I couldn't help but be inspired as Ben Gleisner, founder of Cogo as he takes us through his Eco-conscious tech journey—a transformation from being an economist in central government to becoming a voice for sustainable change as an entrepreneur. With a minimalist approach, Ben's life story is a compelling testament to how individual philosophies can shape a purpose-driven career. Tune in to discover how this economist turned his frustration with slow governmental change into a technology that nudges individuals and SMEs towards reducing their carbon footprint, redefining what it means to be successful in business.
Imagine a world where companies are celebrated not just for their financial value but for their positive impact on the planet. Ben introduces us to the concept of 'Gigacorns' and takes us behind the scenes of Cogo's global expansion, shedding light on the challenges and strategies of nurturing a company culture without borders. It's a fascinating glimpse into the world of a tech company that's as concerned with reducing carbon emissions as it is with maintaining a healthy, vibrant workplace. This episode is an eye-opener for anyone curious about the collision of entrepreneurship and environmental activism.
We wrap up with a reflection on the philosophy of minimalism and the joy found in a decarbonized lifestyle. Ben's personal journey is an invitation to consider how our responses to climate change can enrich rather than restrict our lives. He champions a shift in perspective, where tackling climate change paves the way for a better quality of life—less materialistic, more family-oriented, and grounded in sustainable living. It's more than just an interview; it's a challenge to each of us to consider our own impact and the legacy we wish to leave behind.
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn and check out Cogo.
I couldn't help but be inspired as Ben Gleisner, founder of Cogo as he takes us through his Eco-conscious tech journey—a transformation from being an economist in central government to becoming a voice for sustainable change as an entrepreneur. With a minimalist approach, Ben's life story is a compelling testament to how individual philosophies can shape a purpose-driven career. Tune in to discover how this economist turned his frustration with slow governmental change into a technology that nudges individuals and SMEs towards reducing their carbon footprint, redefining what it means to be successful in business.
Imagine a world where companies are celebrated not just for their financial value but for their positive impact on the planet. Ben introduces us to the concept of 'Gigacorns' and takes us behind the scenes of Cogo's global expansion, shedding light on the challenges and strategies of nurturing a company culture without borders. It's a fascinating glimpse into the world of a tech company that's as concerned with reducing carbon emissions as it is with maintaining a healthy, vibrant workplace. This episode is an eye-opener for anyone curious about the collision of entrepreneurship and environmental activism.
We wrap up with a reflection on the philosophy of minimalism and the joy found in a decarbonized lifestyle. Ben's personal journey is an invitation to consider how our responses to climate change can enrich rather than restrict our lives. He champions a shift in perspective, where tackling climate change paves the way for a better quality of life—less materialistic, more family-oriented, and grounded in sustainable living. It's more than just an interview; it's a challenge to each of us to consider our own impact and the legacy we wish to leave behind.
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn and check out Cogo.
My next guest is Ben Gleisner, the founder and CEO of Kogo. Ben, it is a real privilege to have you here today. We were introduced a few weeks back and you've been a very busy guy to try and track down, but we've got you here, so it's really lovely to have you on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great to be here and yeah, busy, but working on hopefully things that matter, and so, yeah, all good. That's awesome, but working on hopefully things that matter, and so, yeah, all good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. The place we always start is your personal origin story, not Kogo's, but your personal one. I have it on good account. Now, this could be completely made up, but I have it on good account that you actually now own 20 items of clothing max, that's right, jodie does have a thing.
Speaker 2:I guess I do have slight environmental you could argue hippie, but I'm, you know, a practical tech entrepreneur as well. But yeah, I um grew up. Actually we were a quaker family, so I don't know if anyone comes across this, it's in the old days. People would be like, oh, those quakers ride around on horses. I mean, just to be clear, we didn't have a horse, um, but we didn't have tv and we just experienced, we traveled around the world quite a bit, um, and in short, I don't know. I've never been a big materialistic sort of person. So, yes, um, jody, one of our team often gives me crap that she's got more pairs of shoes than I have items of clothing. It's not 20, but it is not many it's such a nice way to live.
Speaker 1:I had that intention, um, when I moved into a new apartment and I thought it'd be great to just have minimal items of clothing, but it's amazing how you can just somehow acquire them and then yeah.
Speaker 2:I need to give them away yeah, we've got kids and so we, um, we are. We've got the sort of closed train that goes on, where there's friends of ours with kids maybe four years older than ours, and we know them, and they pass them on to kids of two years and we get them, and then they go through two more families, or even three, I think now. So, yeah, I don't know, it's a little bit of a, you know, part of the puzzle of what we're trying to solve as a business, which is, um, how do we keep life being happy and, you know, fun and everything, but can we do it with less cost on on the on the world really?
Speaker 1:yeah, so yeah, that's it. Yeah, it's a very and we and we will definitely get into that around around kogo. So you personally, a lot of the people that we have on the show are from the startup world. They've often got a story of the people that we have on the show are from the startup world. They've often got a story of being. You know they were doing the lemonade stand and they were doing they were selling. You know their mates, you know things they shouldn't have been selling them at school. Were you that entrepreneurial kid?
Speaker 2:I definitely had a spirit of it. I wasn't necessarily I'm thinking about lemonade stands. I grew up in England, so born there and moved over here when I was 10. So then that's usually sort of lemonade stand days Lived in the Carringer Valley out in Coromandel, so the difference between living in Manchester and there, I think I'd say I was always like ambitious and keen to do new things, but not necessarily like the money-making part of this has never really been a driver at all.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if I was driven as a young person to make money. I think I was driven as a young person to do crazy things. I remember one of the projects I did for I think it was Form 1, back in the day, whatever that is a year now I built a hydroelectric dam and sort of like small model version. I had like a little house on the hill. So I guess I was a little tiny, little LED light inside of my LED or anything. Long story short, I always did like quite crazy things and new, novel things. But I don't know if that's a sale. It was about money. But I can talk to you again about the sort of what personally got me to set up this business because it was actually more out of frustration of things not moving fast enough inside government really that drove it.
Speaker 1:so yeah, let's let's, let's jump into that, because you so you were an economist at at the treasury. This is new zealand altira's treasury. Uh, that, that's an interesting place to be. Well, I mean, it was weird.
Speaker 2:It was weird, probably rewinding in a few years, getting into the treasury, probably also where I was yeah, I guess entrepreneur you could argue that I was at uni first time around in.
Speaker 2:Auckland doing engineering. So I was at engineering school and just really like I don't know, started when I was 17,. You know, quite young, whatever it was, or seven, I think. So anyway, I got into engineering and after a year and a half I was like, oh man, I don't know if I want to be a chemical engineer, but I guess this is probably entrepreneurial. I was like, wait, you want to move down south, move to Dunedin, and bought a cafe down there. So that was when I was 21. Um, and that was great. That was a really awesome experience. So, yes, I guess a little bit entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2:But then I moved from running the cafe we used to cater for all the big music festivals. So a little cafe in deneden used to go out to the like the gathering and this is late 90s sort of time used to cater for music festivals, make coffee and sell biscuits and stuff. And, um, yeah, it was during those times that a group of us decided, look, um, there's so much waste generated by festivals like there was just the gathering it turned into uh, be sponsored. I think in 1999 it just felt like it just got a little bit too commercial, or at least it was more making money than it was doing things. So a lot of waste anyway.
Speaker 2:So we decided to set up another festival in golden bay. Uh, me and a german guy called richard um, that was promoting sustainable development, zero waste and long story short, we set that up and launched that and ran it for four years in golden bay. Um, and yeah, it for four years in Golden Bay and yeah, it was really successful and 5,000 people came to the last one of its kind before it got closed down because the landowner sold. But anyway, then I went to Treasury.
Speaker 2:So this whole idea of, like, I went to university, finished my master's and then went to Treasury, so then a master's in environmental economics. But in short, I turned up at Treasury treasury probably not the usual course into treasury, which was drop out from engineering three years running a cafe, two years setting up music festivals, golden bay, and then went back to uni, did under, finish my undergrad, science, and then did a master's in environmental economics and then turned up to treasury. So yeah, that was.
Speaker 1:That was an interesting place to be and and I've got a whole bunch of prepared questions, but I always go off script every single time. Uh, go off. What, what? What was it that drew you to to really be I mean, it sounds such an obvious question, but but drew you to be so concerned around the environment and even to study environmental economics? Was it growing up in places like Coromandel?
Speaker 2:Like, what was the origin of that? I think the origin definitely right early on in life. Parents very motivated around sort of environmental and social justice, so we campaigned to for nuclear disarmament. I totally remember being at green common with my mom on the back and she was actually quite proactive. She was often on stage talking about stuff to do with the anti-apartheid, anti-nuclear a bunch of issues. I think growing up there was that sort of drive to make the world better, make, improve and address issues. Um, so that was number one. Um then I think probably just having those years working in this um cafe and then in the festival business, like I just realized that businesses could be a force for good. So that that whole argument of like you know we need to build an economy that creates jobs and you know that gives people livelihoods but there's a lot of outcomes that aren't ideal and there's waste things.
Speaker 2:That's probably number two. And then, yeah, I think, just turning up at university and then doing those Masters or Undergrad and masters, the subjects that really threw me were those environmental. So, Sean Weaver, shout out to Sean, third year undergrad teacher of environmental science, and I don't know, we just I don't know. It was there and so that was the motivation really is probably. And then obviously, going to Treasury working in climate change and seeing how slow things were was probably another thing that was like geez, we're not going to solve these big problems. I've learned and studied and felt at the moment in government so, yeah, that's really where it started and so you're sitting at Treasury.
Speaker 1:Did you just get this absolute epiphany about the, the idea that became kogo, or?
Speaker 2:what was what set behind that? Um, probably, yeah, the work I was doing at treasury um time was sort of twofold. One was um on the international climate negotiating team, so we were traveling around. They wouldn't, they had we had to fly business class. I was just like, surely I can fly economy, it's like cheaper, it's obviously better for environment. But no, it was a rule that was you had to fly business. So long story short flying business class around the world solving climate change Slightly ironic, but it was that meetings when it was just like, oh my god, it's like so slow, multilateralism and stuff, so sort of that work that was going on. I was doing work on what's called the living standards framework as well, but put that to one side, but in short, trying to get government to change. And it was so slow.
Speaker 2:At the same time, a big, huge software and technology sort of fan, I suppose. Again, I remember my dad bringing home like the bbc micro and like I don't know this computer and we sent emails and like probably early 1990s and so always interested in technology. So then I was just like, well, what's what's changing? Behavior like this is all a big behavior change. You know, exercise here we've got to move people off. You know gas appliances, move them into electric cars, all these things you've got to do.
Speaker 2:I was like, um, software and I mean airbnb and uber hadn't been invented at the time, but I remember thinking software would be a great thing to use as a driver for change, because I'm looking around and seeing emissions go up and up and up and up and up and over behavior change and things that government's chatting, talking, talking, talking, talking and at the same time I was like, well, what's actually disrupted behaviour in thinking about software? Uber is disrupted the way we commute. You know, airbnb is disrupting the way we think about accommodation. So I think that was the two drivers was seeing things going slowly in government and not solving it and thinking about software as a sort of real big driver of change.
Speaker 1:And so what is Koga?
Speaker 2:What does it do? Yeah, good question. Love all that chit-chat. What actually are we? We help individuals sort of councils, and then SMEs basically manage their carbon footprint. So you know, there's a lot of people pointing fingers at, like government go solve it, or big oil businesses or whatever You're the problem, right? And I think slowly people are starting to be like, well, maybe me and I need to do my bit, maybe I should think about what I'm doing. And the fuel companies, just to be clear, they want to make money and that's what they're mandated to do and they're obviously bound by even legal requirements to make money.
Speaker 2:The only way they make money, obviously is if people buy the products they sell. And so our argument is really trying to look yourself in the mirror and as a business, and just go look. If we want to do something different, you know, want to build in a different way, maybe we can all make effort, but it's just such an effort, the whole how you know. What can I do as an individual? What are my options? How do we reduce the what's called transaction costs of information, asymmetries, all this economic jargon, but it basically means how do you make a market more efficiently operate? And so what Kogo does is it then provides data back to the household through the banking app, primarily. So none in New Zealand yet, sorry, sorry, kiwis, altaira is a little slow on this one.
Speaker 2:So as a household in New Zealand, you can't use our services yet, but across the world, you can literally log into your banking app and it will tell you hey, greg, last month, your footprint. Look like this. Here are the hotspots, here are the things you can do about it. A thousand other people have done this thing last month. Um, here's how much you, you know, saving carbon. Here's how much you'd save in money. Um, not quite to this point, but it will soon be, and here are the four providers near you press one button, you'll get pre-approved finance, you'll get a cheap deal on your solar and it will help you basically decarbonise your life, make you feel better about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, just making it super easy for consumers, when they're going about their spending, to see how they're spending and to make they know they want to make better choices, but making those choices A visible and then easier to switch, perfect. There you go, you did it for about half the time. But I guess I'm intrigued. Let's jump on this whole. Why are the kiwi banks not here? What's happening?
Speaker 2:oh no, kiwi bank should be called out. Kiwi bank has done something, no the, the kiwi bank, sorry all I know, I know, but I was going to say, when you said the kiwi banks, it reminded me that, yeah, the kiwi bank here in new zealand has provided, um, our solution for their SME customers. So that's a shout out to Kiwi Bank, the banks here.
Speaker 2:I mean it's a little bit sad, or in some ways like the argument mostly has been and this comes not just for our product, but just in general things like open banking. Yes, we've been on that.
Speaker 1:We originally launched the product in the product, but just in general things like open banking.
Speaker 2:Yes, we've been on that. We originally launched the product in the UK I should have said five or so years ago in the UK with open banking powering it as an app. Come back to the sort of generation there used to be an app, not inside the banking app, it used to be a separate one. But, um, I feel like they've said there's a lot of regulation that they've been facing around moving away from the australian bank, what's called sort of separating. There are sort of entities yes, they're still owned, but there was quite a lot of regulatory pressure from that number one and then probably number two.
Speaker 2:The technology that they've got is still like catching up in terms of they've got lots of, let's say, technical debt, which basically means they had built stuff five, 10 years ago that now needs to be rebuilt and they just need to do what's called core banking. Now I'm hoping that it'll change, as in we're having good conversations with a bunch of them and have been for a few years now. Yeah, it's coming, it's just just slower than everybody would like, including the banks. It's not as though they're sitting there going oh, this isn't something we want to do. They're all saying we want to do something like this.
Speaker 1:It's just around priorities, yeah they've got to turn these aircraft carriers around with with 10, 20, 30 years of technical debt. So that's technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're acknowledging. It's just I don't know. We've got like Westpac in Australia, combeck in Australia, suncorp in Australia, like you know, we've got all those Australian banks and it just feels like a little bit sad that you know we're not empowering Kiwis the same way. But you know, watch this space. Let's say yeah well.
Speaker 1:yeah Well, it sounds like they're on board, which is great, because otherwise I'd be giving them a hard time on this podcast. To kind of get them to hurry up, you can talk to them a hard time.
Speaker 2:I mean, just don't get me started on the American banks. So yeah, they're even like they've got the capabilities in some ways, but man, they are frustratingly slow and I guess lots of different arguments that you don't hear here. But all good, we keep trucking on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, and you need to, because it's such a key part of making these changes that we need to make Give us a little bit of a sense of the shape of Kogo as a company. So, like staffing, staffing numbers where you operate, countries you're in, etc. What can you share there? Um?
Speaker 2:yeah, no good, I think. Yeah, I'll maybe go, maybe the start as well. So 2017 incorporated. So we were a charity for the first seven years. So kogo was originally called conscious consumers, actually. So we're originally a consumer app, helping just what you described, greg, that people make more conscious decisions, not just on climate, so things around waste, things around living wage. So you'd download our app and you'd be told this cafe pays a living wage and lets you bring your own keep cup and gives you 50 cents off and things like that. So it was very early on that sort of conscious consumption. People couldn't spell conscious. So we had to change our name, among other things. So we changed our name, moved to the UK in 2018, sort of launched from there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, we started off. Just you know, I arrived in the UK with my partner and our two kids in 2018. There was probably five people back in New Zealand, so it was quite small and we chose the UK for open banking reasons and built the team, raised money and so got to maybe 15, 20 people in the UK and about, yeah, four or five, six maybe at a time I moved home in 2020. So fast forward now 50-odd people team in the UK still a couple people around Europe. So we've got an office in London, we've got an office in Tokyo in Japan. We've got one person.
Speaker 2:Often you hear startups like we've got these offices around the world. Usually it's one or two people, so in our case it's always one person. So far, one person in Tokyo, one person in Hong Kong. We support all Australian banks out of New Zealand and then we've got one person in Tokyo, one person in Hong Kong. We support all Australian banks out of New Zealand and then we've got one person in Toronto in Canada, right, so most of New Zealand pretty strong in the UK and Europe, and then it's the battering of others around the world?
Speaker 1:And how do you build culture across all those locations? Do you get everybody?
Speaker 2:into business class and fly them all around the world to expensive locations. We do a lot of online things. That is tricky, I think the uk, but new zealand one, probably for any business out there if you're trying to set up or you know. You know the difference between canada and europe.
Speaker 2:Sorry, sorry, canada and Asia working into New Zealand is even. It's just so much easier. Just having literally four or five hours of crossover daytime is just. It makes a big difference, whereas in the UK you're always compromising one or the other in terms of like evenings or early mornings. So, yeah, we do our best to bring those sort of time zones as close together and, I guess, bringing people together, lots of catch-ups, lots of virtual stuff, all the different tools we'll all use. So, yeah, that's the main. I think we've got quite a strong kiwi culture by me going over there and setting up. You know, in our british office there's actually, you know, two to three kiwis, there's germans. There's r office, there's actually, you know, two to three Kiwis, there's Germans, there's Russians, there's, you know, scandinavians. So we actually do quite a good mix, which helps, but yeah, we do a good Kiwi culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is super cool having the Kiwi culture spread around the world and, interestingly, that UK Kiwi time zone thing it's a bit of a bitch, I mean, it's really really hard.
Speaker 2:It's not even just a bit. It's a real, real struggle, yeah, but anyway you can go. But yeah, it's a tricky one. How do you manage it?
Speaker 1:Because I know talking to. I remember talking about this years ago with Hamish Edwards, who was Roger Ury's co-founder in Xero, and they basically gave the person in the UK full authority as the CEO of the business to run it, because otherwise they were up all four hours of the night you do that, a similar thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:We've got a CEO in the UK, the departure from the UK. So I was there. But, long story short, my partner said, look, two kids. So Kate's. My partner said, look, uh, two kids. So kate's my partner. She two kids, four and six year old girls, right in the uk. And she said before we left two years is all, I'm gonna hang out, I just don't want to live in this place. Um, the kids schools, they're all just so. They queue, they lock gates, they get asked to go to the toilet and this is just the normal, you know, standard sort of. You know they don't call them public over there, but they basically normal state school. Long story short two years, mid-2018 arrived January, february 2020. We were like, oh geez, this COVID thing's coming pretty strong. And so we were, like, you know, had basically a place rented for two years, um the lease, um, but yeah, come february I a we tried to find a replacement. So we tried to find a ceo for us for about a year before I was leaving, but it was getting pretty tight.
Speaker 2:So six months sort of before I was leaving, finally found emma, who's been with us for four years now. But found Emma and was really lucky, because not only was time running out, we didn't know how much it was running out, because in February literally shit started hitting the fan and we were like we should get out of here. We're not going to get out if we don't get out. And so Boris Johnson got off on stage. There was all this stuff coming up, mfat, and stuff saying New Zealanders. You know, in the week leading up to our decision there was like massive stuff going down. It was like March, the sort of 13th, 14th, if that were enough time. Mfat said all Kiwis should get home, evacuate from wherever you are. All the planes were going like shutting down. Any ceiling was shut down. And so we were like crap. So we made the call on the Monday night after Boris Johnson got off the stage and said we've got all the modelling wrong. There's not 1,000 people with COVID, there's probably 100,000. And if we do not change this course, we'll have half a million people dead within a year. And so we were like okay.
Speaker 2:Kids then did not go back to school. They said the school was going to shut on a Friday. So Monday night, tuesday morning, work hours, the kids were out of here You're not going back to school and we literally had to book flights, pack up a four-bedroom house, sell a car and everything by Thursday. Thursday night went to the airport the only flight that evening out of Gawick and we just got out of the UK and home. Luckily back to your question we'd hired Emma a month or two before, but she literally just got given this thing. It was always the plan CEO and so she's run and I haven't had to do anything related with client or the team she's run. So yeah, it's been definitely a good way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've built the company with some element of venture money. So I think is it MoVac in there.
Speaker 2:We have not got MoVac? Yeah, we don't. Actually, in terms of venture, we do have New Zealand Growth Capital Partners, so that's the New Zealand government's used to be called NZ BIF, but basically the government's got a venture fund that invests in companies. So we've got a bit of that. We've got some out of Ice House again mostly angel money, but yeah, we've mostly been. There's a couple of like there's an impact fund, salt Capital that's invested. So, yeah, mostly individuals around the world as well. We have about you can look at our cap table 120 investors, wow.
Speaker 1:So quite a lot and in terms of the venture funding that you have taken, has that been? Does it create any element of tension between the mission that you're actually on versus?
Speaker 2:you know, venture investments like to make returns generally Return yeah, luckily, in some ways, we haven't brought on that sort of 20% well, not lucky, whatever you want to describe. We've been talking to funds for a long time. You know the standard sort of 20%, 30%, sort of foundation, sort of cornerstone investor on the board. Basically, you know, making decisions. We haven't done that, so we've got full autonomy, really, and in some ways, our investors have given us hope and, just to be clear, all investors we're.
Speaker 2:Obviously our mission is to try and disrupt and reduce the carbon, you know, across the world, but that's the biggest economic transformation that we're ever going to see, and so there's a lot of potential opportunities, whether it's, you know, clipping the ticket on that solar panel. I just told you that you should be buying through your banking app. There's a lot of ways that banks obviously a big um, a lot of money. So there's ways of making money in this thing, um, and it needs to be linked to the impact. But no, we don't have that. We've got a bunch of, yeah, great directors. I'm one of them and there's a um, kate heineman, um, from. So, kate Heineman from NZX. Sorry, nzx is the stock exchange for FNZ, so there's one of the biggest fintechs in New Zealand, actually. So first NZ and FNZ, so her search band, dan. We've got Richard, who's over in the UK, who was the CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers Great board, basically Very aligned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's super cool. Now I want to change tacks slightly and I want to ask you about the gigacorn. So explain the concept.
Speaker 2:I saw something on your socials recently about the gigacorn and I'd love to for you to explain what that is and what you, what you see there sure, sure, um, I guess it's a little play on unicorn and the whole like model of world that we're so sort of bent on this idea of success and, you know, the thing that we want to all achieve is like, you know, money and making more money. And, yep, you know, as an economist, um, money is reasonably well correlated to things that actually make what's called wellbeing, which is what we're trying to really maximize in society as economists as well. But we've sort of been, I don't know, like money's easy to measure and so, long story short, money drives things, and so money is driving all of the investments, all this AI and everything that talked about. Everyone's like venture capital and all the capitals trying to seek out ways of making more money. I'm not sure that's like the best model and I think it's causing a lot of problems, including climate change, because there's not actually, you know, a great argument to say that money always then leads to actual better health or better whatever you want to say metametrics of what really underlying matters in the world. So we're trying to change the paradigm a little bit and say, why not have a different measure of success for a business? Yes, one that makes money, but like as I described. You can make money out of reducing emissions, but that's not the primary reason that you're building the business for.
Speaker 2:And so unicorns are billion dollar businesses. That's on capital valuation for people. That, um, I've heard of that too. You're a unicorn. If you're, you're valued at more than a billion dollars. Um, so we're like you know it's not our word, by the way, I can't remember when I first heard it, but anyway, it's been around a little bit.
Speaker 2:Gigacon is a business not worth a billion dollars, but that has reduced a billion tons of carbon. So, in other words, you can get this status of like, yeah, and again, if you're reducing a billion dollars of carbon, the cost of carbon at the moment it's like 50 odd dollars a ton. So you can do the maths and say, well, hold on, if you're reducing 50, if you're reducing carbon and it's currently costing them 50 bucks to sort of, you know, buy credit effectively for that, for that ton, and you can I don't know clip the ticket at what. I'm making up numbers now. Again, it's like something like five cents for every dollar or whatever you can make.
Speaker 2:You could be a billion dollar business as well, but effectively it's not. So that's what Gigacorn is. So our argument is you know, if we can be managing which we sort of are on track to maybe 100 to 300 million tons of carbon at the moment. So that means that our users, the household, generates about 25 tonnes a year roughly. So we've got, you know, a million users in one bank, for example, and so roughly 20-odd, 30-odd million tonnes. Our mission at.
Speaker 2:Kogo is to get that number up to, you know, 10, 20 billion. So in other words, the number of users represent 20, 30, whatever billion tonnes of carbon, and then what our goal is then is to reduce those emissions by about 5%, and then you get a billion tonnes of carbon. So there's some numbers underlying it, but it's about that paradigm more than anything else. So there's some numbers underlying it, but it's about that paradigm more than anything else.
Speaker 1:And have you got others in the community, other organisations doing similar things to you, to Kogo, that you'd almost, in a way, have a really healthy competition with, because you want them to be succeeding right, like you want them to be doing?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, yeah, we do, we do Always in this space. You find that the competitors you always get on with almost all cases not always, but they're sort of driven by similar things. It's fair to say, a lot in the last few years that have come out of woodwork with, like you know, these mbas and these sort of slightly like jumping on climate as a sort of opportunity, um, or sort of mission. But yeah, the early ones, anyway, definitely we meet and I don't know, we catch up at events and things, and they're mostly driven. It comes back, though, to your point.
Speaker 2:You're making around ownership, though, because some of them I've seen start getting bought by or owned by others, say, not quite as mission driven, and I think that is one thing that we are never going to compromise on, because we think it's the best business strategy.
Speaker 2:By the way, so if you can always focus on how you drive down admissions, you have got massive opportunities to then monetize, but also you'll come across as a genuine real thing. So when the bank's coming to sort of buy your services, you're not just saying we're trying to make some money off you. You're actually saying we're trying to get the job done that you've asked us to which is engage your customers so they can get in to reduce their emissions, because that's what banks are regulated to now start doing. And so, long story short, I think it's the right strategy. You just don't probably get as much easy money and stuff to grow the business, so we are far less capitalized than our competitors, yeah, but we are still winning um, quite a lot of these deals that are coming in on the basis of our integrity and our product here.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Now I was chatting this morning to a guy in a local cafe and I told him that I was going to be interviewing you today on the podcast and I said what would you want to ask? Ben and his question. It was actually a really good question. He said ask him how we, as a world, move ESG away from being a buzzword and it actually being something that's very core to everything that we almost have to do and want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, yeah it's a very good question, so tell your friend. It's topical and it's also something that, in the last year particularly, has had its ups and downs as a frame. So ESG is definitely not you know the best word and it's definitely been used in ways that like for good reason and sometimes like it's just it's seen as an easy thing to tick and then suddenly it's like an esg fund or like you know whatever, and that's good good pushback on it. It's better say climate and the focus on climate as an element. So climate, it sits in the e there, right? Or you could argue it's s element as well, but long story short, it's more of an E.
Speaker 2:The reason we chose to double down on climate as part of that ESG bit is that it actually is measurable in a more straightforward way than some of the other metrics. So I think the answer is carbon and the regime that's been launched around the world the last year or so. Different countries Australia yesterday actually went through law yesterday and in new zealand, james, the last year's government, um pushed through in. Here it's happening everywhere is what's called the carbon disclosure regime, which is probably the biggest thing that I've seen in 19 odd years of working in this space, including all these UN negotiations and emissions trading schemes and stuff being set up. This is definitely the biggest thing, which is basically saying, as corporate, you have a responsibility every year to report on your carbon footprint. Basically that's the long and the short of it. So in New Zealand there's about 200 carbon, or climate carbon, which is CRE anyway.
Speaker 2:Carbon reporting let's say entity that is what is happening is it's a measurable metric that sits alongside your financials. It's comparable with others. It's got good sound science that underpins the way we measure. It's got good sound science that underpins the way we measure and it is a way of effectively bringing in another metric into the decision-making around financials for a business. So that's. I'll pause for a second because I've got questions followed up, but I think carbon disclosures are, in my mind, where ESG will be seen as the first sort of element of ESG that has been a success.
Speaker 1:There we go, aidan, that is a perfect answer. We won't. No, it was a very good answer and I want to sort of change course slightly because I want to talk a little bit about you and the way that you personally get involved with Kogo and the challenge, I guess, of being a founder of a startup. But particularly in a space like this, have there been hard parts to this Kogo journey Been?
Speaker 2:hard bits. We I think back to that story of flying over to the UK. So we flew over. It was a mission getting the visas and stuff I was British, my wife not so just the whole bureaucracy of getting literally, you know, set up there. So it was hard as a business. It was really hard as a family because, you know, two weeks before we were due to fly, the visas hadn't come through for my partner. So we were literally at one point going crap, we just have to put our own house to lease. So we had nowhere to live and we had a two-year lease on this house in the UK. Six months into that we ran out of money, pretty much didn't get new investment and we were effectively, you know, at one point I remember crying and going I just don't know how I'm going to actually get us all home. So we were stuck in this house in London nine months, probably in by the stage and literally running out of money, not having money to not pay the next whatever. It was 15 months of rent. So long story short.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there has been some hard times. There's the whole issue of the frustration around. Why won't the world wake up and deal with this and why do we still prioritize large profits and cut down budgets and make climate change a nice to have? That's frustrating, um, yeah, but there's lots of positives. It's definitely I would not want another job and I'm keen to do it for another 10 years. So you know it's not, it's not bashing me down too much, um, but it's definitely um has its struggles, um, yeah, the positive thing, I think one thing we've learned and I've done really well as a business, is probably two major things that stand out for me is number one I've always made sure that the fundamentals apart from that situation I described around being stuck in the uk, but almost always that my, my relationship with my kids and my, my life I'd never have tried to trade off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well done. Yeah, and that's something that we as a business, like, talk about all the time make sure, you know, and it's not like about not like well, I balance. Sometimes it's not like I go to work and then I stop and then I go home, and it's not balanced. It's about making sure that they operate together and sort of in harmony and I think in some ways it means that neither feel traded off is probably the idea and um, so, yeah, that's one thing we've done and, I think, across the company. The other is, I think transparency is a big value of us, and so I don't know if Jodie told you this, but from the very beginning I wanted everyone to know what everyone was paid, and I wanted everyone to know what everything was going on in the business financially.
Speaker 2:And so everybody still knows what everyone's paid. Everyone knows what we're paid for clients. Everyone knows, obviously with the confidentiality, but also everyone knows the financials of the business for the next sort of two years. So it's all transparent, which again has made the real tough times of what has been, I think, six restructures over, you know, eight years of various ups and downs. It's made it a lot easier to be able to communicate and feel like it's not. You know we're doing it because of the reasons that you all know we're in. So, yeah, that's probably the two reasons.
Speaker 1:Now Janine Granger. I had Janine on the show recently you'll know, janine, no doubt, and Janine actually sort of posed the question, not knowing who this would be asked of, and she asked the question for the next guest. Do you measure your gender pay gap? Obviously, you're transparent. Do you have a gap? And I want to be able to answer Janine's question because otherwise I would be in trouble with Janine. I wouldn't want to be in trouble with Janine.
Speaker 2:We have a negative gender pay gap, which means women earn more than men, and we published it actually last year. I'm trying to work out where we did it, but it's out of the UK. There's an organisation that measures it. Yeah, we're negative one point, something I can't remember, but yeah, definitely negative, which is unusual.
Speaker 1:So, yes, we do Very, very unusual. So running an organisation of your size is tough. Doing it with the mission that you have is, you know, you probably feel like you're always sort of battling uphill a little, but you, but you strike me as a guy who very clearly your, your why is is literally in your dna, you know, and it's, it's hardwired into you does that make? It easier or does it make it harder?
Speaker 2:I think, definitely. I think, yeah, the things, you're right, there's probably more than just two. That makes it easy, but yeah, that one, and it's funny. The first value of the company is mission-driven and the second one is trust and transparency. But anyway, so I've talked about trust and transparency. The other one, yeah, mission-driven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I don don't know. I was on this mission for a, for a while and I don't know I'm not going to give up. It's not like I'm suddenly going to go, oh, I don't know, say you're in hospitality, I'm sick of working in hospital, or you know, this ai thing was awesome. But now I'm a bit like, whatever, this is not going away, this problem, and it's not like a fad. People sometimes go, oh, there's this climate change thing. You know it's not like a fad. People sometimes go, oh, is this the climate change thing? You know it's a bit of a sort of you know trend in the moment. But whatever, I'm like it'll go up and down, usually in the face of, like, other cost pressures. But long story short, it's not getting solved.
Speaker 2:So, yes, mission driven. I would love I don't know five years or so to be able to say you know, we've got this part of the gigacorn and we can see in real time all the changes that we're empowering people to do. And all those people are also seeing that they are one of millions of others that are doing. And it's a sort of community effect, even though we're working through banks or large corporates to get the supplies. And I don't know. I like Coco. Coco, by the way, in Latin means to bring people together and move them forward. So we sometimes say let's Kogo, let's go change the world. And that's what our mission really is. It's not just building a big company. It's actually about building a movement of people through technology and stuff that through them we are changing the world. And I know it sounds a bit idyllic, but I'm still going to keep trying.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a lot of CEOs out there that could take a leap out of your book. I'm sure many of those that are listening know that they need a stronger why in their business because, if nothing else, it makes it a lot easier to motivate the team when you've got a why like this, like the planet's burning. We live on this, this beautiful round, spherical thing. Let's look after it.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I mean the why that often and because of the sort of sense of uh, why, because yeah, altruistic sort of like you know, which is fine, that's definitely one of the sort of whys but you can get reasonably, especially with kids, but you can get quite like brutal about it and be like why? Well, why do I do this?
Speaker 2:I look at all the science and I pretty much agree with most obviously, and it tells us that if we don't sort of change get down two degrees, even probably below three, would be amazing about post-industrial. If we don't do that, we're sort of on track to a billion refugees, in other words, a billion people who have been forced out of their homes, including wiping out the entire Bangladeshi Pacific Island in many cases. Now, the world that that happens to be is not a world that I want to see my kids in, because currently, refugees come and say please, can you support us, in most cases driven by domestic wars and whatever. But these billion are going to come and say fuck you all, you did nothing. You like rich peddle people sitting there told for decades and decades and decades. They're not going to come with open arms and they'll come with a sense of like injustice, which is what really motivates.
Speaker 2:I think it's not fair that the people who are going to be most affected by this are not the people that have caused it, and I think that is something which we all should take a long hard, think about and go. Well, do I want to be saying to my kids, grandkids and stuff that you know? Yeah, not only did I know this was an issue, didn't do much about it. I'm leaving. Then what is going to be? A broken, broken society, not, you know, just the the physical effects of climate change. It's the social thing that I think is going to be the killer. So yeah, sorry to bring everyone down a little bit, but hopefully that's well I just I think it's outstanding.
Speaker 1:I was actually going to ask you some sort of classic quickfire questions about you know what book are you listening to? Are you reading? What book are you listening to? Are you reading? What podcast are you listening to? You know what's your superpower? But actually they seem very, you know, futile in comparison to what you've just shared, and I think those people listening need to just sort of dial in a little bit to what you've just said, because it's on all of us. You are a super principled guy and you are so living your why and it's outstanding and it's inspirational for everybody to hear. Do you live by a mantra or do you have a philosophy of life that drives you as well? Is there something there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a philosophy of find happiness not in things um, and be accept and be like what's the word? Like appreciate the things that, like I don't know, aren't costing the world, but even not that because some things, um, you can spend money on that don't cost the world. But I guess, being sort of like I'm not a Buddhist or anything, but some people would argue, like that whole, like acceptance and being happy with you know, things that are just like moments in time and of you, whatever. So I guess, yeah, that minimalist-y type approach definitely is one. I think the second is real data, data driven and evidence-based as well.
Speaker 2:So, like we as a family have gone through the last I don't know four years on this whole journey of like come back to new zealand, like let's decarbonize our life, and so we've done. Like spreadsheets, we've gone and looked at all of our gross area data and we've literally carbon footprint of our life, and then look to like dropping red meat. We've done. We've gone and looked at all of our gross area data and we've literally carved on footprint of our life, and then look to like dropping red meat. We've done.
Speaker 2:We've plug in hybrid car, um, stop, shortfall flying. We've just basically electrified our entire house, so all gas appliances are out, um, and now we're about to put in about eight and a half thousand natives, um to offset the remaining next 25 years. Long, too short, but that's hard, and I guess that's probably part of the sole reason we're building. What we're building is no one's going to jump on spreadsheets as much as I do, um, but I think yeah that sort of values of like minimal um, uh, definitely sort of evidence-based decisions on practice, what I preach.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, a lot of sport, a lot of activity, heaps of time, lots of tramping, lots of stuff with the kids. Yeah, do not, you know, do make sure you have that like balance of like life that's not just I'm in a startup and everything else can just, you know, doesn't work, you will not sustain. I've done this for whatever it is now 15 or so years, I'll do it for the 15 because I don't feel I'm trading off my family, my kids, my health, everything. So, yeah, that's probably it that's I love.
Speaker 1:I love that and actually, because I think you're going to have people uh, thinking about both. You know the the impact they're having on on the environment, but also more broadly about how they're living their lives. I want to finish with one final question, and I'm not sure if you saw this in the preparatory stuff, but do you have something that you believe in strongly that very few people do? An idea or a principle, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I mean maybe not many people around the world would, but I definitely think the people I talk to mostly would agree. So I guess who knows If you think about the world as a whole I don't think I've quite cracked this and who knows if you think about the world as a whole? I don't think I've quite cracked this which is we need to stop thinking about progress in a measure of material and wealth, and we've screwed up the last 50, 60 years like wellbeing happiness, whatever you want to call it Like.
Speaker 2:The idea is we need. Climate change is a symptom of a bigger problem, long and short of it, and the symptom is we're destroying the world. But the problem is we're not really getting a lot of gain from progress. Like you know, we're all you know. I don't know what was life like 30, 40 years ago. Is it really that much better Because Jesus? It's consuming about five times more plants than it was back then type thing.
Speaker 2:So it's not really an idea that, um, I suppose the idea is. I think we can be a lot happier. Um, in other words, the response to climate change is not like a cost and a burden on society. It should be seen as a opportunity to who knows, do four days working, bring down some income, have some more time with kids, you know, shift away from like holidays that have to be done flying around the world but you're so tired from work. There's a whole mind shift and it's a tricky one to sort of pinpoint on one idea, but it's like we ain't got this whole thing right as a species and it's going to destroy us unless we get off that paradigm. So, yeah, that's probably it.
Speaker 1:And that is such an amazing way to finish. I think you're going to leave people sitting there, wherever they're listening to this, perhaps with their mouths open, just contemplating. So that is a really good they can go for a run.
Speaker 1:Exactly that is a beautiful way to finish. Thank you so much. You are genuinely an inspiration. They can go for a run. They can go for a run. Exactly that is a beautiful way to finish. Thank you so much. You are genuinely an inspiration and I know a lot of leaders around Aotearoa and more broadly into Australia and around the world are looking at what you're doing and are inspired by the journey that you're taking with Kogo and the team. So well done you, because this is a life very well lived. So thank you for the time you've given today, really, with Kogo and the team. So well done you, because this is a life very well lived. So thank you for the time you've given today, really really appreciate it All good.