing on the market. Because I think you're quite open about the fact that you're not the cheapest on the market. But it does, as I say, it really does kind of highlight demonstrated there's a seam I suppose of, you know, discretionary spend within consumers. And that is unlocked through alignment of values through you know, those consumers, believing in what you're trying to do, and aligning with the values that you have. And I think when we first spoke, we talked about your core values, honesty, transparency, and equity. And I guess that again, manifests in terms of the energy production and being green and putting more back into the planet and taken out of it.

Doug Stewart  

Yeah, absolutely. When you were talking that it was something you were just gonna say, I've lost that train of thought there

Yiuwin Tsang  

isn't really interest because I think you look across all the spoils of consumer markets. And in terms of commodities, electricity doesn't look any different when it comes out of the way it's when you turn the lights on and stuff. So it's probably one of the things where it could come from anywhere. And you wouldn't actually unless you pay the bills, you wouldn't actually know. But then you look at other consumer markets so it like coats and fashion wear and things like this and you've got brands like Patagonia is always one that people reference to finish there. My kids have spent a lot of time in the sea. So like wet suits and things like this, when you start hearing about a company that recycles the old wetsuits produced new ones, do you think Well, that's good, interesting, given, you know, the amount of landfill that old wetsuits creates, so you end up and it's not cheap, you know, it's not the cheapest, you could pick up a throwaway wetsuit for, you know, 20 quid for the kids, whereas, you know, a finished one is going to cost you 345 times as much, but it's that level of discretionary payment.

Doug Stewart  

I think we can tie that issue back to our poor reputation as an energy. We talk about the energy trilemma. We talk about affordability, sustainability, and security. Security, we've certainly learned over the last couple of years. What's energy security's about because when they turn the taps off, in Russia, we haven't got any security where's our energy going to come? So we suddenly an energy security was something that was dear to my heart, we started this business, because in 2001, we started 2004, Britain became a net importer of energy. Up to that point, it was an export. So suddenly security, energy security was quite important. Sustainability. Governments of any persuasion have been signing all sorts of international courts to make our way to what we now call netzero. But the affordability piece got mixed up with price. And all they talked about was cheapest price. Price is not the only parameter people buy anything. If price were the only parameter that we bought things on. Everyone was the buying and the hidden trucks to drive around in, they wouldn't be buying BMW, Steve wouldn't be buying out yes, they wouldn't be buying anything with a brand. LVMH wouldn't exist. Vosburgh wouldn't exist, mulberry certainly wouldn't exist as a branded handbag if people weren't making discretionary decisions. They're extreme examples. But people don't necessarily want to buy the cheapest. But if we keep on an all about cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, that's where we lost our reputation. That's where we lost trust from the public. Because everyone kept saying, well, it should be cheap, it should be cheap. No, it shouldn't. What is the point of buying cheap energy? When you can't get ahold of your supplier? When you've got a problem? Can't ring them, but how much you can pay? What do you think that's worth in terms of having enough people on the end of the phone, pleasant people on the end of the phone, who will not just talk to you, but will listen to you, and ultimately help you solve your problem? There's a cost to that. And you're absolutely right. People have discretionary spend. And we ask them to use that discretionary spend on saving the planet. Other people might ask them to use that discretionary spend to put a fancy car on their drive, or a nice bag over their shoulder. That's human nature. So not everybody wants to talk Brick off every chimney. And actually, we work on the bank, we have an expression called value with values. So we offer people value, but it's based on our values as a business of looking after our customers. And the energy industry has been assessed on price for the last 20 years. Yes, I accept it's a commodity. But why do people join us join us because they look at what our proposition is. And they agree with what we're trying to achieve. And the really difficult thing is if you give good service, you only find out if your supplier or your car garage, or whatever is good at customer service, when you've got a problem, no one's going to put on their their advertising, we give crap service, they're all going to say we give wonderful service. But when you put it to the test, that's when you find out whether it's actually true or not. So it's a leap of faith. So I think what we tried to do is wrap the business up in such a way that that you'd look at what we do you look at the language we use, you look at the values that we expand, and you think actually I've got something in common with them. I'll give that a go. That's what I'd like to do. And trust is a huge part of our business, we have to have our customers justice, because everyone says they shouldn't.

Yiuwin Tsang  

You know, it's so true. And these are the principles which apply into any industry into any business and you know, of my own business, the listeners to the beautiful business podcast, if you build your business around the values that you feel are important to you as an individual then it's like what you said people attract people, don't they and you find your tribe and you there's a level I think I've got to say there's a level of smugness as well, I think, you know, if you're I think I've got a similar sorts of setup as a way of my family law quite environmentally conscious and slightly gone off kilter here, Douglas, but we hope really interesting, really enlightening chat on the way home from SEMA parents up in Newcastle, we had to drive up and drive down because flying obviously wasn't the thing. Real travel was unbelievably expensive, but we were driving down and it was getting quite late. And we thought we were gonna stop to eat, and it was getting desperate. And my other half said, we might have to stop at McDonald's. And both of the kids went no way we don't want to stop. And we went by flabbergasted thinking, I thought kids are addicted, which was why not? And the first thing that they said I thought it is because burgers are horrible. Is it because we cook way nicer burgers at home, and they sit and the first thing they said was and it was Tobias, my boy and he said, Do you know the chicken that they put in the chicken nuggets? He said the space that those chickens have to move around on in the farms is less than an a4 piece of paper. And that's the reason why he didn't want to go to McDonald's. And I feel like when you've got these types of values, and you know, these are some things that you want to do, there's a level of you feel good about paying a bit more money and not going for the cheapest in the market. It's like there's a author self-gratification piece, I suppose. But we talk a lot about beautiful business. And one of the things we spoke to our clients about which I'm sure it's been spoken before, but I loved it. And when we came up with it was the idea of being a joyous purchase. You know, there are some things that you have to pay for in life that you think, Ah, another bill, another one of these things, and you want to pay for things that you just think, oh, you know, I feel good about paying for this, I feel good about buying my electricity and my gas from this place, because they're looking after the planet, and they look after me, you know, if things when things go wrong,

Doug Stewart  

yeah, the world has done a great job with your son, isn't it? By giving him transparency by letting him know how things happen. And then he gets to make a choice. And it is about choice, we offer people a choice, they can go to the cheapest supplier, or they can buy our electricity and buy our service. And it is about choice and freedom are proper first world issues. So I think that I don't like the term smug. That's not a nice trait. But I always say, you get a warm feeling. Yeah. Yeah. So it's rather like philanthropy. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, if you give money to charity, you could say that you're abdicating your responsibility by giving someone some money to help some people who aren't as fortunate as you. But the other thing is that, you know, if you give money that's going to improve someone's life or going to improve someone's health or whatever, there is a very warm feeling about thinking you've done some good, rather than just going to buy some capital item that's going to sit on the mantelpiece that you don't actually need. But two people still haven't mattered pieces, I suppose they do, because no one has a fire anymore. Now showing my age. But if you give money to charity, there's a I'm not suggesting buying our electricity is the same as giving money to charity. But what I'm saying is you choose where your money goes. And if you can find somewhere that you get a secondary level of satisfaction, they get fulfilment from us because their house is warm, and their lights come on. But there's a secondary fulfilment on the basis that actually, I am prepared to pay that little bit more in order to move the needle, and get more and more renewables into the system. When we started in business, there was 3% of the electricity generated came from renewable sources, you know, it's over 50%. At times at the moment, you know, depending on what technology we're using, whether the wind is blowing and sunshine in what time of year it is. So that needle has done that now. Now, we haven't moved the needle like that, because we don't supply 50% of the marketplace. But we've been part of everything. That's educated people on the fact that they can take simple steps and be greener, they can trust an energy supplier to do what they do. They can pick up the phone, and someone will answer and give them help with whatever their query is. And that's all you know, as I say, it's not rocket science, you know, there's no secret, but at what price we strive to set a higher price. And that gives us the money to pay for the commodity that we bought all the things in between our staff, and it leaves us some money to invest in a business moving forward. And you know, we don't make we're profitable, we don't make a fortune. And the point is that the other reason that we're supposed to be hated by everybody, is that we make so much money. If we make so much money, why is it so difficult to make money in the district, it's very difficult to make money in the election, if there are no fields of gold, it's tough. But we get a secondary satisfaction out of knowing that we're moving a different needle, we're not just selling energy, we're trying to change the way energy is generated and consumed. And, you know, we believe that greenest energy is the energy you don't use. So we're a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas, you know, don't use as much don't use as much and that the demand side of the equation is just as important as the supply some

Yiuwin Tsang  

100%. What do you think of that we keep going back to the big six and you know, the move towards decarbonisation, and renewables and things in your view? Are they moving fast enough? Because I guess it comes with that piece, you've explained about the profitability and because of the scale of these businesses, and the customer numbers and number of households that they kind of supply into, do you feel there's enough being done to try and kind of change first of all, the supply side towards more renewable sources? And then on as you say, from demand side, because there's an education piece we just touched on briefly about no government kind of interventions and things like this, but for that just ring true for that. Oh, you know, the greenest energy is energy. Don't use them perhaps nice, because I can remember when I was a kid, that switch the light off adverts, you know, like when you leave Room turn the light off and things like this. Maybe I'm just not as aware of it. But there doesn't seem to be as much messaging around, you know, like energy saving.

Doug Stewart  

There is, you're absolutely right. We've become very affluent. That's part of the issue. So, you know, mobile phones, I remember not being allowed to use the phone, because it was too expensive. If I was on the phone to my girlfriend, God forbid, you know, I was going off, and the phone was in the home, when we didn't put the heating on and the heating was never on. And also, it's the coldest place to be. So she didn't want to spend any time they get caught up to make a phone call. So we're probably working middle class, we weren't, you know, weren't well off, but we weren't, you know, vulnerable. But we had a different view on things. And we had a different view on waste. And we had a different view on profligate consumption. And the concentration on price in the energy business has meant that instead of trying to save energy, we just try and get the cheapest energy and use as much of it as possible. That's interesting. So it's about policy framework. And in my view, I've talked about government intervention, government should set policy and allow us to work around it, they shouldn't try and meet the micromanager, business and manipulate market places. So are they moving fast enough? Well, interestingly, there's a 10 to 15 year wait, depending on which headline you read, to get connected to the grid. These days, if you're building some bigger bit of generation, there's a very long way to get onto the grid, because the infrastructure needs to be upgraded. And there's no lack of money chasing that particular investment that work to put it in all the investment because it will pay dividends, ad infinitum. But there's no lack of money chasing that it's a question of whether the policy framework around that means that that's a risky investment or a safe investment. And our government policy, don't want to soapbox. But then the time we've been in business for 22 years, I've lost count of the number of energy ministers, they've been the number of times they've reorganised the deck chairs on the Titanic, that we know we've had energy used to be part of the Department of Trade, then it became part of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, then they got rid of the Department of climate change and put it into bays. Now we've got the net, I can't even I don't even know what it's called into net zero because it's got an NSAID on the end of it. We keep changing things, energy is absolutely essential to everything we do. But we don't have a policy framework but sufficiently visionary. To make it happen. Governments can make big decisions, we saw that in the pandemic. Yeah. But the difficulty you've got is that governments are run by people, and people only react to crisis. And crisis. It's an overplayed word, there is a cost of living issue at the moment, and there are people who are living in crisis, I get it, but a lot of population isn't. But you know, there is a crisis for the disadvantage that the vulnerable, and we need to be targeting help to them instead of to every thought. But, you know, I've lost my train of thought, again,

Yiuwin Tsang  

it is really interesting, you know, the fact that government intervention, you're right, it has to be targeted in the right kind of places at the right kind of people and a copy of that kind of uniform bit. But it is really eye opening for me to some of the conversation now, Doug, about, as you say, that kind of narrative that's been set by the media, by the government, while focusing on price is taking away the focus on consumption. And you know, as you say, that not just the greenest energy, but the cheapest energy is the energy that you don't use. It is very, very interesting how, you know, society is that very first of all, probably, but you know, you just plug your phone in every night and you can think about it, you know, you look your electric car and don't even think about it. So there's a big if not just on the supply side that needs to change and needs progress to be made.

Doug Stewart  

If you think about contextualising it when I was at university, everyone smoked. And everybody drank and drove there guys. I mean, I am old enough, before the breathalyser. We have had a significant cultural shift from smoking, okay, which has been helped by legislation and drinking and driving helped by legislation. But people do not drink and drive some people do I get that but the vast majority you talk to the younger generation, they don't do younger generation vapour, they don't smoke. And we need to have a cultural shift in terms of wasting energy. So making that as bad as smoking or as bad as drinking and driving because suddenly, if you've got the public on your site, we'll move the game forward. You know, you got this issue with trying to build enough generation but if you haven't got the right policy framework, you can't make it happen as fast She wanted to get back to the crisis, then governments make big decision. But we all got paid on furlough. Not we didn't, because we were still working. But the population got paid on further to stay at home. That was a huge decision. Because the government was staring a crisis right in the face. But 2050 is quite a long way off. You know, it's 25 years away, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be alive in 25 years. And you know, that we've got to stop the planet warming by 2050. And definitely by the year 2100. Well, that's not an immediate problem, you know, and therefore, trying to put a sound policy in place for something that's not going to affect the people that you're asking to make. If there are sacrifices, sacrifices, is a difficult decision.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Very different. It's so hard. And so and I'm really loving how balanced you are with this as well, though, because I was having this conversation just the other day, where, you know, change can happen if there's a political will to do it. And the challenge that we've got all around the world is our democracies are built on very short term, five year parliamentary terms, you know, so why why on earth would you know, politicians put in policy frameworks, where the fruits of their labour might not even be seen for three or four Parliament's down the line? Yeah. And it's that kind of short term thinking, which is really scuppering so many policies that need to happen. But your point is, it's not just parliamentarians, who in my view, have got a lot of self preservation kind of baked in, but it's also the people, as you say, for making those sacrifices, you know, I want to drive my big three litre, you know, turbocharged, I don't have a three litre turbo. And it's difficult, it's really difficult because it's a contextual thing. It's like, you know, nobody really cares about the polar bears that are starving on the ice until you see it on your Ultra High Definition TV. And even then it's still a distance away. It's a really tricky one, it is a really tricky one, as you say, there's many kind of nuances to it, small steps. In the small steps, there was some really conscious of time and those we had a lot of questions about your team and growing your team to 40, we've got probably got about seven minutes left of this recording, you went from a standing start 100 Green to being up to about 40 staff. Now I think you said, which is pretty impressive, given that you started with the intention of not having any stuff. Yeah. So what's the story? There was a change there? Why did you start taking people on,

Doug Stewart  

it's a really nice idea not to have any stuff, because the world is complicated by people. You know, there's the old adage that my business would be so much easier without its customers. And it would be so much easier to run without the people. But unfortunately, they are core and essential for businesses. So we outsource almost everything, and found that what we couldn't do was controlled attachments. So what we found was that we were asking people to talk to our customers, but they weren't steeped in our culture. We weren't training that we could give them scripts, I hate scripts, I want people to we don't have scripts in this business. People talk to people, and they have points, they ought to cover the idea of talking to anyone who's reading a script, as you say, if you're reading that chocolate drop below. So we want people to make decisions. We want people to be empathetic, we want people to listen, yeah, we have two ears and one mouth, let them use those those portions. And what we found was that using outsource staff meant that we weren't in control of attachments, we weren't in control of how customers were talked to, we weren't in control of how customers felt at the end of that interface, that conversation. And therefore we brought it in house. And it was a revolutionary moment for the business because we could certainly translate our culture, from our people, to our customers, we couldn't translate our culture, from us from our business to an outsourcing company, who were therefore unable to translate it or to transfer it onto our customers. So we brought it all in house and it made such a difference. So and therefore you know, you the more people offshore service, then, you know, that's not really helping. I don't think international call centres are the way forward.

Yiuwin Tsang  

There's also I think there's also you know, it's fair to say that I'm sure there are some amazing outsourcing companies that are out there who do a really good job, but it's always going to be really difficult because they're not as invested. If you've got a member of the team who's you know, has the 100 green logo at the top of the payslip, they're going to dig a bit deeper on there to make sure they do offer that level of service and the level of service that you offer is one of your differentiators, then it has to be it has to be in there as well. What do you think were the biggest kind of step changes that you saw in that growth to 40? What were the big kind of, you know, inflection points where you often talk to people where they've gone from, you know, starting up for a couple of co founders to 10 and that's a big point for them. They got the 20 so on and so forth for you. What were the big kind of like Turning Points to get into 40.

Doug Stewart  

I don't think we set out to get to a certain number, we've just what we've done is bolted people into the business as the business has required them to be doing things the industry has changed over the course of the 20 years, we've been in it. So our metering team is bigger, because we're trying to instal smart metres. It's a mandated programme by the government, it will pay dividends to consumers, but in the long run, not the short term promises that were made when they first started that. So what we've always tried to work on the basis of prevention rather than cure. So what we've tried to do is ensure that we don't have problems to deal with, so that when someone rings customer service department, it's a rarity, that we've got a problem of, you know, an endemic or systemic problem within the business. And therefore, we spend as much time and effort getting people's bills, right, as we do fixing problems with people's bid. Because this industry runs on metre readings, you know, you haven't beat it reads how much electricity and gas you're using, but generators have metres that push the old way. So when they push out electricity or push out gas, their metre turns the opposite direction, but it but they get paid by how many units they've gone through their metre by what the wholesale price of electricity and gas is. So in constant, so really, it's not a difficult business. It's just made complicated by process. Really, it's how much electricity have you used? How many units is that? How much are you paying for a unit? How much does that add up to? What's the VAT? Can we have some money, please? And if you're a direct debit? Well, that's how much we're going to take in 14 days time, let us know if you're not happy. So really simple. So if you get that bit write it don't have howling groups of people saying I'm overcharged, you've done this, you've done that you've done the next step, we've tried to ensure that the bills are laid out easily and can be read, I've yet to find a solution to the conversion factor for gas getting cubic metres kilowatt hours, I can't No one can explain on that. So we've ended up putting people into the business where we've found that we need the business to be supported by more resource. So it's not been a straight line. And it's not all been, okay, we've got five departments. So we'll add one to each of them. And then to teach them, it's moved from since 2020, there's been much much more involvement from off to the regulator on regulation. So regulation to come as grown recently, our analysis, you know, we've got data analysts coming out of areas, busy working on stuff, but not only the regulated, but to be able to look at our business and forecast it better, and ensure that we minimise our risks. So I think, you know, I can't look back and think, Well, that was a step change. That was a step change. I would look back and think more what was happening in the industry and those times, what did we need to resource and how did we resourcing?

Yiuwin Tsang  

Thank you for listening to this week's podcast and a big thank you to Doug Stewart for taking the time to join us and chat with us about his adventure, setting up and running green energy UK now trading as 100 Green. Thank you for joining us for this week's beautiful business podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk